Copycat Building
The 1501 Guilford Ave building (most commonly known as the Copycat Building) was built in 1897 as a manufacturing warehouse. Today it has become home to the creative class of Baltimore, Maryland and continues to be a creative landmark of the Station North Arts and Entertainment District.
In order to save manufacturing companies inside the building from moving out, Charles Lankford bought the Copycat Building in 1983 from a previous owner for the sum of $225,000. The building was nicknamed "the Copycat" due to a billboard advertising for the Copy Cat printing company that stood on its roof for years. At the time, it housed a variety of light-industrial tenants.
"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 (3,700 m2) industrial building at 419 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."
The Copy Cat Building was also home to The Wham City Art's Collective, former home to Baltimore artist Dan Deacon, Blood Baby, Santa Dads, Videohipos, Ed Schrader, Jimmy Joe Roche, and others. In addition to hosting local and touring acts Wham City hosted live stage performances, including of their interpretation of Beauty And The Beast, and held the first Whartscape Festival in the building in 2006. The related group Wham City Comedy also maintains a studio at the Copycat, where filmmakers and comedians Ben O'Brien and Alan Resnick produce and direct works, including the infomercial parody Live Forever as You Are Now with Alan Resnick which was produced for Adult Swim
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