When Bob Hosier first strapped on
a diaper and ran around his Hampden block dressed as Baby New Year in 1988, just as 1989 was being ticked in, he says he wasn't really looking for attention. "As far as I'm concerned, I did it for me and the family," says the 46-year-old Hampdenite.
Hosier lives in the flashiest house on Baltimore's blinkiest stretch of road, the 700 block of West 34th Street. Each year at Christmastime, the street's homeowners turn their block into a holiday spectacle. The rowhouses are adorned with lights--many stretched from house to house across the street--wreaths, toy trains, Santas, reindeer, and too many other decorations to list. The wacky, over-the-top nature of the scene, known as the Miracle on 34th Street, has long been a favorite holiday drive-by--not to mention a ready-made story for members of the media looking for a feel-good holiday feature.
The miracle doesn't end when Christmas ends and the throngs of gawkers ease, though. On New Year's Eve--when Hosier dresses up as Baby New Year and presides over Hampden's version of Times Square's ball drop--the street gets its second holiday wind. As midnight approaches on Dec. 31, Hosier appears on the street in costume to ring in the new year with friends, family, and, more recently, crowds of curious onlookers anxious for a glimpse of the big baby.
It takes a big man to dress like a baby outfit in front of a crowd. One lapse into self-consciousness and the funny charade turns foolish quickly.
"He's the type of guy you want to have around when you have a party," says Hosier's son-in-law Larry Kerns, who lives across the street from the Hosiers.
Hosier says he has always had a yen for holiday decorating--when he was 13 years old, he dug up the front yard of his family's home in Overlea to lay cable for an elaborate decorating scheme he had planned for Christmas. After he married his wife, Darlene, in 1983, he was eager to join in the 34th Street tradition. Darlene's family members have always adorned their home with lights and a rooftop Santa, but with Hosier's help the house--since inherited by Darlene--was quickly transformed into an incandescent wonder that is replicated every holiday season.
In 1988, Hosier decided to take the holiday tradition a step further. He rigged a lighted silver ball on a lamppost and, using a pulley system powered by drill motors (these days he uses a garage-door opener), created a mechanism that drops the lighted ball at the stroke of midnight.
After the first ball drop, it was clear this would be another Hosier family tradition. But Hosier's wife and friends thought the event needed a little something extra: an appearance from Baby New Year. So the next year, Hosier donned a diaper, bonnet, bib, and pacifier and stepped into the cold New Year's Eve night to drop the ball. Were it not for the warm encouragement of a bottle of Old Grand Dad, Hosier says, it might have been more difficult for him to face the task at hand.
"Oh yeah," he says, casting a glance at his basement bar. "I take a couple of shots before I hit the streets."
That first year, Hosier also waddled up the road to Showalter's bar on Chestnut Street and made a visit to the nearby (now closed) Northern District Police Station.
"The policeman on duty looked at me and said, 'Do we have to lock you up?'" Hosier recalls. Fortunately, he made it back home that night without being entered into the police log.
From that night on, Hosier has made his rounds as Hampden's Baby New Year. He says he's had his share of memorable moments--like the time he flopped on the top of his wife's brand-new Thunderbird and the year when an ash from someone's cigarette made contact with his diapered rump, sending him scurrying. Word of mouth has spread that this Baby New Year is a fun guy to be around when midnight strikes, and now a crowd gathers on his block to wait for his appearance.
"You can walk outside a quarter of 12 on New Year's Eve and you will have a few people," Darlene Hosier says. "By five of 12, I don't know where they all come from."
Hundreds of people flock to the street to get a photo with the cherished oversized cherub.
"It's good luck to have your picture taken with him," says Jim Pollack, who lives down the street from the Hosiers. "That will give you good luck for the rest of the year, just so you have your hands around him."
But there's only so long an adult man can run around in a diaper without being noticed. Hosier says that strangers have recently begun recognizing him out of costume. Could this be a sign that the appearance of Baby New Year on 34th Street will become a true Baltimore tradition passed down from one generation to the next?
"I never thought about it," Hosier says. "I'm just running around in a diaper having a little fun."
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