A person who never heard of Walter Sondheim – completely possible in present-day Baltimore, filled as it is with new residents who have moved here in the last few years to enjoy the downtown of Sondheim’s dreams – asked me today who he was.
My answer was simple: Walter Sondheim was a great and prominent citizen, and perhaps Baltimore’s leading citizen of the past half-century or more.
That might have sounded great in Aristotle’s time. Not so much today.
Titles impress people. Celebrity impresses people. Making millions and even billions – that’s what impresses these days.
Great citizenship seems almost anachronistic now. Public service – genuine service to your town, city, state or nation without regard to personal gain – seems like a quaint notion, something reserved for the do-gooders and busy-bodies who don’t have companies to run and stockholders to please.
That’s a dark view of our civic culture today, but an accurate one. With the disappearance of small-town America and the long decline of American cities, only recently in renaissance, we became over the last 40 years a more disconnected culture, and more isolated and cynical as citizens.
Walter Sondheim was old school, of course – God bless him, he was 98 -- and someone reading his obituary today or looking at photographs of him might regard him as a dinosaur. Most people learning for the first time of his life could not imagine themselves being so willing to get involved in municipal affairs, volunteering valuable time, energy and wisdom to the greater good of the community -- without regard to personal financial gain.
Not to mention . . . without a Blackberry.
Ever since I arrived in Baltimore – when Citizen Sondheim was a mere 68 years old – I heard stories about him. His name was everywhere, related in some way to almost every issue that came up as the city dared to renew itself, from Charles Center to the Inner Harbor, even as it struggled with population loss, tax-base decline and a sagging self-image.
In the midst of all that, Sondheim remained a positive force in city life, the wise owl of the old palatinate whispering in the ears of the politicians, government officials and business leaders. A determined group of them were trying to keep the city’s downtown alive after the loss of industry and the riots of 1968. Sondheim was one of those great civic optimists, a positive thinker and painfully modest mover and shaker at the center of all that.
Men such as Sondheim, the super menches who believed in the common good and a better future for Baltimore, formed the backbone of the city and defined its character.
They understood something about living in this nation, this state, this city – that it’s not enough to pay taxes, read the newspapers, complain about potholes, vote when we feel like it. Citizenship demands a lot more of us – each of us stepping away from our toils to help raise the neighbor’s roof . . . or run the school board . . . or talk a CEO into keeping his corporate office on Pratt Street.
I don’t know that Walter Sondheim ever took credit for anything. I’ll tell you this: He wasn’t much for getting on the phone to promote himself. Others gave him credit for all sorts of things, totally deserved, but each tribute seemed to embarrass him.
He was active and engaged in Baltimore’s progress up until only recently, and I’m guessing that a good many of you reading about him today never heard of him.
He was not a man to boast.
He was just a man who did.
Look around downtown – new buildings everywhere, and hundreds of new residents walking their dogs – and you see his legacy. He lived long enough to see his Baltimore Renaissance and then some.
Rest in peace, Citizen Sondheim.
