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Balitmore Penninsula or Baltimore Peninsula?

Rebranding and common misspellings can often lead to confusion.

Two words that are often misspelled are contained in the new name for the Port Covington urban development project in Baltimore, Maryland on the south shore of the South Baltimore peninsula. That name, of course, as the title of this article indicates, is Baltimore Peninsula.

Port Covington is the geographic area of Baltimore’s strip of land along the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River on the southern edge of the South Baltimore peninsula. Over a century ago it was developed as a port for the shipment and export of coal. It is (today) the site of one of the largest urban development projects on the East Coast.

The port of Port Covington circa 1913 on the baltimore peninsula
The port of Port Covington circa 1913 on the south shore of the Baltimore Peninsula.

In today’s business world, rebranding is becoming increasingly popular. However, with rebranding comes the risk of misspellings. While careful proofing eliminates errors in marketing materials many people (marketing agencies) fail to consider typos by the general public – especially when typing Internet domain names into the URL bar of a web browser.

port covington rebranded as baltimore peninsula
The Port Covington urban development initiative has been rebranded to the name Baltimore Peninsula. (Note: the red text was added by the photographer to illustrate the rebranded name.)

So, what about the misspellings of Baltimore Peninsula?

Common typos for “Baltimore” are balitmore (59%), balitimore (7%) and baltimroe (5%).
Common typos for “peninsula” are penninsula (54%), pennisula (19%) and penisula (18%).

Note: the percentages shown are from the How to Spell website and were collected from over 15,231,521 spell check sessions on www.spellchecker.net from Jan 2010 – Jun 2012.

There are people (and companies) who capitalize on misspellings when it comes to recovering website traffic. They are commonly referred to as “domain squatters” and actually do monetize erroneous web traffic. Yes, people really do type in web addresses and often type them incorrectly. Of the above examples (as of this writing, November 2022), baltimroe.com is still available – the others have all been registered by someone or some entity. A couple are being offered on the third-party market and one has expired and may soon be deleted from the registry (perhaps for someone else to grab). This writer will be surprised if “baltimroe.com” is not soon registered.

From those typo percentage it might be interesting to see how long the domain “BalitmorePenninsula.com” and its variations remain available. (Yes, that is meant as a hint to the marketing agency responsible for the BaltimorePeninsula.com website. 🙂

Street level view of the Baltimore Peninsula
Street level view of the Baltimroe Penisula (sic) urban development project on the south shore of the South Baltimore peninsula.
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Baltimore Peninsula was Port Covington.

The new “branding” for Port Covington is now the Baltimore Peninsula.

We’re thinking the new developers (from New York and San Francisco) may not understand the actual geography of a peninsula. The South Baltimore Peninsula, Baltimore’s peninsula, is the land between the Inner Harbor and Patapsco River on the north to the Middle branch of the Patapsco River on the south. It is so much more than the narrow piece of land south of Interstate 95, the area known as Port Covington, on the south shore of the peninsula.

Baltimore Peninsula as seen from Harborview Tower in 2014
Here is a nearly two-decade old photo of the “Baltimore Peninsula” as seen from the Harborview Condominium tower in 2004. The water in the foreground is the Inner Harbor/North Branch of the Patapsco River. The water in the top right is the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River. This is “the” peninsula as defined by geography and the people and businesses living and thriving here.
Port Covington back in 2014
Port Covington nearly a decade ago. The photograph is from the deck of a cruise ship departing the Cruise Maryland Terminal on January 31, 2014.

Regardless of the thinking or the geography, having a proper domain name is certainly better than the PC.city (dot-city) domain that was used for the last few years. The new Baltimore Peninsula actually uses baltimorepeninsula dot-com as the URL address. The old PC.city and PortCovington.city now redirect to the new domain and website. We’ll award kudos for that part of the change.

It is what it is and we sincerely wish the best for the developers and hope that the project moves forward rapidly and successfully. The impressive amount of new urban development will be beneficial for all of the people of Baltimore and for the communities surrounding the Baltimore Peninsula.

Now on to the humorous part of the rebranding.

Of course, any radical change brings forth the humorous memes on Social Media. One of the most creative is from the talented people at the website called Baltimore Memes.

This will be completed soon….or not…to include the basic tenets of the main meme and various “rebranding” comments gleaned from Facebook and Twitter.

Well, OK, here’s one: National Aquarium = Place with All the Fishes
and another: Little Italy = PastaVille
and one more: Fells Point = Cape Beer

If you have another – please post in the comments.

hanover street bridge panorama to the west of baltimore peninsula
A recent panorama photograph or the South Hanover Street Bridge to the west of Port Covington, now Baltimore Peninsula. This bridge connects South Baltimore with Curtis Bay, Brooklyn Park, Glen Burnie and other points to the south. Yes, this photograph is available as wall art.
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Baltimore Boating – Inner Harbor to Port Covington Marina List

South Baltimore boasts some world class boating facilities from the Inner Harbor to the Port Covington Marina.

Sail your boat, dock your boat (transient dockage or yearly slip lease), service your boat, take a boat ride, charter a boat, repair your boat, go fishing…all in (or from) the Baltimore Inner Harbor, Patapsco River and on the Chesapeake Bay.

Drop Anchor at Port Covington Marina or another facility
Drop anchor at a Baltimore marine facility.

MARINAS AND DOCKING FACILITIES

Baltimore Harbor has a fine selection of marinas. Whether you want to call this your home port or find good transient dockage for your Baltimore visit, you will find several world-class facilities in our waters.

NOTE: The domain name, PortCovingtonMaritimeCenter.com is currently for sale.

WATER-RELATED BUSINESS

Baltimore Harbor also has many other businesses and industries that are “water” related – from marine contracting to nautical charts and many more.

  • Chesapeake Bay Cruising Guides, On-line guide to Chesapeake Bay Boating – created by boaters for boaters.
  • Davis Ship Service, 1400 E. Clement Street • 410-625-2676
  • General Ship Repair, 1449 Key Highway • 752-7620
  • Maryland Nautical Sales, Navigation Resource Center – Marine Supplies, Navigation Charts, Nautical Items • 1400 E. Clement Street • Baltimore, MD 21230 • 410-752-4268
  • Port Covington Marina – formerly the Tidewater Yacht Service Center.

FISHING CHARTERS

CHESAPEAKE BAY