The best parts of this Saturday’s 146th running of the Preakness Stakes can’t be seen from here, but they’re just around Pimlico’s next turn: massive renovation of the track, clubhouse and grandstand, and maybe even some help for the surrounding neighborhoods.
If that’s not music to your ears, maybe this is: We may have heard the last of that awful song unfortunately linking the Preakness and the state of Maryland.
The neighborhoods just below Pimlico have been a disgrace to the city of Baltimore for the past half-century.
The song that’s been played at the Preakness every year, “Maryland, My Maryland,” has been a disgrace forever. But it’s only this year that the deep thinkers in Annapolis finally figured it out.
The song’s been an embarrassment ever since James Ryder Randall wrote it as a Confederate call to arms at the beginning of the Civil War. And it’s been a disgrace ever since some idiots plucked it out of semi-obscurity and made it the official state song back in 1939.
Until the General Assembly voted overwhelmingly this year to remove that designation, “Maryland, My Maryland” had survived roughly a dozen legislative attempts to remove its official status.
In all those previous votes, didn’t those political lunkheads notice the lyrics? Didn’t they notice the references to Abraham Lincoln as “the tyrant,” “the despot” and “the vandal?” Didn’t they notice the reference to “Northern scum?”
For years, the song has been played from the winner’s circle at the Preakness, though most of the crowd was probably too focused on the winner, or too drunk, to pay any attention to the scurrilous lyrics.
So hopefully, we’ve heard the last of “Maryland, My Maryland” – just as, hopefully, we’ve seen the last of the relentless decay of Pimlico’s nearby neighborhoods, and the relentless false promises by city and state leaders that they’d do something about it.
Finally, there’s real money being spent to renovate the racetrack and give more than a one-day boost to those neighborhoods from Pimlico all the way down to Park Circle.
The track’s old clubhouse and grandstand will be demolished. The track itself will be rotated, and parcels sold for new enterprises. A new clubhouse and event center will be built.
All of this, we’re told, will mean Pimlico will no longer be a once-a-year gathering place but home to a steady procession of businesses and events that will spread a new and steadying presence to the areas around the track.
It’s a nice thought. If you drive down Park Heights Avenue today, there are signs of improvement. Some houses, long abandoned and decayed, have finally been torn down. More demolition will follow.
But what’s to replace those eyesores? And what’s to be done about the poverty and the crime and drug-trafficking – and the political indifference — that have plagued the area for decades?
We’ve had a succession of leaders who have promised great changes, including two mayors, Sheila Dixon and Brandon Scott, who grew up in the area and understand just how far it’s fallen.
But the years come and go, and the area’s still waiting for real change, real investment. Maybe the changes coming to Pimlico Race Course signal the beginning of a wider vibrancy.
One good sign: On Preakness days, at least we won’t hear that damned song anymore.
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books. His most recent, “Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age,” was reissued in paperback by the Johns Hopkins University Press.
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