Baltimore has a large homosexual population, which is swelled by visiting fairies from Washington. On mild nights you can find them in Mt. Vernon Place, under the Washington monument, where they pick each other up and make liaisons. A favorite gathering place is the Plaza Bar, formerly Longfellows, at Madison and Charles. They also patronize Ball’s and the Harem, the latter a corny night club with two entrances, one leading to a stag bar with a sign on the door, “For Men Only,” and a place on Mulberry near Howard. The lesbians hang out at the Earl Club.
Baltimore follows the trend of most large cities, other than New York, in that its best people never go to cafes in town. When they feel the need of night life they come to New York. When they want to drink and dance in Baltimore, they do it at house parties or at country clubs. So most of the patrons of Baltimore liquor dispensaries are the lowest classes. The few better rooms, like the Club Charles, cater to the sporty set, big spenders, gamblers, buyers and salesmen and trippers up for the night from Washington.
When the Charles has a first-rate attraction it advertises in the Washington papers. For a couple of years the ancient Ford’s Theatre in Baltimore was the only house within 150 miles of the District offering legitimate shows. Ford’s gets top road companies and attracts show-lovers from Washington, who drive up for a sea-food dinner, for which Baltimore is famous, an evening at the theatre, then take in the cabaret at the Club Charles.
Baltimore’s big night life season begins when the races at Maryland’s famed tracks bring in loose money from all over the country. Then the town is brilliant, gambling is rampant and the whores cash in on bonanza.
The city is the center of the so-called “Minor League” racing circuit. There are five half-mile tracks in Maryland, which run almost all year, with unknown plugs and has-beens, raced by “Gypsy” horsemen. These are a unique breed. They own one or maybe two nags, which they may have picked up for dog-meat money. They train them themselves and often are their own jockeys. It is not uncommon for them to live in the stables with their horses and even travel from track to track on the horses’ backs. The entry fees at these tracks are as low as $10 and a $100 purse is something to shoot at. The shenanigans at these tracks, controlled by the gamblers in Baltimore, are atrocious.
This smudgy picture of the Baltimore that embraces the visitor brings up the question: How Come?
This city of H. L. Mencken has long prided itself upon rebellion against what most of its citizens believe to be an invasion of their private rights. Prudery was never profitable in Baltimore. The Prohibition Amendment was deported as an undesirable alien.
One old-timer said, “You think this is something? You should have been here 50 years ago!”
Baltimore, the mid-Continent seaport, is one of the most provincial of Eastern cities. In some of its set ways it is a backwash to the colonial days and the cavaliers.
Yet Baltimore is the “big city” to thousands of hillbillies from the nearby mountains of Western Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, and the poor white trash of Maryland’s Eastern shore counties on the seaboard, and Delaware. They are the folk who trade and settle in Baltimore.