are you referring to the complimentary car wash at president and lombard? but yeah I agree, there's a lot that's wrong with baltimore's downtown.
if you assume that most people have to commute to work, it does make sense to have a downtown that's mostly office buildings and well-connected via public transit. so I kinda expect most downtowns to be kinda boring, not sure why you would expect them to be fun to walk around it. of course, nowhere in baltimore is particularly well-served by public transit, and the downtown is not merely boring; it's downright unpleasant and somewhat unsafe.
I guess you could imagine restaurants switching from lunch to dinner service, but yeah the whole idea of downtown lends itself to emptiness I guess. Certainly not helped in Baltimore's case by how many of the offices are just empty.
Addressing the context, though, Baltimore certainly belongs in any discussion of unpleasant downtowns. Altercations are a potential issue even driving (more so than walking actually). But there's also increasingly little to even walk to. The nightlife and culture all moved to the surrounding neighborhoods, now you just go downtown for the aquarium or the occasional bureaucratic necessity.