Pratt Street

John Houser III reviews Patrick's of Pratt Street, which claims to be the United States oldest Irishpub still in existence. Patrick's of Pratt Street was founded was established by the great great-uncle of its current owners in 1847 and has been in its current location since 1862. It has been in more or less continuous use as a public bar or tavern since. However, it has not always been called Patrick's of Pratt Street and for much of the time was not an Irish bar. Still. When I checked into this claim eight years ago, I could find no Irish bar in America with a convincing claim otherwise.  McSorley's in New York, in case you were wondering, was established in 1852.

The directors of Baltimore Behavioral Health Inc., a major drug treatment provider in Baltimore, have laid off longtime executive William "Kris" Hathaway, as the once high-flying nonprofit continues to cut costs. The board of directors had earlier removed Hathaway as chief executive and put vice president Terry T. Brown in charge of the clinic, which specializes in treating people with both addiction and mental illness. In an emailed response to questions from The Baltimore Sun, board member Jay Miller said that Hathaway was laid off "in the interest of saving money.

A parade. At night. With a horse theme. The folks at Nana Projects are so ready for tonight's Preakness Parade of Lights. They've got their stilt walkers, along with their glowing lanterns, their pony puppets, their pony hats, all backed by a local Dixieland jazz band, Sac Au Lait. The Inner Harbor, they promise, is going to swing. "We love big parades," says Molly Ross, director and principal artist for the Roland Park-based artists' collective that's the guiding force behind Highlandtown's annual Halloween Lantern Parade.

The crowd inside Pratt Street Ale House on a recent Saturday night was anemic. It was 1 a.m. and a handful of couples idled at the bar and at the sandy brown high-top tables. Some talked among themselves, others watched a hockey game on ESPN. "Don't Stop Believin'" was on. A half hour later, lights came up, and the bartenders started shooing everyone out. The scene looked like something out of a brand-new bar on a Tuesday night, not one that's been open for three years, and a place that's doubled as the home for Oliver Breweries for 19. But the same thing happened two nights earlier, also some time past midnight.

I just cannot believe, considering what is going on with the national economy, that any representative of Baltimore could even suggest a $100 million renewal plan for Pratt Street ("Pratt St. plan gets mixed reviews," Sept. 15). There is no way that you can convince me that the plan, as I understand it, would benefit city residents. And I certainly would like to see this money go into our striving city neighborhoods instead. The Baltimore Sun has reported that city commercial properties are becoming vacant and newly built ones are having difficulty getting filled ("Next crunch?"

Downtown traffic was snarled yesterday by a 12-foot-long sinkhole that threatens to create headaches for those traveling to tomorrow's Ravens game at M&T Bank Stadium. The sinkhole, north of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, appeared at the edge of Pratt Street near Eutaw Street shortly before noon. No one was hurt, according to Public Works spokesman Bob Murrow. The sinkhole is more of a buckling of pavement than a chasm, Murrow said. However, because workers can't see down into the narrow space, crews will have to dig to determine the cause.

The Greatest Show on Earth returned to Baltimore for the first time in five years yesterday, subtly letting residents know that the circus was back in town by parading elephants down Pratt Street.The train carrying animals and performers in the 121st edition of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus arrived behind the 1100 block of W. Pratt St. about noon, and once the evening rush hour had passed, the beasts of Barnum began their march to the Baltimore Arena.One man jumped up from his dinner table to chase the elephants and zebras as they did a slow stroll past the B&O Railroad Museum.

Will Baltimore's Pratt Street ever be the equivalent of Chicago's Michigan Avenue or New York's Fifth Avenue, or perhaps even the Avenue des Champs-Elysees in Paris? Or are they the wrong images to hold out? Those questions came up during a recent presentation by architects from Ayers Saint Gross and others hired this year to come up with ideas for strengthening 16 blocks of Pratt Street as a destination for tourists and residents. Adam Gross, one of the principals of Baltimore-based Ayers Saint Gross, suggested that city planners look at grand avenues in Chicago, New York, Paris and elsewhere as a way to determine what is possible downtown and what Baltimoreans might strive for. His firm often prepares drawings and image boards that compare places it is studying with places that are considered highly successful, and those are what he showed members of Baltimore's Urban Design and Architectural Review Panel.

Pity poor Pratt Street. It is a big street but little loved, one that manages to be pedestrian, as in undistinguished, and yet not pedestrian-friendly, as in eminently stroll-able. No lyricists have been moved to immortalize it, as they have "State Street, that great street," or "the avenue, Fifth Avenue." So I had one question yesterday when the city unveiled a huge, $100 million redevelopment plan to freshen up and enliven the street: Is $100 million enough? No, seriously, Pratt in its current incarnation isn't all that bad. It's just neutral - the equivalent of flyover country.

Historians have overlooked a bloody skirmish in Baltimore between a local mob and Pennsylvania volunteers that left at least five of the Pennsylvanians dead and 13 of them wounded, a local group of Civil War buffs contends.The group, the Friends of the President Street Station, pieced together a lengthy account of the brutal fight at President and Fleet streets that occurred April 19, 1861, early in the Civil War.The newly discovered encounter between the largely unarmed volunteers from Philadelphia, who had not yet been mustered into federal service, and a Baltimore mob took place alongside the historic President Street Station railway terminal, presently owned by the city.

Come this fall, Pratt Street Ale House will have a sister location in Columbia. That's the plan anyway. The owners of the Inner Harbor brewpub, home of Oliver Breweries, signed a lease two weeks ago for the former Rocky Run Tap in Columbia. Justin Dvorkin, co-owner, said the restaurant, which hasn't been operational in a couple of years, will be stripped bare and built up from scratch. They've set an opening date for September to coincide with football season. Like at Pratt Street, draft beers will be the trademark of the new venue, tentatively called Columbia Ale House - though a branding effort may just shorten it to The Ale House.

Baltimore Behavioral Health Inc. has sold its West Pratt Street campus to an affiliate of the Abell Foundation for $3 million, according to a recently filed deed, a move that the struggling mental health clinic had long sought as a way to help stabilize its finances. BBH will continue to operate at the Pratt Street location by leasing space in one of the two buildings there. The University of Maryland Medical Center will rent part of a second building for a program that it runs for the Baltimore City Office of Addiction Services.

John Houser III reviews Patrick's of Pratt Street, which claims to be the United States oldest Irishpub still in existence. Patrick's of Pratt Street was founded was established by the great great-uncle of its current owners in 1847 and has been in its current location since 1862. It has been in more or less continuous use as a public bar or tavern since. However, it has not always been called Patrick's of Pratt Street and for much of the time was not an Irish bar. Still. When I checked into this claim eight years ago, I could find no Irish bar in America with a convincing claim otherwise.  McSorley's in New York, in case you were wondering, was established in 1852.

Since 1869, Patrick's of Pratt Street has been a Baltimore institution. But after more than 140 years, the owners of the long-standing Irish pub are tempting tradition. Last year, they brought in new managers who have been trying to broaden Patrick's culinary borders to include more gastropub fare. While the menu changes succeed for the most part, a lot is lost in the details. To say that Patrick's is a small restaurant would be generous. Imagine a small row home whose front room has been half-filled with a large wooden bar, with tables occupying the rest of the floor space.

Employees of the West Baltimore mental health and substance abuse clinic Baltimore Behavioral Health Inc. have complained of bounced paychecks in recent weeks, and state health officials say they are monitoring to make sure patient care doesn't suffer as a result of low morale among the staff. Executives at the private, nonprofit clinic acknowledge recent financial struggles and say they have moved to resolve them, getting up to date on the payroll and negotiating a deal to sell and lease back a portion of the clinic's West Pratt Street campus.

Baltimore's party is over - and it was a grand one. A Grand Prix one, to be exact. But now it is time to put the carpet and the furniture back where they belong. Even before the last fan made it home from Baltimore's inaugural three-day IndyCar racing festival Sunday evening, the city and race organizers had begun the daunting task of removing 16 grandstands, several miles of concrete barriers topped with fencing - plus countless tents - in order to open downtown streets and sidewalks for the beginning of the workweek.

Adam Gross imagines the gateway to downtown with all the grandeur of an Italian piazza: sparkling fountains, brilliantly designed restaurants and landscaped walkways that beckon visitors with a sense that the street itself is a destination. Yesterday, Baltimore development officials endorsed that vision for the city's Pratt Street as they named Gross' firm, Baltimore-based Ayers Saint Gross, and Olin Partnership, of Philadelphia, the winners of a contest to redesign the main artery along Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

Visions of a transformed Pratt Street nearly as grand as the Champs Elysees in Paris and Chicago's Michigan Avenue danced on a projector screen last night at the Baltimore Convention Center. In a public forum, four architectural teams unveiled their proposals for overhauling a 16-block stretch of the critical artery that carries traffic past the Inner Harbor. Their visions of grandeur included gateway monuments and fountains at each end of the stretch -- at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on the west and President Street on the east -- and "green" rooftops for buildings, rain gardens in plazas, solar-powered streetlights and a tree canopy.

With two stadiums just down the road, Pratt Street Ale House is an easy pick for pre- or post-game refreshments. Its designer beers and barroom arches distinguish it from lowlier bars. For lunchers, the kitchen is about average. A recent visit didn't so much change my mind as give me new data on which to base decisions on future stops. But the menu was not what lured me back to this restaurant. The patrons did it. First impressions: During a last-minute business lunch this summer, I was struck by the vibe in the dining room.

A staff member at Baltimore Behavioral Health Inc. has filed a lawsuit against the private clinic in Southwest Baltimore, alleging that officials there "diverted and stole" thousands of dollars from employees by failing to deposit payroll deductions into their retirement and disability plans. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, claims that more than 100 employees "suffered substantial financial losses in both 2009 and 2010 as a result of the diversion and theft of employee contributions that should have been placed in the Retirement and Disability Plans.