Almost every city now has zoning regulations, and Baltimore is no exception. You can build a supermarket in this block, but not in that block. This is mixed-use office and residential; that is zoned for commercial use.

In some ways, Baltimore pioneered (I think I just verbed a noun, there) the concept of zoning, but it was on a private scale. The next neighborhood up the street from this one was laid out and developed by a private company. Since it was intended to be a fairly schnitzy, exclusive neighborhood, "Peabody Heights" did not allow any structures that were not residential. Even apartment houses were verboten.

Of course, within a few years, people realized that they were stuck with walking several long blocks for such basic amenities as barbershops and drugstores, so the restrictions were eased a bit. To this day, though, Charles Village (the hip new name given to old Peabody Heights in the '60s) is remarkably free of corner stores and their ilk. It's still a pain in the ass to run around the corner for a Coke, because you have to run around several corners.

Citywide zoning happened in the '20s, and it was met with vitriol. Oddly enough, the first real zoning battle took place in my own neighborhood.

It seems that, in 1926, somebody decided that a movie theatre would be a nice addition to the 2400 block of St. Paul street. The houses in that block were never the most fashionable and were a bit past their prime. Besides, 25th street seemed a promising commercial district. Surely the nice--and wealthy--people of North Baltimore would be happy to have a tidy little picture palace of their own.

Yeah, right. Baltimoreans might as well have invented the phrase "not in my backyard," and the idea of a plebeian movie palace--even a small one--that just anybody might attend--in the lordly clime of St. Paul street was just too much for the Nice North Baltimore people, and they revolted, demanding that the city not allow such a travesty. Those who liked the idea replied in kind, accusing the pro-zoning people of being communists, or worse, Germans (remember, the First Great War was only eight years in the past--never mind that at least half of the Nice North Baltimoreans are German).

And zoning continues to plague us into the present. It's a wonderful idea in theory, but the practice often fails to live up to the theory's promise.

Case in point: The city is now trying desperately to revive the old North Avenue shopping and theatre district. An admirable goal: I love North Avenue. It has two pretty movie palaces and one spacy late '30s theatre, a couple of beautiful old banking houses, a really impressive Baptist church and a wide variety of other early 20th century buildings. It's one of Baltimore's widest streets and, if it weren't seedy and scary, could have the feel of a Parisian boulevard.

Unfortunately, the city government feels that the way to make North Avenue nice again is to attack everything it can find, root it out and start over. If there is one concept of public policy I truly cannot abide, it is that of eminent domain. Lately, the city has decided that it absolutely needs to claim a dowdy old place called the Magnet Bar on Charles street. Without the securing and destruction of this bar--which is very tired but isn't bothering anybody--the entire redevelopment plan is apparently doomed to failure. Now, personally, I don't see how one eighteen-foot-wide rowhouse with a bar in the first floor (particularly an inoffensive bar that caters to nonagenarian tipplers) is going to halt any grand plans, but then I obviously do not share the Grand Vision of the City. The human hair and nail palaces on North Avenue don't seem to be a problem, but God save us from the Magnet Bar!!!

Here's MY redevelopment plan. Leave the poor Magnet alone. Turn the tiny old Waldorf and Chateau Hotels into "boutique" hotels, get the Parkway and the Aurora cranking out pictures again, and sucker Target into building a store on the big empty lot between St. Paul and Calvert. Since the old North Avenue Market isn't likely to make a comeback, use its groovy '20s Spanish facade as the entrance for the New Valencia Theatre: 6500 seats, the largest movie palace ever built, with a new Kimball organ built for it expressly. The spectacular atmospheric theatre will feature architectural elements brought from Valencia itself, three large ballrooms that can also be used for convention trade, a casual tapas restaurant and a more formal seafood restaurant, and a roof garden with enough room for 200 couples to dance at any one time. The roof garden will be decorated with--what else? orange trees. The Grand Lobby will resemble the courtyard of the Alhambra Palace, while the upper lobbies--reached by staircases hung with antique Spanish tapestry--will take their design from the old Palace in Toledo. Since the entire theatre and its ballrooms will be so massive, it will bring in convention business and Broadway shows as well as the regular movie trade. The amount of business it generates will create a need for additional hotel space, restaurants and other amenities.

See, if only they'd let that poor little movie house open its doors in 1926...but I know my town, and I know what would have happened. It would have raked in the bucks for its first twenty years, tried a stint as an art cinema in the early 60s, degenerated into porn in the 70s, and would now be a boarded carcass of a building with only myself to champion its tenuous hold on existence. Maybe I'd better go down to the Magnet soon and join the old drunks for a couple of beers--I have a feeling that the place is soon to join the list of "once upon a time."