Copycat Building
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Charles Lankford bought the 165,000-square-foot brick building at 1501 Guilford Ave. in the late 1970s (a building commonly called the "Copy Cat Building," after a billboard for the Copy Cat printing company that stood on its roof for years). At the time, it housed a variety of light-industrial tenants.
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"After a while we decided, as an experiment, to take one floor and convert it into artist studios, since we were so close to Maryland Institute College of Art," Lankford says. "Over time, everybody started 'cheating'--instead of renting an apartment and a studio, they would save money by living in their studios." Lankford, who added a 40,000-square-foot industrial building at 409 E. Oliver St. that has also come to house artists to his portfolio in 1983, says he has "never hidden" from the city that artists have been working and living in his buildings. But he has had run-ins with various cities agencies over its legality. As a first step to getting his buildings "legit," he launched his own campaign to change the area's zoning from industrial to residential three years ago--only to be told that such a move was illegal. "There was no mechanism to allow this type of change," Lankford says. "You couldn't go from industrial to residential." |
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—Brennen Jensen, "Industry to Easels", Baltimore City Paper |
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Today the Copy Cat is home to many young artists, musicians, and budding professionals looking for a large space to live, create, and study.
On the weekends one can find a number of showcases of local and not so local musicians (bands have come from all over the country, and some have even travelled all the way from France and Australia to play in one of Baltimore's premier warehouse venues.)
Bands that have played the warehouse include: Lightning Bolt (Rhode Island), Black Forest/Black Sea (Rhode Island), Japanther (Brooklyn, NY), Wolf Eyes (Ann Arbor), Gravenhurst (England), Robotnicka (France), The Death Set (Australia), etc.
The Copycat Building is also home to The Wham City Art's Collective, home to rising Baltimore acts Dan Deacon, Blood Baby, Santa Dads, and Butt Stomach. Wham City has also been known to put on live stage performances of their interpretation of Beauty And The Beast and has hosted a number of experimental dance formals.
