Copycat Building

The Copy Cat Building is a Baltimore, Maryland landmark containing artists' live/work/paint spaces.

The 1905 Baltimore City atlas shows the copycat building occupied by the Crown Cork & Seal bottle cap company. A similar sized building one block north also housed another portion of the company's enterprise with their main operation in East Baltimore.

Charles Lankford bought the 165,000-square-foot (15,300 m²) brick building at 1501 Guilford Avenue in 1983. The building is commonly called the "Copy Cat Building" after a billboard for the Copy Cat printing company that stood on its roof for years.^[1] 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 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."	”
—Brennen Jensen, "Industry to Easels", Baltimore City Paper

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.

Bands that have played the warehouse include: Grimes, Fat Day, Lightning Bolt (Rhode Island), Black Forest/Black Sea (Rhode Island), Japanther (Brooklyn, NY), Wolf Eyes (Ann Arbor), Gravenhurst (England), Robotnicka (France), The Death Set, Matt + Kim, Nautical Almanac, Long Live Death, the USAISAMONSTER, Need New Body, Landed, Rapdragons, Dan Deacon, Yukon, Muscle Brain.

Today, the Copy Cat is still home to many young artists, musicians, filmmakers, and professionals looking for a large space to live, create, study, and live in the city. The cost of rent is 50 cents per square foot.

There are many residents who utilize their living spaces to host art and music-related events. The building is used for the set of the talk show, "It's a Remarckable Time Who Cares."

Bands and other performers that currently list themselves as residents: Aardvark Mountain, Aghost, Alternate Seduction, Anteater Mountain, Avocado Happy Hour, Avocado Mountain, Happy Mountain, Danimal Collective, Auxiliary Thumbs, Baby Gap, The Babysitter's Club Mountain, Bad Soap, Baleen Relay, the Bel-Air Shitter, Bent Bread, Benjie Loveless, Bread Bender, Bon Appetit, Bored Control, Chiefs Hat, Chris Martinelli and Tropical Punch, The Church of Stop!, Crab Rangoon, Craft Service, Crumb, Crystal Mountain, Crystal Rainbow, Do While, Dope Body, Double Dagger, Each Other, Each Others, Ego Reduction, Encino Qdoba, Encino Thug, Exposed Wall, Eye Lid, Farts Per Second, Fish Lip, Focal Plane, Four Pounds of Bacon, Frank, Got Scalped?, Gotta Go to Work, Grainfinder, Grandlid, Grayson James Brown, Happy Family, Hexspeak, Holy Ghost Party, Impress, In Every Room, Iron Pile, Kirby Adams, Lee B. Freeman, Life, Leaf Shutter, Male Tuxedo Aggression, Mayonnaise Commercial, Metal Detector, Moccasin Brain, Moonraker, Mountain Mountain, My Father's Ass, No Name, Painful Dad, P.A.R.E., Pale Iron, Pare, Peanut Butter Balloon, Peanut Butter Mountain, Pet Rock, Pigment X, Pilar Diaz, Pipe Loop, Poor Mouth, Rainbow Mountain, Rainbow Crystals, Rainbow Rainbow, Rapdragons, Republican Noise, Richard Demerol, Rocktapus!, Royal Le, Run DMT, Sekret Dyke, Semya, Sharp Shitter, Slop Shoe, Smoke Like A Raven, Soda Brain, Smart Growth, Soft Cat, the Slimeys, x Stopping Down x, Turnip Bay Audio, Turnip Bay Coast Guard Marching Band, Turnip Bay Corps of Engineers, Turquoise Cats, Used Tire, Van Jones S.T.R.O.N.G., Water Tower, Walker Diggs, WCBM Rockers/Revenge, Weekends, Wild Furby, Wolfpack Jazz, Wooden Invalid, and Yawn.

External links

• Copycat Building on Google Street View

References

• Baltimore City Paper May 8, 2002 Industry to Easels: Arts-District Designation Easing Conversion of Factories to Studios

1. ^ Jensen, Brennen. "Your Art Here: Will the Station North Arts District Paint a Brighter Future for The Baltimore Blast", "Baltimore City Paper", July 30, 2003. Accessed May 17, 2007.

Coordinates: 39°18′24″N 76°36′43″W / 39.30667°N 76.61194°W / 39.30667; -76.61194