Flower Mart

From 1911 to 1999, virtual bookends of the 20th century, the Flower Mart has been part of Baltimore's spring, but it remains to be seen whether the Mount Vernon Place tradition will carry on in the 21st. "Celebrating the End of an Era," this year's theme, sounds an autumnal note, suggesting that the volunteers of the Women's Civic League are ready to discontinue their sponsorship of the almost-annual rite. The 1999 Flower Mart will feature the famous lemon with peppermint stick confection, arts and crafts, a petting zoo and Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke on a carriage ride to a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Lemon-peppermint sticks, ugly ties, pretty hats, maypole dancing and lots of flowers. It can only mean one thing: Flower Mart 2003. This year's Flower Mart takes over Mount Vernon Place from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday and offers its usual array of floral displays, crafts, activities, entertainment and delicacies. Exotic flowers, bedding plants and plenty more greenery will be on display and for sale. Visitors can check out the specialty garden or watch floral demonstrations. But who are we kidding?

The Flower Mart bloomed around the Washington Monument yesterday, bringing spring joie de vivre to people hungry for colorful street life after a long winter hibernation. Striving to be both hip and retro, organizers combined the traditional Southern-style treat of a peppermint stick planted in a lemon half with something that has come into vogue more recently: strawberry smoothies selling for $5. "It's nostalgic, staying true to tradition but also in the 21st century," said Nikki Karl, 34, of Annapolis, who appeared in an antique car parade as Mrs. Maryland International.

THE FLOWER MART I knew in the 1950s was a hoot. It summoned all sorts of people who never usually mixed in one place and certainly never spoke to one another. I'm not sure they became bosom buddies on that May afternoon, but at least they gathered around the couple of blocks of Baltimore they respected for their history, architectural grandeur and pleasant memories. It was also the day when you got dolled up in your spring finery and walked along Charles Street, strolled around the Washington Monument and complained of the difficulty of hailing a cab on the way home.

A dark chestnut mare clip-clopped up Charles Street to the Washington Monument yesterday, trotting in a new era for Baltimore's Flower Mart. The 1862 vintage carriage carrying Mayor Martin O'Malley and his wife, Katie, echoed the last 82 affairs, but it was clear the new organizers had produced one of the liveliest renditions of the annual rite, as thousands had gathered by lunchtime. "See, this is what Baltimore can be. It's a good mixer," said Peggy Stansbury, a Federal Hill resident, gesturing at the scene, which included young artists sketching statues, fountains and the Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church steeple.

Trim and impeccably groomed, Geri Broccolino is perched on the edge of an ivory love seat in her pink and blue sitting room describing her first Flower Mart. Fresh rum buns, pressing crowds, lumpy crab cakes are all recalled, and with each image, Broccolino laughs. "It was sheer beauty."What Broccolino doesn't mention is the sweat and toil involved in turning Baltimore's annual homage to spring into an aromatic, picturesque festival that ages well in memory. She doesn't mention it, though she knows all about the work involved.

As opera singers performed in the late afternoon light of the Flower Mart Wednesday, a man sitting in the shadow of the Washington Monument surveyed the scene and said wryly, "Everybody had a great time except me." Frederick L. Bierer, 52, a trial lawyer whose practice is in a Mount Vernon brownstone near the heart of the historic area, is an unlikely candidate for head of the event, which until this year was run by the Women's Civic League. When league leaders decided last year that they no longer had the organizational strength to keep running the annual affair after almost a century, Bierer made it his mission to perpetuate something he fondly recalled cutting school to attend as a child growing up in the city.

The Women's Civic League no longer runs Baltimore's annual Flower Mart in Mount Vernon; this year it's been adopted by the Flower Mart at Mount Vernon Ltd., an offshoot of the Mount Vernon Belvedere neighborhood association. Fortunately, though, the venerable Civic League still has a presence at the event with its Flower Mart Celebrity Tea, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m, Wednesday at the Garrett-Jacobs Mansion, 11 W. Mount Vernon Place. (The Flower Mart takes place on the same day, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.)

City Councilman Robert Curran released a flock of white doves in the opening ceremony - one of the few new things at Baltimore's 90th Flower Mart yesterday. The spring fair is known for old-fashioned touches. Straw hats, maypole dances, horse-drawn carriages and lemon sticks all hark back to 1911, when it was founded by the avant-garde Women's Civic League. Now, close to a century later, it has evolved into a kaleidoscope of ages and races, a potent mix for drawing children out of schools and adults out of workplaces.

Flowers are old hat. To be sure, there were plenty of spring blooms at yesterday's festive fair around the Washington Monument, the 84th Flower Mart since 1911. But it was the hats that stopped traffic. Heads turned at some of the arresting creations perched on the heads of women, some of whom designed their own for the chance to parade a hat in public without standing out in a crowd. Hundreds turned out in picture-perfect weather for spring's annual rite, including a contingent of 15 women from the Charlestown Retirement Village in Catonsville, who joined in the hat spirit.