Urban Discoveries Baltimore

It’s a big weekend for Baltimore, and it looks like the weather will be cooperating. Don’t stay inside!

2640 in Charles Village (2640 Saint Paul Street) is one of our new favorite urban spaces — a former church turned community space, complete with soaring ceilings, stained glass, and a certain shabby charm that we’ll forever associate with Baltimore. Tonight, Friday, April 17, 2640 plays host to the first annual Urb Ag Gala, a fete hosted by the Baltimore Urban Agricultural Task Force, from 7 – 10 p.m. For a $5 donation, you’ll get open mic storytelling and a song circle featuring local musicians — and you can mark your own garden on a giant map of Baltimore!

The annual CityLit festival is always a joyous event for the bookish ones among us, but this year’s looks like a must-see for just about anyone. Like cake? There’s a cake panel (with Warren Brown of CakeLove). Like prizes? Pulitzer-winning novelist Junot Diaz and National Book Award–winning poet Mark Doty. Like Michelle Obama? One of her biographers is appearing as well. It all goes down (for free!) at the lovely central branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Mt. Vernon (400 Cathedral Street) this Saturday, April 18.
And do you know how we can tell that winter is truly over? Because the festival-hopping season has begun — once you’ve got your fill of CityLit, hop on over to EcoFest in Druid Hill Park, which also takes place all day on Saturday. There will be live music, free yoga, and a special appearance by the Baltimore Free Store.

The American Visionary Arts Museum is one of the strangest, most fun, most Baltimore spots in town, and their annual Kinetic Sculpture Race is always a highlight of the spring. This is something you want to watch, or perhaps get involved in. Head over to the meeting at the museum (800 Key HIghway) this Monday, April 20 at 6:30 p.m. to find out how you might get involved. (The race itself is Saturday, May 2.) Need further motivation? We hear there might be food….

Historical mysteries! Sound thrilling? Then we’ve got the Wednesday for you — The Hampden Community Archaeology Project hosts a workshop on material culture on April 22 at 7 p.m.  Over the past two years, the project has unearthed more than 60,000 artifacts in Hampden; this workshop explores what happens after the digging:  that is, figuring out just what these objects are. Stop by the Roosevelt Recreation Center in Hampden (1121 36th Street) to get a hands-on lesson in neighborhood heritage.

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