Bromo Seltzer

It was enough to give you an upset stomach: a 17-ton, 51-foot-tall blue bottle of antacid powder piercing the skyline of downtown Baltimore.The thing was made of metal. It rotated. It was finally removed in 1930 from atop the Bromo Seltzer Tower, headquarters of the company that made the antacid.The Big Blue Bottle seems to be gone for good from Baltimore. But a little -- much littler -- part of Bromo Seltzer history returned to the city yesterday.Nine old (and empty) bottles of Bromo Seltzer, a portion of what city and state officials are calling "The Bromo Seltzer Collection," were placed in the Baltimore Museum of Industry.

When the Four Seasons Baltimore opened last year on the downtown waterfront, it became one of the city's most expensive hotels, with rooms starting at $279 per night. Now a local development group plans to open a boutique hotel featuring rooms that will be far more pricey - averaging nearly $650 a night - in a part of town away from the harbor and not known for commanding such rates. The $16 million project, called The Ivy, is planned to open by spring 2014 inside the former Inn at Government House property at Calvert and Biddle streets in Mount Vernon.

THE NEW YORK Times recently reported that a marketing whiz, Jeffrey S. Himmel, who specializes in reviving flagging products, is hoping to put the fizz back into the Bromo-Seltzer brand. He's had success reviving such brand names as Doan's Pills, Lavoris mouthwash and Ovaltine.As many Baltimoreans know, the once popular Bromo-Seltzer began its meteoric rise here. In 1881, Isaac E. Emerson moved to Baltimore after graduating from the University of North Carolina. By 1889 Mr. Emerson owned three drug stores here.

Any effort that promises to attract new residents and businesses to a historic Baltimore neighborhood could do a lot worse than make the arts a magnet for bringing people together. That's why we can't see any down side to a city proposal to create a third arts and entertainment district for Baltimore, this one on the west side of downtown. If the idea of a new cultural destination works anywhere near as well there as it has elsewhere in the city and state, the results are practically guaranteed to be an improvement over the status quo. State economic development officials are expected to decide by June 1 whether to approve Baltimore's request to designate 117 acres of downtown as the Bromo Tower Arts and Entertainment District.

For the first time in 28 years, Baltimore's quirky "Arts Tower" has no city arts employees working there and is available for a new use. Employees from the old Mayor's Advisory Committee on Art and Culture moved out over the weekend, following that agency's merger this year with the Baltimore Office of Promotion. The move was designed to bring all of the employees of the combined agency, now called the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts, to one location. The agency's new offices are on the fifth floor of the Legg Mason Building at 7 E. Redwood St. - the barely used former headquarters of the failed Coleman Craten brokerage firm.

THE PROBLEM -- One of the clock faces on the Bromo Seltzer Tower shows the wrong time. THE BACKSTORY -- This problem started a couple of weeks ago, when reader Maura Deeley noticed that the times on all four clock faces atop the 200-foot-high tower at Eutaw and Lombard streets showed different times, none of them correct. Watchdog investigated and found that she was right. At 5:40 a.m., the 25-foot-tall clock facing south showed 2:23. The clocks facing west and north said it was 5:16.

Another ghost brand is seeking to shed its ectoplasm and become more corporeal. The brand is Bromo Seltzer, the effervescent antacid and analgesic first made in Baltimore in 1888. Its new owner will seek to revive interest in the moribund brand with a campaign centered on a mnemonic device, the "Bromo burp," that its creators hope will become a catch phrase. Burp? Excuse me! Bromo Seltzer is among scores of consumer products known as ghost brands or orphan brands because they were once formidable powerhouses in their categories but are now forlorn.

Baltimore's vacant Bromo Seltzer tower would be converted to artist studios by next fall under a $1.3 million renovation plan developed by local arts advocates. The Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, a quasi-public city agency, hired the architectural firm of Schamu Machowski Greco (SMG)this fall to prepare construction documents that can be used to turn the city-owned tower, last used as municipal office space, into artist studios. The architects have also been asked to draw renderings and floor plans that can be used to raise funds and market the studios to prospective tenants.

Edward Emerson Murray, one of the owners of the Bromo Seltzer Tower who helped forge the deal that gave the building to Baltimore in 1973, died Thursday of pneumonia at Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury. He was 77.The Baltimore resident, who was on vacation in Salisbury, was 77.Mr. Murray's great-uncle, Capt. Isaac E. Emerson, founded and ran Emerson Drug Co., which built the 300-foot-tall tower at Eutaw and Lombard streets to advertise one of its products, Bromo Seltzer, a powder for headaches and upset stomachs.

Local arts supporters Sylvia and Eddie Brown are jump-starting a long-stalled effort to convert Baltimore's historic Bromo Seltzer tower to artists' studios by participating in a public-private partnership that would enable them to purchase the 94-year-old building from the city. Under the agreement, which Mayor Martin O'Malley is scheduled to announce Monday, the city would sell the building at 15 S. Eutaw St. for $1 to a newly formed company that would transform the 15-story tower into 15 to 20 artists' studios.

Elger Joseph Huber Sr., a retired stationary engineer who helped produce the distinctive blue Noxzema and Bromo-Seltzer glass containers and was later a school bus driver, died of respiratory failure Monday at Howard County General Hospital. The North Laurel resident was 87. Born in Baltimore, he grew up on the grounds of Lake Roland, where his father worked for the city's Division of Water Supply. The family of 13 lived in a house in what is now Robert E. Lee Park. He attended city public schools.

Frances A. Murray, a Red Cross worker who served overseas during World War II, died at the Blakehurst retirement community Nov. 28 of complications from a fall. She was 92 and had lived in Baltimore County's Woodbrook area. Born Frances Jane Abbott in Grandfield, Okla., she was the daughter of farmers whose forebears were early settlers of what was then a territory. She earned a degree at North Texas State Teachers College, where she played basketball on a championship team. She joined the American Red Cross in 1943 and was sent to England aboard the Queen Mary.

Two of Baltimore's most recognizable landmarks will be lit up in blue Monday in honor of World Diabetes Day — a commemoration inspired by a 16-year-old girl's desire to draw attention to the prevalent disease. The Washington Monument in Mount Vernon and the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower will be illuminated Monday evening. Blue is the color of the globally recognized symbol for diabetes, a circle. The city granted the request by Amanda Witherspoon, a Garrison Forest School sophomore who was diagnosed six years ago with Type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease that can damage victims' eyes, kidneys, heart and blood vessels, and nerves.

Starting at sunset Saturday, artist Kelley Bell will place Baltimore's venerable landmark Bromo Seltzer Tower at the exact center of the solar system. For at least the next five weeks, pedestrians and motorists will view the four faces of the clock tower alight with Bell's animations every day between sunset and sunrise. The design she's chosen humorously plays off Baltimoreans' affection for the 1911 tower by making the focal point for the sun, moon, planets and stars. "The Bromo Seltzer Tower fills a unique role in this city," says Joe Wall, the tower's facilities manager, who dreamed up the idea of animating the 24-foot-in-diameter clock faces.

Baltimore's Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower is marking its first century this month as a commercially impractical but beloved curiosity named for a top-selling hangover cure. On Thursday night, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and others celebrated the centennial at the 1911 tower, the tallest downtown structure until 1923. Guests rode a 1911 Otis elevator to the historic chamber high above the corner of Lombard and Eutaw streets to observe the clockworks and elevator motors. "Like Baltimore, it's quirky," said artist Greg Otto, who has painted the tower numerous times and reproduced it on postcards.

Dr. Albert William Tiedemann Jr., the retired chief chemist for the maker of Bromo Seltzer, who was active in the Naval Reserve, died of pneumonia April 20 at Franklin Square Hospital Center. He was 86 and lived in Parkville. Born in Baltimore and raised on Eutaw Place and in Hamilton, he attended Immaculate Conception School and was a 1942 Loyola High School graduate. He then joined the Navy and attended programs at Mount St. Mary's University and the University of Notre Dame. He served as an ensign in the Southwest Pacific during World War II and was later a founder of the Naval Reserve Association.

FIVE MONTHS before Kurt L. Schmoke left the mayor's office in Baltimore, his housing commissioner suggested creating upscale residences inside one of Baltimore's best known landmarks, the historic Bromo Seltzer Tower at 15 S. Eutaw St.Now it's up to Mayor Martin O'Malley and acting housing commissioner M. J. "Jay" Brodie to decide whether the project moves ahead and, if so, who will carry it out.In response to a request for proposals issued when Schmoke was...

Construction magnate Willard Hackerman has backed away from plans to invest in the redevelopment of Baltimore's historic Bromo Seltzer tower, just days after he pulled out of a disputed land acquisition deal in St. Mary's County. Hackerman, chief executive of Whiting-Turner Contracting Co., had been negotiating to purchase federal preservation tax credits as the last piece of a financing package that would enable Baltimore to proceed with a $1.5 million renovation of the vacant tower at 15 S. Eutaw St., transforming it to artists' studios.

Here's an update on one problem for Baltimore residents and workers: Baltimore's signature timepiece should get some attention next week. The time displayed by the hands on the southern face of the Bromo Seltzer Tower has been incorrect for several years. Watchdog first reported about the problem, which then affected all the faces, in 2007. Repairs resolved the issue for all the faces except for the one facing south. Clock repair specialists were called in, but nothing helped.

TODAY 'Night in Spain': The musicians of Veritas Musicas present an evening of Spanish songs composed by Manuel De Falla, Fermin Marla Alvarez, Enrique Granados, Fernando Obradors and others. "A Night in Spain: Songs of Spain" will be held from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Thursday at the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Jewish Community Center, 5700 Park Heights Ave. Admission is $15-$18. For tickets and other information, call 410-542-4900. Acoustic music: The band Arbouretum previews its all-acoustic set with the band Violet Hour before playing a sold-out Carnegie concert hall next week.