words by Carol King A Baltimore, Maryland developer is planning to build a tower in the city that resembles the Leaning Tower of Pisa, according to the ‘Baltimore Business Journal’. The title reports that Realty Income Trust, LP is planning to develop two projects in Baltimore’s Little Italy neighbourhood, one of which is for a 10-storey tower with apartments and a retail area. The company wants the proposed tower to appear to lean like Pisa’s famous tower. Realty Income Trust, LP owner Jeff Goolst told the ‘Baltimore Business Journal’ that the second project is to create luxury townhouses designed to look like Italian villas. The project is expected to cost approximately US$3 million and to be completed in 2014. In an effort to recall the roots of the city’s Little Italy area, Goolst said he is employing: “Hollywood film set designers, construction fabricators and designers to recreate actual Italian streets complete with cobblestone sidewalks, water fountains and sculptures.” Baltimore’s Little Italy lies east of the Inner Harbor. It gained its name because of the large number of Italian migrants that moved into the area during the 20th century. Each year, the neighbourhood holds the St. Anthony Italian Festival in June to commemorate the fact that when Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 destroyed much of downtown, Little Italy survived. Residents gathered to pray to St. Anthony to save their neighborhood from the blaze and the wind shifted so that the fire did not cross the Jones Falls, thus sparing Baltimore’s Little Italy.
