Greetings from Baltimore! We’re excited to be serving as host for the 2016 AATOD Conference with our theme: Saving Lives: Access to Improved Health & Recovery. Baltimore is a city that has struggled with drug addiction for decades, and has confronted the challenge by saving lives through publicly supported treatment programs and successful efforts to reduce deaths from overdose. Baltimore has benefited from dynamic leadership in public health, and from the presence of major medical institutions. All have joined in efforts to arrest opioid abuse in our communities.

The host hotel, the Marriott Waterfront, is situated in Harbor East, a “city within a city” that has become part of Baltimore’s impressive skyline over the last 15 years. It is full of excellent restaurants and boutiques with superb views of Baltimore’s redeveloped, post-industrial waterfront.

The hotel is a short walk from Baltimore’s world-famous Inner Harbor, with shops and restaurants along a brick promenade that rings the area. In fact, the promenade serves as a seven-mile pathway connecting one edge of the harbor rim to the other—from historic Fort McHenry, site of the 1814 battle that inspired Francis Scott Key’s writing of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” to Canton, the exciting southeast Baltimore neighborhood that has seen tremendous population growth over the last three decades. If you walk the walk, make sure you make a stop in historic Fells Point, another old Baltimore neighborhood that has been in revival since the 1970s.

Because the AATOD Conference is being held in October, and during Halloween, you won’t want to miss the festivities in Fells Point. For years, students of the Maryland Institute College of Art have gathered in “the Point” dressed in creative costumes and makeup to celebrate the occasion. Make sure you bring a camera because your friends back home might not believe your descriptions of what you see along Thames Street.

Speaking of art, Baltimore has wonderful museums: Walters Art Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art (featuring a world-famous collection of Matisse), B&O Railroad Museum, American Visionary Arts Museum, and The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum. Just a short stroll from the Waterfront Marriott are the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House, where Mary Pickersgill sewed the flag that inspired Key to write our national anthem; the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African-American History and Culture; the Jewish Museum of Maryland, home to two of the nation’s oldest synagogues; and the Baltimore Civil War Museum at President Street Station, which explores the city’s status during the war and its connection to the Underground Railroad.

Baltimore is home of the vast Johns Hopkins University and Medical Institutions, including the Bloomberg School of Public Health and one of the leading hospitals in the world. Across town, on the western edge of growing downtown Baltimore, is the University of Maryland Medical System, schools of law, medicine, and school of social work. Just north of there is the city’s oldest public market, Lexington Market. All of these sites are accessible by an MTA bus or Baltimore’s free downtown circulator.

AATOD, the Hospitality Committee, Behavioral Health System Baltimore, and the Behavioral Health Administration of Maryland welcome you to Baltimore. See you in October!

Sincerely,
Lillian M Donnard, LCSW-C
AATOD Hospitality Chair

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“Charm City” Baltimore is the site of the 2016 AATOD Conference, and on behalf of the Hospitality Committee, we are thrilled to be sharing our great and sometimes quirky city with you.

The conference will be held at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, situated in Harbor East, a “city within a city” that has become part of the skyline over the last 15 years. It is full of excellent restaurants and boutiques and the views of Baltimore’s redeveloped waterfront are superb.

The hotel is a short walk from the world-famous Inner Harbor, with shops and restaurants along a brick promenade that rings the Inner Harbor. The promenade serves as a seven-mile pathway connecting one edge of the harbor rim to the other–from historic Fort McHenry, site of the 1814 battle that inspired Francis Scott Key’s writing of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” to Canton, the exciting southeast Baltimore neighborhood that has seen tremendous population growth over the last three decades.

Baltimore is also known as “the City of Neighborhoods” … hundreds and hundreds of them with unique character, architecture, and foods! We are home to some of the earliest National Register historic neighborhoods in the nation, including Federal Hill, Mount     Vernon Place and Fells Point. Speaking of which, there are very few places on earth more entertaining, creative and zany than Fells Point on Halloween, due in no small measure to the Maryland Institute of Art (MICA) students and the large artistic community in Baltimore. Bring a costume (you’ll fit right in) or at least a camera; no one back home will believe it otherwise!

Baltimore has more public monuments than any other city per capita in the country and is home to many great museums: The Walters Art Gallery, the Baltimore Museum of Art (featuring a world-famous collection of Matisse), the B&O Railroad Museum, and Great Blacks in Wax. Just a short stroll from the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront are the Star-Spangled Banner House, where Mary Pickersgill sewed the flag that inspired Key to write our national anthem; the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African-American History and Culture; the Jewish Museum of Maryland and one of the nation’s oldest synagogues; and the Baltimore Civil War Museum at President Street Station, which explores the city’s status during the war and its connection to the Underground Railroad. Most of these wonderful amenities are accessible by an MTA bus or Baltimore’s free Charm City circulator.

We look forward to seeing you in October. Stop by the Hospitality booth and we will “point you in the right direction!”

Sincerely,
Lillian M. Donnard, LCSW-C
AATOD Hospitality Chair