‘Pee’rless Reporting

Excerpts from a news report on the website of The Baltimore Banner:

A steady stream of pee is eroding Baltimore’s historic buildings

Many of downtown Baltimore’s buildings are slowly being washed away. The problem is less flooding and rain, more golden showers.

That’s right, pee is eroding thousands of historic buildings downtown, the exterior bases corroding with every spurt.

Like a yellow Sharpie, it’s highlighting long-standing tensions in Baltimore: the decline of a once bustling city center, dwindling public spaces and the enduring needs of the local homeless population.

The block of North Howard between Lexington and Saratoga street is, in many ways, a pee epicenter.

Many of these older buildings were built with soft brick and mortar, according to city planner Caitlin Audette, who is consulting with Downtown Partnership on the public bathroom project. These buildings are more susceptible to damage from outside elements like water and, obviously, pee, which can degrade the soft material over time, “especially if it’s a constant exposure.”

“It doesn’t even matter what time it is. Every day and night,” said local business owner Mohammed Kabir. “It’s relentless.”

He operates a convenience store at the corner of North Howard and Clay streets, a narrow alley with few cars and little foot traffic.

Kabir has only been working at this location for the past six months, where, in an attempt to ward off the stench, he’s developed a daily routine of disinfecting and scrubbing the building’s bricks, which have started to crack and crumble.

Kabir also put security cameras outside his store, hoping they’d deter urinary culprits — to no avail. One man even came into the store to ask Kabir why he mounted the cameras.

“For our safety,” Kabir said.

“No, we pee here,” the man responded.

Also from the report, this notable observation:

Baltimore is not alone. For as long as people have made buildings, there have been people who peed on them.