A few blogs were abuzz today with links to the work of a local photographer, known by his LiveJournal.com alias as “thehoodwatch,” who recently visited the abandoned soundstage of HBO’s Baltimore crime series The Wire, on Snowden River Parkway in Howard County. You can see the photos here – they’re really interesting.

It seems that the set for the fictionalized version of the Baltimore Sun is still intact, as is a lot of the police stuff. The soundstage site, which used to be a Sam’s Club, is being developed by Pikesville-based America’s Realty LLC as a new supermarket.

ROBBIE WHELAN, Daily Record Business Writer

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Did you foresee the murder of stick-up man Omar Little in last night’s episode?

The antihero, who has been on the show since the first season – and is hard not to like, aside from his violent behavior – was shot in the back of the head while buying cigarettes at a convenience store.

From his Wikipedia page (already updated with his demise):

Omar was a renowned stick-up man who lived by a strict code and never deviated from his rules, foremost of which is that he never robbed or menaced people who are not involved in the drug trade. Omar, who was gay, has had three partners on the show. Omar is the only major character on the series who claims to make a point of not using profanity.

In 2004, writers at USA Today named Omar’s portrayer, Michael K. Williams, one of the ten reasons they still love television, and our own Baltimore City Paper said Omar was “arguably the show’s single greatest achievement” in 2005.

Was it Omar’s time to go?

JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor

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If you’ve ever pondered how a “thug” would react to watching a couple eps of “The Wire,” you should read the second installment of NYT guest blogger Sudhir Venkatesh‘s account, published Friday. The first installment lives here.

An intro:

“A few weeks ago, I called a few respected street figures in the New York metro region to watch the upcoming fifth season. I couldn’t think of a better way to ensure quality control.”

JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

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Former Mayor Kurt Schmoke tells readers of The Guardian what “the hit television drama … tells us about the city I governed and America’s war on drugs.”

Make sure you check out the comments below the column – where readers debate the merits of Schmoke’s opposition to the “War on Drugs” during his tenure as mayor.

JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor 

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Did anyone catch the mentions of The Daily Record in the season premiere of “The Wire” last night?

In the episode, “More With Less,” fictional city desk editor Gus Haynes asks a colleague at The Sun about a wire story on city bus line cutbacks. He hears that the story was “broken by The Daily Record” and is disappointed in the lost opportunity. Later, at an editors meeting, the staff downplay the story’s importance and blame the missed story on staff buyouts that left the paper without a transportation reporter.

Self-promotion aside, what did you think of the episode?

If you missed it, it’ll air multiple times later this week on HBO.

JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

P.S. Speaking of “The Wire,” check out Robbie Whelan’s story today on local hip-hop producers, featured on the show, who just signed a worldwide distribution deal.

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“The Wire creates a vision of official Baltimore as a heavy, self-justified bureaucracy, gripped by its own byzantine logic and criminally unconcerned about the lives of ordinary people, who enter it at their own risk."

So writes Mark Bowden in the January issue of Atlantic Monthly, in a piece entitled “The Angriest Man on Television.” It might be of no surprise that the title references “The Wire” creator (and former Baltimore Sun reporter) David Simon.

In his lengthy look at Simon, Bowden aims to reveal differences between the real Baltimore and Simon’s fictional Baltimore (“like Dickens’s London, Simon’s Baltimore is a richly imagined caricature of its real-life counterpart, not a carbon copy”). He also writes of Simon’s distaste for his former employer, The Sun, and the paper’s role in the upcoming final season of the series.

Read for yourself, and let us know whether you think Simon’s portrayal of “Body-more, Murdaland” is dead accurate or embellished for HBO.

JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

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The Wire has reached the end of the reel…

Yep, after five years of portraying Baltimore as a den of sleaze and corruption with ambitious young politicians making hay out of troubled schools, rampant murder and drug trafficking, production has shut down.

And I, for one, am thrilled! Baltimore, a city beset with violence and drugs? Come on, gimme a break!

That’s not my town. Baltimore is a place where people BELIEVE and Get In On It, not shoot each other on the street. Portraying it otherwise is a disgrace and scares away tourists who are afraid of getting caught in the crossfire.

Right? Well…

There are those who have said exactly that—that The Wire has somehow helped give Baltimore a bad name, as if we haven’t done a bang-up (pun intended) job of that ourselves.

What do you think? Are you happy to see The Wire coming to an end? What do you think of it as a television show? What about the estimated $100 million in direct spending and $200 million in economic impact during its five-year run, according to the state Department of Business and Economic Development? Are you glad to see that go, too?

Sound off! Let us hear from you.

As for me, when I leave my downtown office before sundown today and head north on the subway to my home in the suburbs, I will shout out a hearty farewell. At least until the show’s last season surfaces on HBO, likely early next year.

-LOUIS LLOVIO, Business Writer

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