Egads ::: Bad News for Downtown Baltimore: NEA Moves Out

I visited Baltimore in the summer of '99 and thought that the part by the river was really quite pretty. However, everything else seemed kind of shady and dangerous.

Apparently it has gotten far worse than any better:

In a letter published today by the Baltimore Sun, the general counsel for New Enterprise Associates tells Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon why the venture capital firm is abandoning its headquarters of nearly 30 years for the northern Baltimore suburb of Timonium.
...

(from the letter)

Our decision was a result of the high level of crime in our neighborhood. Over the last several years, many of our cars have been broken into resulting in very expensive repairs, our employees have been robbed at gun point, drug needles and used condoms have been left on our front stoop, and psychotic homeless people have menaced our employees and threatened to kill them. We have voiced our frustrations to the local community leaders and police, but the environment has only worsened. The recent local beatings by roving teenagers during the day in this neighborhood, the raucous club in the basement of the Belvedere, and other gang violence throughout the city reinforces the appropriateness of New Enterprise Associates’ decision to move in order to protect its employees.

Yikes.

peHUB � Bad News for Downtown Baltimore: NEA Moves Out, Citing Needles, Used Condoms and “Psychotic Homeless People”