Corey McLaughlin

Baltimore Magazine • October 12, 2021

Catalyte Shows How Investing in People Works for Everyone in the Long Run

Tim Reed didn’t believe it. He had just dropped out of college at Morgan State after five years, in part because he couldn’t afford to pay tuition anymore, when he saw an online job advertisement that looked fake.

Baltimore Magazine • October 5, 2021

ShareBaby is Baltimore’s De Facto Free Diaper Bank

Ask people to name an essential item, and they’ll probably rattle off things like food, water, or shelter. That is to say, diapers might not be the first thing to come to mind, says ShareBaby executive director Amina Osman Weiskerger, whose job it is to convey that as much as possible.

Baltimore Magazine • July 28, 2021

Keeper of the Yard

One of only two women in Major League Baseball’s 118-year history to be in the role, Nicole Sherry is the keeper of Camden Yards.

Baltimore Magazine • March 30, 2021

Animal Farm

The Baltimore County Center for Maryland Agriculture is a largely unknown oasis on the edge of the city.

Baltimore Magazine • February 23, 2021

Caryn York is Making Big Changes to Break Down Workforce Barriers

For the last decade, Caryn York has had roles in state and local politics, and today—as the youngest-ever CEO of the statewide, city-based nonprofit Job Opportunities Task Force (JOTF)—she’s making big changes by growing the 25-year-old organization’s footprint.

Baltimore Magazine • November 23, 2020

Cal Ripken Jr. Hits Another Milestone With Cherry Hill Youth Facility

Construction on a $2.25-million, 83,000-square-foot waterfront field complex at Reedbird Park in Cherry Hill is expected to start by the end of the year.

Baltimore magazine • March 2, 2020

Garrick Williams Teaches Life Lessons Through Football

He’s right. When you stand in the center of this football field in Northwest Baltimore, the grass framed by the backs of rowhouses, a pair of field-goal posts, and oak trees with leaves turning shades of yellow, orange, and red on a chilly late fall day, “You can feel the peace,” says Garrick Williams, the 62-year-old founder of the Park Heights Saints youth football program.

Baltimore magazine • February 26, 2020

These Cops Defy the Stereotypes About Baltimore City Police

In the wake of Freddie Gray’s death in police custody in 2015, and the ensuing unrest (the infamous CVS off North Avenue was just a short walk away) and white-hot media attention, Evan Anderson and Charles Lee were among a group of officers who had heard enough to know they needed to do something so people could “see us as being positive,” Lee says.

Baltimore magazine • November 11, 2019

Shooting Survivor Turned Trauma Surgeon Fights Against Gun Violence

Sometimes, Dr. Joseph Sakran catches himself looking through the waiting room glass in the Johns Hopkins emergency room before delivering the news. He thinks about how his parents must have felt when Dr. Ahmed came to talk to them all those years ago. And he thinks about the 17-year-old version of himself who lived through the trauma and survived. “It never gets easy,” he says of breaking the tragic news to the families of victims of gun violence. “It’s heart-wrenching to watch that anguish, to listen to those screams.”

Baltimore magazine • August 1, 2019

Camden Yards Finds Success in First Concert with Billy Joel

Like all of us, Billy Joel is only human. At 70 years old, the bushy black hair he once had on his iconic 1970s and 1980s album covers is long gone, and he’s now married for the fourth time. His body is a little bit rounder, his voice just a little more gravely, and his high notes a little lower—though he’s said that he’s never considered himself a great singer anyway.

Baltimore magazine • June 18, 2019

Baltimore Streetcar Museum Rebuilds From Ironic Accident

“Hello sir, how can I help you?” the man dressed like a conductor asks from just inside the front door of the Baltimore Streetcar Museum. He’s John La Costa, a 69-year-old, semi-retired electrical and systems engineer. Since the mid-1970s, he and small group of volunteers have spent much of their free time here, keeping alive the history of Baltimoreans’ primary form of public transportation during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Baltimore magazine • June 13, 2019

Review: Woodrow’s Bar-B-Que

There’s always a beautiful moment at Woodrow’s Bar-B-Que—maybe as you’re effortlessly peeling a tender piece of char-encrusted meat from a giant rib bone or savoring a slice of moist brisket that melts in your mouth—when you think to yourself: It just can’t get any better than this.

Baltimore magazine • March 26, 2019

Baltimore Streetcar Museum Rebuilds After CSX Train Derailment

On Monday, ten days after a CSX train derailed from a span of track above Falls Road near the Baltimore Streetcar Museum—several empty freighters and a tanker dangled then slowly fell from the overpass above, destroying the power source that runs the museum’s antique streetcars, ironically, on a different line of track below—a small construction crew continued work on the cleanup.

CoreyMcLaughlin.com • March 3, 2019

Writing Is Hard

CoreyMcLaughlin.com • February 24, 2019

Why E.B. White Wrote Charlotte's Web

Baltimore magazine • February 7, 2019

Review: Well Crafted Kitchen

The seed for Well Crafted Kitchen—the pizza counter serving delicious wood-fired pies from a space at Union Collective—was planted six years ago when co-owners Liz and Ryan Bower, then working as local wedding photographers, were taking engagement shots of their best friends Laura and Tom Wagner. After the session, the four Bucknell University alums sat around a campfire in Upstate New York and mulled the idea of running a food business together, though they relegated it to their wish list at t

Baltimore magazine • December 20, 2018

Review: Moby Dick House of Kabob

Let’s start with the name, Moby Dick. Not every restaurant is named after an epic piece of American literature, and the title’s attention-grabbing use is even more interesting when you consider it’s for a Persian fast-casual restaurant. The inspiration is of the second order. The franchise’s founder, Iranian immigrant Mike Daryoush, loved a famous restaurant of the same name in his country’s capital of Tehran, whose owner was rumored to be a fan of Herman Melville and his classic 1851 novel abo

Baltimore magazine • October 24, 2018

Review: Vinny’s Italian Café

It feels funny to describe a restaurant that has been in business since 1999 as “off the eaten path,” but that’s exactly what Vinny’s Italian Café is. A five-minute drive east from the edge of Canton is all it takes to get you there, but you might as well be a world, not a neighborhood, away. Auto-body shops on the industrial drive that is Holabird Avenue surround the white, L-shaped building with red ceramic shingles that owner Vinny Scotto helped build.

Baltimore magazine • July 19, 2018

Review: Inferno Pizza

If you’ve never had the pleasure of eating food cooked by a James Beard Award-nominated chef, chances are you wouldn’t expect your first experience to come from a neighborhood pizza joint in a Gaithersburg strip mall. But what’s happening inside Inferno Pizzeria’s suburban storefront is far from ordinary.

Baltimore magazine • January 5, 2018

Aaron Maybin Helps Shine Spotlight on Cold Schools

“What’s the day been like for you guys today?” Aaron Maybin asked the kids in his class at Henson Elementary School in West Baltimore. “Cold!” more than a few replied with uninhibited childhood screams. “Very, very, very, very cold,” said one in particular. Maybin, a former defensive lineman for the Buffalo Bills and New York Jets and the No. 11 overall NFL draft pick out of Penn State in 2009, is now a teacher in his hometown of Baltimore. Since his four-year professional football career ended, he’s lived and worked here, pursuing art and activism.