City sidewalks dressed in holiday style

It’s always a treat to welcome Matt Gallagher of The Goldseker Foundation back to Faidley’s Seafood at Lexington Market on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour to discuss the progress and challenges of Baltimore City, while shouting out more holiday dining options and civic celebrations than any other podcast or radio show in the market. We love Baltimore – and it shows!

Nestor Aparicio and Matt Gallagher discussed Baltimore’s holiday events, including the monument lighting in Mount Vernon and various community activities. Gallagher highlighted the Goldseker Foundation’s $6 million annual giving, supporting 80-90 organizations and over 600 entities since its inception. They emphasized Baltimore’s progress in reducing violent crime and improving public education. Gallagher noted the city’s affordable housing opportunities and the $900 million investment in vacancy reduction over 15 years. They also touched on the challenges faced by the Orioles and Ravens this year and the importance of community engagement and economic development.

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Invite Shaina Hernandez, the new President and CEO of the Baltimore Public Markets Corporation, to appear on the show.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Coordinate a visit to Trinacria and Neopol Smokery with Matt Gallagher.

Holiday Plans and City Pride

• Nestor Aparicio discusses his holiday plans, including events at Lexington Market, Honeys, DiPasquale’s, and Gertrude’s.
• Nestor introduces Matt Gallagher from the Goldseker Foundation, expressing his admiration for Matt’s dedication to the city.
• Matt Gallagher shares his enthusiasm for the holidays, mentioning the monument lighting in Mount Vernon and other festive events.
• Nestor and Matt discuss the city’s holiday events, including Catholic Charities’ holiday concert and the activation of a church in Mount Vernon.

Goldstein Foundation Overview

• Matt Gallagher explains the Goldseker Foundation’s mission and its history, highlighting its $6 million annual giving and $150 million in assets.
• The foundation was established by Morris Goldseker, who left his estate to charity, and has grown significantly over the years.
• Matt describes the foundation’s grant-making process, emphasizing the importance of supporting Baltimore City-based organizations.
• The foundation supports a wide range of organizations, from small community groups to large institutions, with grants ranging from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

City Life and Dining Recommendations

• Nestor and Matt discuss their favorite local dining spots, including Tony Foreman’s new restaurant in Hamden and Petite Louis.
• Matt recommends the Duchess for its Southeast Asian fusion cuisine and the popularity of its reservations.
• Nestor shares his love for the city and his frequent visits to local restaurants, despite living just outside the city line.
• They discuss the importance of supporting local businesses and the positive changes happening in the city.

City Challenges and Progress

• Nestor and Matt talk about the challenges and progress in Baltimore, including public safety improvements and the impact of the Key Bridge closure.
• Matt emphasizes the importance of maintaining momentum in public safety and the need for cooperation among city, state, and federal officials.
• They discuss the economic benefits of living in Baltimore, including affordable housing and the city’s vibrant cultural scene.
• Matt highlights the city’s efforts to reduce vacant properties and improve neighborhoods, with significant public and private investments.

Sports and Community Engagement

• Nestor and Matt discuss the challenges faced by the Orioles and Ravens this year, with Matt expressing hope for the Ravens’ playoff chances.
• They talk about the importance of community engagement and the role of sports in bringing people together.
• Matt shares his experiences working with Martin O’Malley and the state government, focusing on operations and finance.
• They emphasize the need for continued investment in public infrastructure, education, and public health to support the city’s growth.

Holiday Reflections and Future Plans

• Nestor reflects on his recent colonoscopy experience and the importance of health screenings.
• Matt and Nestor discuss their holiday plans, including attending various events and spending time with family and friends.
• They express their gratitude for the support and care they have received from the community.
• The conversation concludes with a focus on the positive aspects of living in Baltimore and the opportunities for future growth and improvement.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Baltimore holidays, Lexington market, Goldstein foundation, public safety, homicides, non-fatal shootings, public markets, vacant properties, economic indicators, city improvements, public health, private market activity, community engagement, sports teams, holiday events.

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SPEAKERS

Nestor Aparicio, Speaker 1, Matt Gallagher

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 task of Baltimore. We’re Baltimore positive. I am positively, one of those positive places you could be for the holidays. We’re fade. These were Lexington market. The new Lexington market just gave away a couple of these Raven scratch offs in the Maryland lottery. I’m about to get the the candy cane scented tickets, so I’ll smell like peppermints next week by the time I get the Costas, and by the time I get the planet fitness, and by the time I make my way out next week. But the six shows in a row, starting here, we’re gonna be at honeys and althorp on Friday, we’re gonna be at DiPasquale’s having a feast that is Seven Fishes. And we’re gonna be with my cousin John shields at Gertrude at the PMA next Friday, Dan Rodricks is going to join us there. I got Seven Fishes over here at fag leaves, we got crab cakes. Matt Gallagher has joined us here from the Goldstein foundation. I had a couple of cancelations. And you know, I love having you on, but like you were here a couple of five months ago. I don’t know how often. It’s too often to bother my former friends of political people who now do good things in the city. I feel like I can’t have you on often enough. But I feel like a quarter a year, twice a year, I don’t know, but welcome back. I mean, never have to sell you on a crab cake. I’m like, does Gallagher want to come down to faidley’s at Lexington market? And you’re like, you probably canceled something to come here? Probably right.

Matt Gallagher  01:12

Lunch is one of the four most important meals of the day. I am at faidley’s, usually twice a month. So it’s always a very easy request to fulfill

Nestor Aparicio  01:21

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all right. Well, how is your version of the holidays in the city going? I know a very few people who love the city as much as you do. You’re a champion. You’re a guy that may be considered mayoral thoughts or other elected thoughts. But you eat in the city. You love the city. You help run the city. You You take great pride in the city. How’s the city doing that?

Matt Gallagher  01:44

Holidays are a fantastic time of year. You know, last week was a ton of fun. The monument lighting, you know, Mount Vernon,

Nestor Aparicio  01:53

we moved that to make for better weather, right? Did we have to postpone that?

Matt Gallagher  01:57

Not this year. Last year, there were some issues with the fireworks and the wind. But this year, it went off on time for some reason. Now, I mean, Thanksgivings later,

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Nestor Aparicio  02:09

my tree lighting got pub got canceled at trade point. I was doing that for Aaron tamarchio and the trade point folks, I’ve been wanting to do it. It’s my dad worked on that land down there, so we didn’t do it. So I missed the tree lighting, yeah, but my wife, I’ll tell you the the monument lighting. When I lived downtown for 19 years, I did 15 of them, and the one or two that I didn’t do was too damn cold, because I could see from my window up Charles Street. We could, we could stay home and have a nog and watch it if we wanted to. But there’s something really beautiful about that night.

Matt Gallagher  02:46

There’s, I think there were, like, five or six events that were surrounding the monument, lighting, you know, Catholic charities that had their annual holiday concert at the basilica the night before. It’s just, when you get into that first week of December, people’s I think moods improve. Things are a little bit more festive. There’s some great things to look forward to, and I live in Mount Vernon, so it’s a ton of fun to just be able to walk down to that stuff. Live Baltimore had a great event. I know the Walters hosts a lot of people. People are just out and about. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the church at the northeast corner of Mount Vernon Square. It was recently acquired. It’s under the management of unite Mount Vernon, and

Nestor Aparicio  03:29

so it’s on the it’s on the right side. Joint is across the street from what the restaurant? What’s the restaurant that was that’s in the building on the left doobies. Now I’m thinking, Okay, keep going, yeah. But anyway, trying to get the right spot.

Matt Gallagher  03:46

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It’s a beautiful church. It’s been activated by the ivy bookstore, and the Ivy bookstore has a pop up shop now in the ground floor of the church, but it’s a fantastic building. It’s seats 900 they’re holding holiday concerts there. The big one is our December 18. So next time you’re in Mount Vernon, definitely swing by and walk through. It’s a really exciting space that people drive by all the time. But now it’s under new leadership, under new management, it’s being activated, and it’s really going to bring a lot to Mount Vernon.

Nestor Aparicio  04:19

Okay, I didn’t. I’m glad See this is why I have Matt Gallagher on. He knows things. All right, so you have the gold sucker foundation. You won’t explain everybody what that is, because, like, All right, what’s Matt doing here? People that know you know you, people that don’t know you. Little background, you were a part of Martin O’Malley’s machine that ran the city, ran the state, but part of that is just you were, as far as I know, the policy guy who kept a lot of eye on numbers and metrics and different things like that, about how things are getting better and worse at goal sec, or what, what’s getting better. And you guys give a lot of money away. Yeah, we

Matt Gallagher  04:53

give away about $6 million a year. We’re we’re in our 50th year, which is hard to believe, but. But there was a immigrant named Morris goldstecker, came to United States in the early 1900s grew a business here. When he passed away in 1973 his estate was worth $11 million and he gave it all to charity.

Nestor Aparicio  05:15

$11 million in 1973 I’m trying to think about it’s a lot, and it was a lot then, for sure, yeah. So we’ve

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Matt Gallagher  05:23

taken the the 11 million in over 50 years, we’ve grown it to 150 million, and in the intervening 50 years, we’ve given away almost 150 million.

Nestor Aparicio  05:35

So exactly what? Mr. Goldstecker, probably, yeah, that was the idea. It’s funny, miracle the idea

Matt Gallagher  05:39

had, maybe the miracle of compound interest is, you know, we’re living it. Did he know that? He I think he knew it at some level. But to be honest with you, 50 years ago, foundations weren’t really a thing. There wasn’t really a foundation sector. There were charities. There were people who were generous and gave away money. And it was really organization

Nestor Aparicio  05:59

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army, things like this, thinking like 60 year, things that did exist that that I would see when I would Christmas shot down here as a little boy in the early 70s, and Mr. Goldstein was still alive at that point, right? So, the notion that foundations began and that we see their names on buildings, no matter. And, you know, we could famously go through a whole bunch of names that are on buildings here, yeah, including Mr. Angelos, his name on my school, but, but endowments. So how many charities I mean? The way I see, I think of you as an organization, the $6 million you’re like, we give 100,000 of them, and 50,000 of them, and 200,000 to them, and a million of them, and

Matt Gallagher  06:37

and then at the end of the year, we go in and say, what do we do? Is that? Is that right or am I wrong? That’s a great, quick summary. But we give away about 6 million a year. We support in any given year, 80 to 90 organizations. In the history of the foundation, we’ve supported over 600 entities. So some grants are as small as a few $1,000 other grants could be up to $300,000

Nestor Aparicio  06:57

so right now, they’ve got something on your desk. That’s an envelope from some young entrepreneur in the city, or somebody doing something, or somebody trying to serve the community better, and they’re asking you to help us, and you’re like, I got 25 grand for you, but as long as it’s earmarked exactly for that, and you’re gonna come back in a year and you’re gonna show me where that money went, right,

Matt Gallagher  07:17

it’s gotta, it’s gotta be, it’s gotta be in Baltimore. It’s gotta help the people in the institutions in Baltimore. You know me, I don’t even like to eat outside of Baltimore City, so we only give away money in Baltimore City. So all right,

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Nestor Aparicio  07:29

we’ve been eating lately. Give me, give me some Baltimore. And then we’re going to get into before we piss everybody off with the Trump this, and the city that, and the Brandon this, and the West that, and the ED hail that, and the bridge this and we Trump coming to like all of that going on,

Matt Gallagher  07:44

had a great dinner at the Duchess over the weekend, which is Tony Foreman’s new place in Hamden. It’s in the old Cafe hun space, right on the avenue. Right on the avenue. Okay, it looks like an English pub, but they have kind of this Southeast Asian fusion kind of Type menu. That’s really, really good dinner, yeah, all right, gonna need a reservation. It’s very, very popular. It’s hopping. Great scene, great dinner.

Nestor Aparicio  08:13

I don’t know Tony foreman. I know some people, but I should

Matt Gallagher  08:16

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get him on the show. He Tony so Wolf and foreman was Charleston, petite Louis. They have kind of separated their business a little bit now, and Tony’s got a couple of different restaurants. He still has petite Louis and Johnny’s and this new place, I’ve

Nestor Aparicio  08:31

been wanting to go to petite Louis for like, a long time. Oh, you should definitely check it out.

Matt Gallagher  08:36

Fantastic food. I think it’s one of the most consistent restaurants in Baltimore.

Nestor Aparicio  08:40

Big fan, yeah, I know. And I just haven’t, yeah, haven’t

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Matt Gallagher  08:42

made well, I’d be happy to introduce you to Tony sometime. He’s a great guy. He’s got been 604 down in Harbor East now, yeah, but I mean, I’m happy hour and in there back, you should be getting around to some of his restaurants.

Nestor Aparicio  08:55

Well, I love the city, and people beat on me because I live 1.6 miles from the city line. You know, I don’t understand. I’m in the city four days a week, you know? I mean, I’m around here all the time. The people that bag on Baltimore aren’t spending time here and seeing it through the prism of sports, and the Orioles and the Ravens are a concert. And I saw cfg, had more good news about how well the facility is doing. I’m clearly getting all because I look through the roster now and I’m like, Who are they, and what is that, and what you know, but that you know, then they do some throwback stuff that I dig, but getting people back into the city. I heard Ivan Bates speak. I’ve been trying to get him on. I haven’t had him on, but he wants to come on. We’ll make it work. I heard him speak to a bunch of people in the county at the connects event. And I’m at the connects event almost every month, Katie Griggs gonna speak out there. And there were a goodly amount of people, not as many as when Adam Jones shows up or whatever. But it was a really good spirited conversation about the city in the future, and how the counties hold the city together and all that. And you’re like, what’s the city elected doing out in the county? You’re trying to stir up pub all the same things I would have done politically, which is trying. To get regional support for the mayor, right? Because I think that for, you know, for the governor, for all anybody, getting that kind of support is important. So he goes to the whole crime thing, tells stories and all that. At the end, somebody stands up, clearly a Republican, and, you know, a Bal CBM sort of person, and says, What can we do to help you? And he said, come back to the city. Trust the city again, and come be a part of it. Come down, park your car. Go eat somewhere good that you want to go. Come to Hampden. Start in Hampden. You don’t have to start at the harbor. I mean, what? Come to Koco’s. Come to fayley’s. You know, wherever you want to go. I don’t. It’s amazing to me how I’m in a room full of people and I spent four or five days a week I live down here 19 years, good, bad, ugly, that these people have this aversion to something I do four days a week that seems so like you’re thinking through whether you’re going to eat dinner in the city, that just I don’t. I hate to laugh out loud about that, but there is a fear mongering that’s beyond my comprehension, that the state’s city, city attorney has to go eight miles from the, you know, from the border, and say, Come back, like, I don’t know, like, it’s Gaza, so, you know, like they like, there’s a demarcation zone. It’s crazy to me.

Matt Gallagher  11:17

It’s insane, completely insane. It is. I mean, look, I live in Mount Vernon. I’ve lived my whole life in the city, other than the one I left for college and graduate school. There are challenges, there are certain Urban Realities, but there’s nowhere else. I’d rather be nowhere else. I’d rather spend time. And, you know, look, I mean, I had nothing against TGI Fridays and Applebee’s and Chili’s. But you know, when I can walk to, you know, prime rib and soda sopra and tio peppies and dailies, fadeleys, you know, I’m here twice some, you know, twice a month, you know, I mean, look, Thanksgiving, we have a big pre Thanksgiving party the Wednesday night. Did the smoked mussels, mussels. But like, I come over to fadeleys, I pick up a dozen crab cakes. I go over to neopols smokery, I pick up 10 dozen mussels, bunch of steamed shrimp. You know, people pour in and they’re like, this is fantastic. And it’s like, it’s easy to park. It’s easy getting in and out of the city. I mean, people who complain about traffic and parking like I don’t think they’ve traveled much, and they don’t leave their driveway very much, but the city’s doing great right now. It’s getting better every single day. There’s a lot of people who should take pride in that, and when those people are traveling around the country, out in Baltimore County, they don’t say I’m from halethorpe or Towson. They say they’re from Baltimore, because that’s what people identify with. And you know, they got to embrace it a little bit more. They got to be a little bit braver. They got to come into the city because they’re missing out well.

Nestor Aparicio  12:52

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And I think the transition of the harbor and the slow part of that and the slow part of the Bay Bridge, I finally saw Ed Hale’s commercial today, right? I’ve known Ed Hale 35 years, maybe 40 years, 40 years, right? Yeah. So, I mean, and I sat in his offices down at first Mariner and dreaming the vision of the port. He always told me there’d be a target in Chick fil A, and he, you know, he envisioned all that a long, long time ago. And the things he’s running on on the other side of the ticket amaze me, and I haven’t sat with him. I love to talk to him about all of it, but the vision for what Baltimore is and what it could be. And then I drive past port Covington, I’ll never call it by that other name, and I go through the tunnel, and I see this obvious progress. I see the obvious progress of all sorts of things. Even if you talk to Katie Griggs or Sasha Brown, which I’m not allowed to do, they would say there’s progress in their stadia in building out bird wings and bird cages and premium this and whatever. But there’s been an investment made here that, to me, is very obvious, but to point at the hole where the mechanic was, instead of pointing at where the Hippodrome is, or pointing at the, you know, the harbor, and saying, Well, what is that? Well, then just go over to four seasons and get it, get a meal for now, while we figure this part of it out, because it doesn’t all come together. I mean, in Boston, they had the Big Dig. It took 20 years, right to try to figure things out. But the bridge and the harbor are, to me, for from a regional standpoint, for transportation, for tourism, for the bright, shiny object of something that becomes that Gateway Arch, becomes that Disney World. This stuff’s got to happen faster than it’s happening. And I’m a Democrat. We got Democrats sitting in seats, and I’m not beating on anybody. And clearly we have a huge wedge with basically a Nazi running the country. And I think that’s it. That’s a challenge for us. But getting up 510, years from now, the harbor and Key Bridge, these things have to get done. And I think those are the most

Matt Gallagher  14:54

important things I got to execute. There’s no quite look. There are definitely headwinds, okay, and bad. Is not good enough when it comes to the city. Yes, things are getting better. Yes, the city is safer, but we got to stay on that right momentum. The public safety headwinds were very, very strong, and they were very, very real, and we got to keep the mayor and the state’s attorney and the governor and everybody who’s contributing to the improvement in public safety on the same page, rowing in the same direction, and not getting sidetracked on, you know, unfortunate, you know, arguments. They want to argue over who deserves the credit. That’s a much better place to be than arguing over who should have the blame in terms of what’s going on right now. But what you said about the bridge, what you said about the harbor, we got Dave Bramble and MCB in place for the harbor. I’m very, very bullish on what he’s going to try to do down there. He’s a local guy. He is brings a huge amount of experience and resources. He’s got a vision. He’s got a great team. We execute, we get the harbor going in the right direction, and then the governor, and, you know, the team in Annapolis have to figure out how to get the Key Bridge rebuilt. That’s a key piece of infrastructure. You know, you think about commute times, you think about the movement of goods and services and traffic, and it

Nestor Aparicio  16:08

has changed transportation here in a way, first off, you and I could have never thought the bridge is going to go down in the middle of the night, right? So, like, I had never thought about that, and I thought and then I was so emotional about it in the beginning, from the Dundalk standpoint of Emma and the Baltimore part. But it didn’t take long to realize a friend of mine’s an Uber driver. He’s like, everything changed that day, literally, especially if you’re Glen Burnie ish, or if you’re top side of the beltway, where I am in Towson, the tie ups on the top side are absolutely related to transportation vehicles that no longer have that as an outlet, that they have to go White Marsh to Lansdown through Pikesville like,

Matt Gallagher  16:48

literally, right? It’s nothing that was ever foreseeable for a

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Nestor Aparicio  16:51

decade or six years, or however long it’s going to take. I there was a reason that thing was built 60 years ago, right? Literally?

Matt Gallagher  16:58

Yeah, no. There’s a terrible tragedy, and now we’re going to be measured on how we respond, you know. And we got to figure out a financing plan. We got to get that thing rebuilt, and we got to get it moving so people can get moving.

Nestor Aparicio  17:11

Matt Gallagher’s here. He runs the gold sector foundation. We’re down here at fate leads. It’s all brought to you by our friends at GBMC who helped keep me alive, as well as our friends at the Maryland lottery. I have Raven scratch offs to give away. I’m gonna have some candy cane scented smell like a peppermint next week. I’m looking forward to that it cost us in a gertrudes John. John shields has the gingerbread thing going on there at gertrudes in the city, by the way. So Manka, I’m doing six shows, so I’m here. Let’s see here. Here. I’m at DiPasquale’s in the city Friday. I’m in Hale Thorpe. I’m six blocks from Cherry Hill, right? And I’ve never been to honeys in Hale Thorpe, Asians could be delicious. Then let’s see. Next week, I’m in Costas dundalk’s Not the city, but it’s an adjunct. It’s a shoulder community. And then I’m back in the city at Gertrude, at the BMA, and then I’m in Timonium at Planet. So what’s that? Three out of 633, to six, right? Whatever you got room for improvement, Koco’s, that’s great. I pizza John’s the other day, it’s Essex.

Matt Gallagher  18:10

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Have you ever done a pizza tour? Is it always been crab cakes,

Nestor Aparicio  18:13

that dude, that’s that fosters all that negativity, does the pizza thing that’s been done? Okay? If I’m gonna, I did oysters, I

Matt Gallagher  18:23

know, um, I was just curious, thinking about it on the way

Nestor Aparicio  18:27

over, and I’ve got a couple, I’ve got a favorite cream of crab, and I’ve got a favorite Maryland crab soup. But I thought, I think that might be the next thing I do. But, yeah, I did my 27 favorite things to eat in August. You saw that, right? I did.

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Matt Gallagher  18:44

I know you’re a pizza guy, you know. So, I mean, I see you getting the Papa John’s. And, you know,

Nestor Aparicio  18:48

no, I don’t get it’s Pizza John. Don’t get any Papa John’s. What’s wrong with you? Sorry, Papa John’s, that guy talked about problems off, you know, off the field. That guy had some off the field issues.

Speaker 1  18:58

No, I misspoke. I’m sorry, no, I eat. What

Nestor Aparicio  19:01

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you saw was, you see me eating a lot when I’m in New York. And in New York, I think I had three or four slices of pizza in a day and a half because it’s cheap and it’s easy and I like it, and it’s delicious and it’s exploratory. But I don’t, you know, I like pizza, but I don’t want to eat it 50 times a year. I mean, I’m not like that. And I got my spots. You got a pizza spot? Where do you go

Matt Gallagher  19:24

for pizza? I’m generally verde or Hershey’s. I love Verde, yeah, those are my two go tos. I haven’t been to Hershey’s. Hershey’s is down kind of right before you get to the bridge heading into South ball. I know where that is. It’s great spot. Really good. I love polygies and Hamden, which is closed now, but I’m gonna

Nestor Aparicio  19:44

give it pasta. Mister makes a very nice slice for me in Towson, yeah, while I’m giving free pizza secret, I mean, go to pizza, John, start there and end there. But I was told by Nancy Longo foodie, OH. Um, she get she goes to DiPasquale’s and gets pizza. She said, once she started getting pizza there, she hasn’t gotten it anywhere else. So I’m there tomorrow. Pizza is very good. I’m there tomorrow, and I have not had a pizza from there. Okay, so I might be having a pizza deepest. Yeah.

Matt Gallagher  20:15

I mean, look, their menu is so strong, and there’s so many great things to eat at the Pasquale.

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Nestor Aparicio  20:19

You can’t I mean, you could go there every day for a year and eat something completely different.

Matt Gallagher  20:24

But I think their meatball subs are great. I think their chicken noodle is really good.

Nestor Aparicio  20:28

Keep going. I’m in there tomorrow. I want to take some you can’t

Matt Gallagher  20:31

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go wrong on that menu. So they’re fantastic. We

Nestor Aparicio  20:33

shop there and take food home. So the sausage is our thing there, right? Darren is the sausage King. Darren. Darren’s gonna be doing the show tomorrow, and he’s gonna, he told me, sending me home with some sort of provolone and pursuit and some sort of jalapeno check, he’s sending me home with a bunch of sausage. But my wife was really in the mood to make a sausage and lentil soup. It’s one of my favorites, and she, my wife makes the greatest soups on Earth, period. And I said, Well, let’s, let’s go down to DiPasquale’s. And we went in, and not only did I I’m not going to be there this week, because I went in and dominico was there, and I’m like, hey, I want to do the show here. But she went home when we got about eight or 10 links, and she made down a VAT, and we’ve bagged about seven or eight bags of it, so I can have it this. But snows in first day it snows, we’re having soup, you know, so that’s one of the things. But we get the dry pastas and the frozen pastas, they’re like the manicotti. We’ve gotten the spinach ravioli in the frozen and bring that home and then, and they’re gonna get mad at me, but I get a meat cheese sauce, because that’s my family there, right? So they amici does sauce and vats for me, and I freeze down the sauces, and then I come home and I do the best of both worlds, like a Van Halen song. But we’ve also found this wine infused pasta, like a fettuccine wine. Fettuccine game changer. I mean, I’ve gotten the Taguchi pastas. I have found that I love a meat cheese sauce. And I’m gonna take some DiPasquale sauce home too, because I like trying sauces. I I went to past stories and had their meatballs couple weeks ago. But you

Matt Gallagher  22:10

think about, you know, think about DiPasquale’s trinacria pastores. Sure, we have, like, real authentic and pretty affordable Italian markets, real Italian people, yeah, but you go to these other cities and, you know, the Bruno brothers and Italy and all these places, like, they’re great places, but, like, it’s an arm and a leg, you know, to eat there, to buy stuff there, like, these still have authentic market feels. And the people who work there are authentic Italians. Like, you know, it’s the real deal. We’re blessed, and we have a very, very high and solid concentration of Italian markets. All right,

Nestor Aparicio  22:47

I got to say something here, and I’m gonna embarrass myself. All right, which is not the first time, especially in your presence, even though we did have a video with 3.2 million views on it at one point, I have never been to trinacria.

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Matt Gallagher  23:01

Jesus. Come on, man, get the pronunciation right. Trina, Korea, they’re right over here in the market.

Nestor Aparicio  23:08

Let me tell you, hold on a minute. It keeps showing up on my timeline, and I’m if you went through my Google search, if you checked my AI clone, I googled it in the last 72 hours. I thought it must have been on Harford road or Bel Air. I just didn’t know. And I see the name, the name, I see the pictures. I see the meats. I see the Italian stuff. I see people getting sandwiches. I see people posting. I lived downtown for 19 years. I just have never been is it parking?

Matt Gallagher  23:43

Where’s it? It’s two blocks down on the left. But right over here, they have a market presence as well. So Right? Trinachia, right here, straight ahead. Look. Hold on.

Nestor Aparicio  23:57

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Trinacria. Was that there a month ago? Yes. How long has it been there?

Matt Gallagher  24:00

It’s been there? It’s been there since the market open, the new market. No, look at the SATs. That’s an outpost. The actual market is, like, two blocks up on the left. Like, seriously,

Nestor Aparicio  24:11

keep showing up on my show. I know it away. I know from their pizza subs, catering and only lasagna

Matt Gallagher  24:19

for sandwiches, cheese for you know, wine that looks like it fell off the back of an 18 embarrassment to this city I am. I think we can address this deficiency.

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Nestor Aparicio  24:30

Very bless me. Matt Gallagher, for I have sinned, and he’s been 57 years since I have been to

Matt Gallagher  24:37

the first step is admitting. First step is admitting you have a problem and

Nestor Aparicio  24:43

these muscles that you tell me these, but what’s the place called

Matt Gallagher  24:46

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neopol smoker? Neopol, you haven’t had them at Belvedere square. Their test I’ve been in Belvedere square many times. Their production kitchen is less than a mile from here. We can do a field trip one day. All right, we can hit. At Trina Korea, we can hit neopol

Nestor Aparicio  25:03

from Belvedere square anytime you want. I would go do that.

Matt Gallagher  25:06

I’m sure they would love to have you. But yeah, I think you might have to give some love to some of the other public markets at some point. And I’m going to give a big plug to Shana Hernandez. She’s the new president and CEO of the Baltimore public markets Corporation. Now that is, you got to get her

Nestor Aparicio  25:19

across Hollins. Mount Vernon, not Mount Vernon, no, not.

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Matt Gallagher  25:25

Okay. Cross Street. Cross Street. Hollins, Lexington, North Belvedere, no, no. Belters, a private market. Which 1am I missing?

Speaker 1  25:35

Oh, Broadway. Broadway Fells Point, okay, yeah,

Matt Gallagher  25:39

so it’s the oldest public markets corporation in the country. Baltimore is really ground zero for public markets, like the whole idea and the concept, and Shana is the new income

Nestor Aparicio  25:51

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ground zero for public because I think a Boston, Philly has a thing like this, right? DC has things, yep, but Baltimore, because maybe of the seafood in the port and the oysters in the water being near here,

Matt Gallagher  26:03

we have a network came more, I’m talking

Nestor Aparicio  26:06

150 200 years ago, right? Like at the dawn of Lexington market, right? Like that’s the beginning of public markets, right? Yes, well, there, there wasn’t a Chicago then or there.

Matt Gallagher  26:16

I’m pretty sure we’ll have to fact check this later. I’m sure AI will catch up with it. You know, I think it’s the oldest public markets corporation in the country. All right, yeah, I love that, yeah, but you got to have her on, and let’s go. Shana, where are you? Let’s go. She started in first week in January. I’m sure she’ll come on.

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Nestor Aparicio  26:33

All right. Well, I’ll do a broadcast wherever you want me to, as long as I learn how to pronounce trinacria.

Speaker 1  26:40

Not close enough what I call it. You got Trina, Korea. Listen, I’m opening. I know I’m here to help. I’m here.

Nestor Aparicio  26:49

I’m trying to find other places I haven’t eaten, which is why you can’t eat everywhere, right? So that’s why I did my 27 favorite things to eat, because they really are my I went to happy China the other night. I mean, my favorite places, I’m not BS in I’m still like my Indian thing has been a little disjointed, because my favorite Indian place closed down. So when that happened, I’ve been but the Himalayan house has been very nice to me. The folks over here at Lumbini, right here in the market. You like Indian food? I do, what don’t you like? Because you eat a lot of really strange things, man,

Matt Gallagher  27:24

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ah, you know, I’ve really, there was a long time I wasn’t into sushi, but, like, my kids absolutely love sushi, so like, just have a chance to spend time with them. Now, I’m a big sushi fan.

Nestor Aparicio  27:36

So what’s your role? What do you got to go to?

Matt Gallagher  27:39

I mean, I’m, like, spicy tuna, you know, like, I mean, basic I let them buy whatever they want, order whatever they want. I like to try all the different ones.

Nestor Aparicio  27:46

All right, Matt Gallagher’s here from the gold sucker Foundation, and I tried to keep this polite the first half hour about Baltimore. And good. Let’s get into the down and dirty here on let it rip.

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Nestor Aparicio  28:00

This guy running the country I don’t know on a daily basis, it’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen or witnessed, and it’s not being treated as such by many people I know who voted for it, who have been really, really ignorant to facts, ignorant, meaning ignoring. Root of ignorant isn’t You’re a jerk? It you might be a jerk if you ignore things like racism, like

Nestor Aparicio  28:27

just little things like you just seeing kiss down at the Kennedy Center, where I have a dear friend of mine who’s employed there, who has been really kind of tortured and chainsaw Nazi, richest guy in the world, coming in and ripping our government apart, and then being called a drug addict, and then being back on a plane eating hamburgers. I don’t know that it’s meant to add up or not add up with Saudi Arabian princes, where, with the Russian mob, like I could go through all of it. That’s not even Epstein related, which is, if there’s anything to bring him down, pedophilia probably should be the thing. I would think,

Matt Gallagher  29:05

all right, there’s a lot to on. Yeah, there. Well, it’s been a hell of a 10 look. I mean, I would say the zone is kind of flooded. So to say, Well, wasn’t that,

Nestor Aparicio  29:13

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isn’t that Russian tradition is really flood the zone, right? Isn’t that what it

Matt Gallagher  29:18

is, right? So I would say that over the last 10 years, you’ve had a situation where our federal government and the institution of government really underwent, like, a very rigorous four year stress test. You know, a lot of bounds were pushed. You know, a lot of lot of lot, a lot of tough times, and we can’t,

Nestor Aparicio  29:39

like, they went down to the capitol and tried to overthrow an election or anything, right? I mean, it’s not like that happened.

Matt Gallagher  29:45

I think inconceivable things, you know, it’s like Princess Bride, when they kept saying inconceivable, inconceivable, inconceivable, and he’s like, I don’t think that means what you think it means, because everything was inconceivable. It’s, you know, I think we’ve gone for. From the stress test portion of the test to the siege, you know? And now everybody’s kind of digging in. Everybody’s trying to hold on. Everybody is trying to kind of figure out where the battle lines are going to be, and they’re trying to make it to, like, the next big milestone. In this case, it’ll be the midterms, okay?

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Nestor Aparicio  30:19

Well, and how much they can get away with in their hometown, right? Marjorie Taylor green, like, how much this this nonsense doesn’t play with smart people and educated people, for the most part, maybe plays with money. People are people who live in a gated community somewhere, but in a general sense, when your town is flooded in Western Maryland, and you voted 92% for Trump, and Trump is making fun of your governor and says, I’m not going to send you money. That does not engender the kind of feeling that maybe he thinks it does. But I always think his dementia and dementedness and incredible nor like all of that, as it gets older and 80 years old, the tiredness part of it, I keep thinking there’s going to be an end to it. Yeah, that’s the only way I can continue to go on and think this can’t be a way of life that we’re going to be with the Russians. Yeah, look, Amanda, I’m going to feel funny going to Canada for a weekend.

Matt Gallagher  31:17

There is going to be an end to it, one way or another. And a lot of it’s going to hinge on how we respond to that, like, Is this the new normal? Is this the new norm, or is this anomalous right now? And look, I think the good news is this is the greatest country in the history of the world, okay? And I don’t think that that’s an overstatement. Democracy, you know, market driven economy, incredible education systems, you know, yes, we have issues with poverty, but we have social networks. We have social safety nets. We have been on the ascent for literally centuries, and we have to trust in that, but we can’t, you know, believe too, too much in it. We all have a responsibility to

Nestor Aparicio  31:59

but none of this is what’s built. None of these ideals or ideas, but we all have a responsibility general, all the things that made America falter when it faltered like literally, but we

Matt Gallagher  32:10

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all have a responsibility to protect it, to get it back on the right trajectory. There’s a lot of disagreement right now as to whether or not like how we should be doing that

Nestor Aparicio  32:20

well, buying judges and having the richest people in the world fund their ideology through this con man has just it’s been, it’s been quite a thing to witness in my life. I hope I’m here to witness the end of this. I’ve talked to you about AI like just in the last month. You said inconceivable, inconceivable things are happening for me in the blink of an eye, in regard to ideologies and things in my own little world, on a chat GPT, that have been inconceivable information wise, for me a month ago, they were inconceivable to me. To me, it’s inconceivable that this could stand in our country, that this is not temporary, that this could not be permanent, unless all of us perish. I mean,

Matt Gallagher  33:04

less than a year from now, like people are going to have a chance to say, Do they support what’s going on in the country right now? That’s what the midterms are. And then you’re going to have, you know, three years from now, another presidential election, and people are going to be able to choose, is this what they signed up for? Is this what they want? And I think a lot of people are going to choose differently this time around,

Nestor Aparicio  33:25

Matt Gallagher’s here, we’re trying to talk about good things in the city, and so best things in the city for you, and things that you look at, because you were a metric, tell me what your job was in the city and with the state, so they know literally what you did with Martin O’Malley and what you’ve done that you’re not just some dude on the corner here when I’m asking you about metrics and stuff, that it’s a serious operation

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Matt Gallagher  33:46

for you. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, City’s a multi billion dollar organization, states, you know, 10s of billions of dollar organization. And when I worked in the mayor’s office for Mayor O’Malley, I had kind of a Chief Operating Officer. Responsibility was really meant to take a look at all the operations and finances of the government try to keep things on track from where the money goes, basically right. Look the water running through the pipes to the lighting of the street lights to the fire trucks and the police cars, you name it. And then when I went to the state, I was the governor’s chief of staff, and that was just overseeing all the facets of state government and the 50,000 executive branch employees. So so

Nestor Aparicio  34:30

when you measure the city 20 years later, after being a part of running it, what our newspaper looks at, murders, right? Crime, whatever crime means, whether it’s pickpocket, pull a gun out, robbed, breaking it. I don’t even know those facets of how all of that. And listen, it’s been so crooked in the city with cops and stuff that I’m and people have been so crooked in regard to my journalism, in regard to baking numbers and what. Institutes a crime or a victim, or we all know what a murder is. We all know what a murder is. That’s like, that’s right, okay, go ahead,

Matt Gallagher  35:08

homicides, okay, robberies, aggravated assaults, rapes, those are part one, violent crimes, right? Okay, everybody zeros in on homicides, but when you think about crime, it’s a relatively small number of incidents. But if you’re not doing a great job managing robberies and aggravated assaults, oftentimes they will escalate into homicides and non fatal shootings. So the good news is the city’s doing a lot better in terms of homicides and non fatal shootings. And from 2000 to 2014 you had 15 straight years of 300 or fewer homicides. You had a couple of years of fewer than 200 homicides. Unfortunately, after the Civic unrest and the Freddie Gray, we had a period from 2015 until just a few years ago, where we were well over 300 homicides, and that took all the focus, a lot of people, a lot of hard work, the mayor, the state’s attorney, the governor, the Department of Public Safety, parole and probation, great organizations like Roca, they’ve started to turn the tide on violent crime. You’ve seen homicides and non fatal shootings go down. It’s hard to fudge a homicide. In a non fatal shooting, you’re either shot or you’re not, either dead or you’re not. You’re either at the morgue or you’re not, or the ER or you’re not, where people have played games in the past. Sometimes is when robberies and aggravated assaults and like downgrading it, and that wasn’t an incident that type of the

Nestor Aparicio  36:36

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perception there’s a carjacking going on in every corner here all day is crazy, right? It is

Matt Gallagher  36:40

totally crazy. Yeah, it’s totally crazy. So we’re still way more violent than anybody wants. We still got to continue to maintain those reductions in homicides and non fatal shootings. That’s why it’s so important that everybody work together. Because somebody falls out of line, some part of the public safety continuum breaks down or gets mad at a different part of the continuum, then things really do start to come off the rails. And back in 2014 when everybody thought, hey, we’ve been doing great for 15 years. We’ve been getting better. You know, we had like an eight, nine year kind of we went sideways, and then we went in the wrong direction. So we can’t risk that happening again. So if we can harness the cooperation, the coordination, the coaxing and cajoling of all these partners to work together, and we can put it towards public infrastructure, public health, public works, public education. You know, we’ve got an opportunity to kind of build on these public safety gains. So that’s what all of us should be working on right now.

Nestor Aparicio  37:42

Well, that’s job one. Then there’s everything else economically that lives around that that crime becomes a shadow for why people don’t spend the buck, move in, hang out, come down, leave some money behind, leave some time behind, even make a memory that would bring them back, like the way the harbor did for me for so many years.

Matt Gallagher  38:02

Learn more, earn more, stay. We got to stabilize the population in the city, and then we’ve got to grow it. And there’s a lot of efforts right now to try to turn around the vacant housing situation, to drive down the, you know, the 12 to 14,000 vacant properties we have in the city, we are still by far the most affordable place to be. When you look at DC, you look at Philadelphia, you look at New York, you look at that Amtrak corridor all the way up to Boston, if you’re a young professional, if you’re getting out of school, whether you went to college, whether you got a, you know, a trade, if you wanted to buy a house, this is the place to do it. This is the place you can afford it. This is the place you don’t have to you don’t have to wait until you’re in your 40s to get your first house. So we have to really articulate that opportunity. We got to make people feel confident in that opportunity, and we want them to be successful here.

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Nestor Aparicio  38:54

I call it the land of pleasant living on purpose, right? I mean, I I’ve when I go outside of the city, and I see other places, and I see their benefits and stuff. I’m always happy that I live here. Yeah. I mean, I’m always happy that i Every, every part of it. Matt Gallagher’s here. I’m happy to be at faidley’s at Lexington market. Happy to have some Raven scratch off, skip away for the Maryland lottery. It’s my last batch, because the seasons, right? I mean, it’s been tough. It’s been a tough sports year, right? Like, I don’t talk sports with you, but you’re a sports guy big time. Just, I remember two years ago sitting at a Koco’s with Dave shining and resig. And this is when the Orioles really summer 23 they were really it was August, the ravens, we were about to have the championship game here, right, going into that, and it’s like, who’s gonna win first? The Orioles of the Ravens shining, who lives over in butchers Hill, Washington Post guy, but really lived in Baltimore for 30 years. I said, Who’s gonna win first? It’s like, neither one. It’s too hard to do. And I’m like, here we are two years later, and it’s hard to do, man, it really,

Matt Gallagher  39:59

it is hard to do. Yeah, and look, I mean, it was down year for the Orioles. It’s been a down year for the Ravens. I mean, I still have hope for the Ravens. I still think they could back into the playoffs. And I tell you what? Back in they’re gonna have to win it. No, they’re gonna get in at nine and eight.

Nestor Aparicio  40:15

You know, that’s not back in it. If they beat New England and Green Bay, I’m not gonna call

Speaker 1  40:18

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that back. I’m not saying back differently about them if they beat New

Matt Gallagher  40:21

England and Green Bay, no, but if they get into the playoffs, I guarantee you that’s the team nobody wants to play, because they’ll been playing better down the stretch. They’ll say they’ve underperformed all year. Sure, they’ve had a lot of breaks go against them.

Nestor Aparicio  40:33

Tell me how healthy Lamar is going to be on January 1, and I’ll tell you how they’re doing. The only

Matt Gallagher  40:37

thing I can tell you is he can’t be healthy. You know? I mean, I know I mean, I know everybody’s like, what’s wrong? What’s wrong with the Ravens? Like, he just, he doesn’t look the same. He’s not himself. And look, that guy should have enough credibility in this town for the people who are kind of talking him down right now, they are out of their minds.

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Nestor Aparicio  40:55

Okay, out of their minds. I do not disagree with that, but I also look at it and say they’re gonna have to renegotiate with him in the offseason. They’re gonna have to keep him so they’re not and we all saw how difficult negotiating has been, right? They’re gonna have to keep him and put a number on it and put where they are. But he’s also going to be a diminishing asset very, very shortly, in regard to speed and in regard to what that is, and part of that this year is the offensive line is not good enough. It’s not about Lamar not being good enough. For me, it’s been about the offensive line and really the defense not being good enough as well. Yeah.

Matt Gallagher  41:29

I mean, they’re not getting any pressure on the quarterback. It’s a team sport. Yeah. And I think the offensive line challenges were underplayed at the beginning of the season, and it’s, it’s very, very evident, right?

Nestor Aparicio  41:39

Well, that’s why we don’t want blind optimism, which is why I always say to you data that Baltimore is getting better. So I’m gonna leave it with this before I go get some fishing feast. You don’t do the Feast of the Seven Fishes, or is that not part

Matt Gallagher  41:50

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of your jam? You know? I mean, I do the Feast of the Seven Fishes, but usually that’s a lot of fishes. So, you know, just give me my crab cake.

Nestor Aparicio  41:57

That’s what I Nancy’s tried to talk me into this. John shields and Dan Rodricks. Last year we did a whole segment on men. You know, it’s an event. I’m Italian, Italian group last month. I’ve never had defeat. I’ve never done is the muscles part of that or no? No, no. Okay, yeah.

Matt Gallagher  42:13

So, I mean, I, you know, if I was gonna eat Seven Fishes, I would have different Seven Fishes, probably. But, you know, all

Nestor Aparicio  42:18

right, give me some numbers that you like about Baltimore in some way. It’s never the tax number or whatever, but you measured all of these things. Give me some indicators, economic indicators beyond your eyeballs, and you got a good meal last week.

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Matt Gallagher  42:33

Here, homicides and non fatal shootings going down. Okay? Big positive indicator, number of schools and students in Baltimore City Public Schools at or above statewide averages in reading and math getting better. Number of schools that have improved on the statewide rating system getting better. Those are really, really good positive indicators for the city. We got to keep those trajectories going. We got to accelerate them wherever possible. There seems to be a good amount of private market activity right now. In terms of housing, we’re

Nestor Aparicio  43:08

undervalued in that market space. For

Speaker 1  43:12

everything, there’s still value here.

Nestor Aparicio  43:15

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Banks aren’t saying it’s burning down. We’re not going in. Yeah, right.

Matt Gallagher  43:19

Governor in the state of Maryland have committed 750 million over the next 15 years the vacancy reduction The city has $150 million it’s called a non contiguous TIF, which we would need an hour to explain. But that’s $900 million in public resources over the next 15 years that are going to go into vacancy reduction in the city. So that’s a combination of property acquisition, disposition, demolition, react, make it a park, make it sound really going to help with the physical appearance, the quality of neighborhoods. The offering

Nestor Aparicio  43:53

I saw that in Detroit, by the way, when I went in, just things that disappeared and came back up differently, right?

Matt Gallagher  43:58

So, I mean, that could be a whole other show. But I think what Detroit’s got going for them is an incredible marketing team. Because I’ve spent time in Baltimore, I’ve spent time in Detroit. I’ll take Baltimore every day of the week and twice on Sunday. They’re really, really good in Detroit about their storytelling. But I wouldn’t trade places

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Nestor Aparicio  44:15

with that. I just see economic things that happen when I go in other places where things go up. Two people were here, a young lady and a man who were pharmacy students here seven years ago. They came back to have a crab cake here at fade these and they’re like, We haven’t been in the new market. This is great. So the thing that they’re seeing is things

Nestor Aparicio  44:35

getting better. You know, a place I went before and I came back and said, Have they made it better? Has it gotten worse? What’s the neighborhood like and all that? I think Baltimore’s got a lot of places. When I bring people in, say, I haven’t been here in a while where I could take you places and say, we’re on the move here, things are getting better. Yeah, I agree. Matt Gallagher’s here, Goldstein Foundation, happy holidays.

Matt Gallagher  44:56

Have a great Christmas Absolutely. And great job. In a colonoscopy.

Nestor Aparicio  45:02

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Hey, man, I’m the world’s where I have to apologize to my doctor. I’m, I’m gonna take crab cakes up to the whole staff there, because they were so nice to me at GBMC. But I am, I am a traumatized medical maybe

Matt Gallagher  45:16

you did the right thing, telling your story, it’s gonna help people that you’re never going to meet or touch, and that’s a really

Speaker 1  45:23

fast I really do, all right? I really do. Well, I would say this

Matt Gallagher  45:27

when I’m kind of like, you know, much worse looking Katie cork,

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Nestor Aparicio  45:32

when I bragged about it out on LinkedIn and Facebook, I didn’t brag about I was just driving home, and I felt awful, and I thought they told me that I would have had cancer and that bad things would have happened if I didn’t do like. They told me that as I was groggy walking out, and I knew this, and I put that picture up, and I just said, Hey, man, these people were so nice to me, and I was such a jerk, and I was throwing up this morning, and I was doing all the things you do when you colonoscopy. And I’m I’m like, not a good patient after My finger got cut off when I was three. I don’t do wells in hospitals like in that way, and my wife, all that she went through. So I had a bad day, and I put the picture up, it turned out to be like the most shared thing and the most red thing that I had this fall, above everything else that people did respond to it. So let people let me know people care about me. But it also was a great reminder to anybody that hasn’t had it done. Like, I look healthy and all, but like, Thanks Planet Fitness. But like, you got to go do it. You got it, you got to do it.

Matt Gallagher  46:29

Yep, and the prep is worse than the procedure. It’s the best sleep of your life. You know, all those things, but demystifying it, encouraging people, getting them over. That really

Nestor Aparicio  46:40

wasn’t that bad. It really wasn’t that bad, exactly. I’m just a sissy. You know, that’s all. Can’t disagree with you on that. All right. There it is. Matt Albernaz, we’re gonna go have a crab cake. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery in GBMC. Back for more. It’s Baltimore positive. It’s the holidays, and I’m with friends. I’m digging it. You.