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AlanHere's the story of it from a few years ago:
BALTIMORE, May 19 - The fate of George Kritikos's strip club here, where his Greek immigrant American dream has collided with the city's renovation vision, may now depend on the bar's connection to the baseball legend Babe Ruth.
A Baltimore native, the Babe, George Herman Ruth Jr., bought the bar, known as Ruth's Cafe, for his father, George Sr., in 1916.
At the time, Ruth was a star pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. Two years later, the Red Sox won their last World Series. And his father died in a brawl outside the bar.
It is a history Mr. Kritikos has come to know well. Indeed, he has learned all he can about his building's ties to Ruth after the city passed an ordinance in March marking his small rowhouse club, the Goddess, for a possible condemnation under eminent domain to make way for an urban renewal project.
Mr. Kritikos did not buy the spot on Eutaw Street because of its baseball lore, but for its location. Not only is his club near Camden Yards, the home stadium for the Baltimore Orioles, but it is strolling distance to the M&T Bank Stadium, where the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League play; the city's convention center; and the Inner Harbor, the city's waterfront shopping area.
Mr. Kritikos, who has owned the building nine years, said he had spent $300,000 renovating it into a business catering to a natural clientele. "'You got two stadiums here," Mr. Kritikos said. "You got the convention center. You got the hotels. It doesn't get more prime than this."
Inside the club, the only tribute to Babe Ruth is a laminated photograph hanging behind the bar that shows father and son in ties, vests and bartender aprons posing behind a hulking wooden bar. It has long since been replaced with a newer model that serves as a precarious runway for the club's high-heeled entertainment.
Mr. Kritikos is hoping to get the building listed on the National Historic Register and thwart any efforts to tear it down to make way for new development.
The Goddess happens to stand at the gateway of Baltimore's Westside Project, a 100-block urban renewal project to restore this mix of ornate banks, former department stores and small shops.
The Westside's showpiece to date is the Hippodrome Theater at the France Merrick Performing Arts Center, a onetime grand movie house two blocks up Eutaw Street that reopened in February.
Across the street from the theater is a $200 million complex of housing, parking and 35,000 square feet of retail space. Farther north an old hotel and department store have been renovated as two condominium complexes; the University of Maryland Hospital's expanding campus can be found there as well.
Mayor Martin O'Malley approved a city council bill in March that allowed the city to use eminent domain to purchase the Goddess and other buildings in a two-block area.
"Being that it's a gateway into the Westside, those two blocks become pretty significant," said Sharon Grinnell, chief operating officer for the Baltimore Development Corporation, which is overseeing the development of the Westside.
Ms. Grinnell said that the agency had nothing against adult entertainment in that location. The corner, though, connects Camden Yards to the west side; while the development agency has no specific plans for it, she said, it wants the option to develop the area.
Mr. Kritikos is only the latest small business owner to get embroiled in the city's Westside Project. While the neighborhood's days of large department stores disappeared decades ago, these streets still thrived as a shopping district for lower-income households, anchored by the city's 222-year-old Lexington Market.
But when the Westside Project began six years ago, small businesses from hatmakers to electronic shops were relocated. Some shut down for good. The agency also negotiated with the state about which historic buildings should be saved and which could be torn down, Ms. Grinnell said.
John Murphy, a lawyer for Mr. Kritikos, said he did not know about the Goddess's link to Babe Ruth until he was sitting in it with his client.
"He went over and got that picture and brought it over to me and I saw Babe Ruth standing there,'' Mr. Murphy recalled. "That's a big deal.''
Ms. Grinnell questioned the new emphasis on the club's history. "The building has been there how long?'' she said. "And it's operating as adult entertainment and all of a sudden you want to play up the significance of Babe Ruth."
In Baltimore, the most celebrated site remaining from Babe Ruth's formative years is his grandmother's house, where he was born just before his mother moved away. That house is now the Babe Ruth Museum, which is not "getting in the middle" of the dispute, said Laurie Ward, spokeswoman for the museum. "We have our own historical site to promote and maintain so we can't take up the cause for the bar."
Other than the museum, there is no well-marked Ruthian historic site. George Ruth owned several bars, including one that was once located in what is now center field in Camden Yards. The only other Ruth-related site is the Saint Mary's Industrial School, now named the Cardinal Gibbons School, where he lived and played ball.
Other than installing a brass plaque honoring Ruth, Mr. Kritikos hesitates to make use of the building's legacy. But he would like to take advantage of the corner.
"The strip club business is not the issue," he said. "We know we can make it over and make money. Anybody who knows about location, knows location is the most important thing.''