Flamingo-less Cafe Hon.

essay by ANN LOLORDO, photos by FERN SHEN
If you can’t hang a gigantic pink flamingo from a fire escape in Hampden, where can you?

     The pink bird hung above the Café Hon restaurant on West 36th Street for seven years until city bureaucrats decided it wasn’t a kitschy object d’art but rather a reason to charge Hon owner Denise Whiting a fee of $800 for a “minor privilege” permit.

     The Department of General Services said the bird protruded into the public “right of way.” But it was suspended from a fire escape over the sidewalk; not much traffic up there. Perhaps it was a family of pigeons who complained about Hon’s flamingo.

     Anyway, at $800, the flamingo ceased to be an artful expression of Hampden’s outsized sense of style and instead became an expensive extravagance. No wonder Whiting balked.

Antiques and collectibles, weird and whimsical, abound on The Avenue.

     The bureaucrats’ insistence on assessing the permit fees also represents a colossal blind spot on the city’s part.

     After all, this isn’t Homeland. Hampden is a former mill town of white, working-class folks where neighborhood taverns, second-hand furniture stores, the Goodwill, a liquor store, New Systems Bakery and other small businesses once lined The Avenue. It’s only been in the past decade that artists and musicians began moving into Hampden’s modest, 2-story rowhouses. Before the boutiques, retro clothing stores, art galleries and stylish restaurants, there were a lot of empty store fronts and struggling small businesses.

     The flamingo above Café Hon safely straddled old and new; it could be considered classic kitsch or hip, retro charm.

     More and more of Baltimore is becoming homogenized through redevelopment and revitalization. Charm comes in all shapes and sizes in Charm City. Whether it’s marble steps and Formstone or the Christmas light decorations on 34th Street (in Hampden) or Edgar Allan Poe re-enactors or funky, old, original neon signs like the one above The 2 O’Clock Club on Baltimore’s Block or Tochterman’s Fishing Tackle.

     The pink flamingo had been perched above the Café Hon for seven years. If someone in the neighborhood suddenly started squawking, you have to wonder why. And while we can appreciate the city’s efforts to enforce zoning rules and regulations, pressing its case against the overstuffed pink flamingo shows a serious lack of a sense of humor.

Crab ornaments at Razzo's, on The Avenue.

     Whiting should place a tip jar on the counter at the Cafe Hon so pink flamingo supporters can contribute to a fund to pay the permit fee. Birds of a feather should stick together.