At the height of the harbormaster’s reign over Baltimore city waters, bananas, not tourists, were a chief Inner Harbor import.

Harborplace, the National Aquarium and the glowing waterfront promenade that would later attract millions of visitors were still unimagined. In their place was a humming commercial port, managed by a figure acting as part lawman, part traffic director and part political leader from his perch in the shadow of the Pier 4 power plant.

Sometime in the 1980s or 1990s, it’s unclear exactly when, Baltimore unceremoniously ceased to have a harbormaster at all. The post was never eliminated. It simply wasn’t filled. For a while, a dockmaster continued to collect fees from the watercraft that used city slips, although that too fell off. The bigger, broader responsibilities of the harbormaster drifted away, as if afloat on the harbor itself.

Baltimore, a city with 61 miles of shoreline, had no one minding the water.

That changed in February. That’s when Mike McGeady, a Baltimore native whose family tree is rich with its own harbor history, cracked the door to the former dockmaster’s office and dusted off the desk. The harbormaster was back at work.

McGeady is responsible for directing harbor traffic, although it’s now populated by pleasure craft, tour boats, tall ships and urban pirate ships. The watermen and cargo haulers who once weighed their wares on scales alongside the harbormaster’s office have been replaced by city residents and visitors coming for recreation, a scenic view or a waterfront meal.

It’s the job of a modern harbormaster to curate the experiences of those visitors, McGeady explained from his office, a fishbowl-like space tucked beneath the Rusty Scupper restaurant.

Priority one is safety. McGeady dons a slim life jacket every time he’s outside. A close second is accessibility. McGeady aims to make the water, one of Baltimore’s most unique but undervalued resources, available to anyone and everyone who wants to partake.

McGeady is assuming control of the harbor with a sea change on the horizon. The once-iconic pavilions nestled against the harbor are due to be replaced by high-rise residences, a drastic alteration that some fear will challenge public access. At the same time, the push is on to make the water cleaner, more available for the little guy: kayakers, even swimmers.

“A lot of people have been very good at taking care of it from this side,” McGeady said, gesturing toward the brick pavers that line the promenade.

“Somebody’s got to take care of it from that side,” he added, looking toward the water.

Fending off the pirates

Without a dockmaster (who departed in 2019), and after the dissolution of the Baltimore Police marine unit in 2020, Baltimore’s waters had quietly devolved into a free-for-all.

Boaters were docking for free on city piers. Others were dropping anchor in the channel, unknowingly (or knowingly) blocking traffic.

“People get a little piratey,” said McGeady, a Keswick native raised in a Curtis Bay marine construction business who, for a time, sailed aboard the Pride of Baltimore II. He quickly began establishing some ground rules for the harbor.

While the harbormaster was enshrined in Baltimore’s charter in the early 1900s, the office’s powers are murky. Department of Transportation officials hope to update the city’s numerous outdated ordinances related to the harbor, but as it stands, McGeady has no authority to punish boaters who refuse to pay or haul anchor.

What he can and does do is gently remind.

“It definitely starts with a ‘Did you know?’” McGeady said of most of his interactions with boaters not following the rules. “Those that are responsible humans understand.”

The goal isn’t to restrict the harbor but to throw open the doors. Signs, bleached to near illegibility, have for decades warned boaters against docking at city piers. McGeady is taking them down.

A webpage, established by McGeady on marina locator website Dockwa, allows boaters for the first time to book slips at city piers online. The site, launched in July, replaced a paper, cash and check system.

On Dockwa, the pier’s limited amenities are acknowledged, but its finest assets are touted: “low, low rates and location, location, location!” Reviews from the small number of users extoll McGeady’s friendly interactions.

More promotions are on the way. The modern harbormaster is part salesman.

“If you’re a boater and you want to go to the Orioles game, I can put you at the Finger Piers for less money than parking a car,” McGeady said. The city’s three-hour Dock and Dine rate is $18.

Veronica P. McBeth, Baltimore’s new director of the Department of Transportation, has charged McGeady with thinking about a broader vision for the harbor and liaising with other organizations and agencies that share jurisdiction.

The harbor is more than just a site for recreation; it’s also a mode of transportation, she said.

The dockmaster’s role was constrained by its narrow jurisdiction, said McBeth, who returned to the department in February from the federal government, and previously oversaw the dockmaster’s office and the city’s water taxi system as transit bureau chief. The role never had the ability to manage and coordinate all the assets of the harbor the way a harbormaster can.

Harbor stakeholders have long agreed. A 2011 master plan for the harbor called for the return of the position.

“It’s grossly underutilized,” McBeth said of the harbor. “We’re here to change that over these next couple years.”

Dan Taylor, president of Waterfront Partnership, said he’s excited about McGeady’s efforts to modernize the docking system and attract more boaters.

Taylor sees even greater potential in the harbormaster’s coordination as groups like Waterfront Partnership push to use the harbor for recreation.

“The success and safety of that is enhanced by there being a harbormaster paying attention to how all these things are working together,” he said.

The new mayor of Pratt Street

If city officials are serious about allowing McGeady to stretch a bit, he would follow in the tradition of Baltimore harbormasters past.

None was better known than Jean Hofmeister, the so called “Mayor of Pratt Street,” who held the post for more than 30 years from the 1940s to 1970s. In a 1950s profile in The Evening Sun, he bemoaned the advent of truck shipping and the whiskey-guzzling men who took refuge on city piers.

By the 1960s, Hofmeister was battling a different foe: development. When a proposed east-west expressway risked decimating traditional commerce on the harbor with a low-slung six-lane bridge, Hofmeister pushed his own counterproposals. Neither the bridge nor Hofmeister’s plans came to fruition.

Today, Baltimore’s harbor finds itself at a similar crossroads. The Harborplace pavilions, which long drew visitors but have fallen into disrepair, are slated for demolition. In their place would rise residential towers after a zoning change approved by 60% of voters in November.

The plan, proposed by Baltimore developer David Bramble’s MCB Real Estate, would fortify the Inner Harbor against flooding, raising its walls by seven to 10 feet. The plans would also shift the promenade’s location, pushing some existing harbor tenants into the channel.

The changes have the potential to run afoul of McGeady’s mission to make the harbor more accessible.

“They have a job to do, which is develop,” he said. “I have a job to do, which is to be a steward of this environment. When these things come together, what’s best for the developer may not be best for public access to the waterfront.”

With no firm schedule for the waterfront construction, McGeady, for now, is finding the balance between improving and marketing the city’s harbor infrastructure while knowing that some of it will be dismantled. The city-owned Finger Piers, public docking space tucked behind the hubs for several cruise lines, are one such challenge. Minor repairs have been made, and McGeady is testing a sealant to extend the piers’ useful life.

Other plans are in the works. McGeady still doesn’t have a boat. For now, he uses an e-bike or hops into his personal SUV emblazoned with a harbormaster insignia he designed to evade parking tickets.

Also on the horizon is Sail 250, a massive waterfront celebration of the United States’ 250th birthday slated for next summer. An armada of tall ships that McGeady describes as “like Fleet Week, but much larger” will sail up the East Coast making several stops, including Baltimore, from June 25 to July 1.

The event will be a test of the renewed harbormaster’s office and the improved coordination that McGeady and McBeth envision. It will also check every box for a Baltimore man whose favorite things all revolve around the harbor.

“I have three big things,” McGeady explained. “Safety, maintain commerce and then throw the best party there is.”