What Herman Melville taught Krishna about the redevelopment of Harborplace

Call me Krishmael.

I was strolling along the brick walkways of Harborplace when I found a man swinging his legs next to a bloom of echinacea. Would you believe he reminded me of Herman Melville?

“This water has been my safe place,” said Aaron “AJ” Jones, a Baltimore resident. He visits the waterfront every day during summers to meet friends, chase geese and gaze at the hypnotic waves.

I couldn’t help thinking of the second page of “Moby Dick,” published in 1851.

“There is magic in it. Let the most absentminded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water ...”

AJ called the waters of the Inner Harbor “one of my calming mechanisms in my realization time.”

Or as Melville put it, “every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.”

And when plunged in the deepest reveries of journalism, I, too, stroll along the harbor’s edge to untie mental knots. I watch silvery schools of menhaden flash their scales beneath a gentle wake. I watch a sailboat knife through the water while sunlight shatters itself into a thousand starry jewels.

I’ve seen Harborplace place quiet as a ghost ship: it’s a strange and melancholic sight. You can almost hear the crowds that are supposed to be milling around; the pavilions bear signs of closed businesses like scars.

But I also saw it last weekend at Sail250, a multicultural extravaganza where the walkways were bursting with throngs of Baltimoreans and sailors and jugglers and cinnamon candied peanuts.

Regardless of the ebb and flow of crowds, Baltimore’s harbor has an enchanting quality. And today, this waterfront is on the precipice of great change.

The aging twin pavilions are slated for demolition later this year. In their place could rise two apartment towers, an amphitheater, new businesses and more — plus all the government-backed fanfare that comes with glitzy new developments.

What will draw more crowds going forward? We can’t say for certain. But we know the water has an innate draw, and it will be patiently waiting for crowds to return. For people to spend “Warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days.”

This is a timeless place to gather. AJ knows it. So did Melville:

“Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand—miles of them—leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues,—north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite.”