/items/browse/hsbakery.com/about-us/page/10?output=atom <![CDATA[Explore 91ĘÓƵ]]> 2025-03-15T18:11:37-04:00 Omeka /items/show/381 <![CDATA[United Steel Workers Locals 2609 and 2610]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

United Steel Workers Locals 2609 and 2610

Creator

Rachel Donaldson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Old and New Union Halls on Dundalk Avenue

Story

Two aging union halls on Dundalk Avenue help the story of Baltimore’s steel industry. In 1942, steel workers had won their right to unionize and established the United Steel Workers’ of America. When the two-story tan brick building at the corner of Dundalk Avenue and Gusryan Street was built in 1952, it served as the headquarters for USW locals 2609 and 2610. As both groups grew in size, however, local 2610 split off and constructed a modern new building next door. According to Gay Flynn, a steelworker who lived in Highlandtown and worked at Sparrow’s Point, many workers recognized the need for a union:

“A lot of people were afraid to go to the higher-ups and that, to me, is what brought the unions. They have somebody that they can go to and call that’s on their side. They always used to feel that they had nobody to talk to. We used to have a company union and a lot of people looked at that as being just that, a company union. Everybody thought that that union was for the company.”

Once the USW started, some, like Flynn, joined to protect their jobs, whereas others saw the union as a necessary way to protect the gains that workers had made in the labor movement. , a 34-year veteran of Sparrow’s Point, former shop steward and member of the alternate grievance committee, views the USW, and other unions, this way:

“Well what I feel is, thank God for unions in America. Because it made me realize that nothing was given freely, everything was born out of struggle. A lot of people today take for [granted] that fact that you get paid vacations. That was something born out of the labor movement—that you get paid if you off sick, that you have workers compensation laws, that you have employer provided health insurance, that you have many safeguards in place, all that were met with resistance when lobbied for that we have in place today that a lot of people think that they are etched into the fabric.”

Related Resources

Street Address

5500 Dundalk Avenue, Dundalk, MD 21224
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/items/show/380 <![CDATA[Pemco International Corporation]]>
The company continued to grow in the years following WWII. According to a Baltimore Sun article from 1958, “The plant has a battery of eight continuous smelters operating 24 hours a day, several days a week to provide porcelain enamels for appliance makers producing ranges, refrigerators, washing machines, bathroom and kitchen fixtures.” The $750,000 Pemco research lab on Eastern Avenue opened in 1962 and was the first business in the city to have its own heliport.

By the next decade, however, the company ran into problems with environmental issues. In 1979, city officials demanded that the company clean the lead contamination on the complex on Eastern Avenue. The following year Pemco’s owner, Mobay Chemical Corp. had to pay a $10,000 fine for “excessive fluoride emissions.” Currently, the site is in the process of undergoing redevelopment plans. Purchased by local investment group MCB Real Estate, the company has plans to develop the site as a mixed-use facility similar to Canton Crossing. ]]>
2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Pemco International Corporation

Description

Founded in 1911, the Pemco International Corporation site on Eastern Avenue is a reminder of the enduring environmental legacy of Baltimore’s industrial businesses. First known as the Porcelain Enamel Manufacturing Corporation, the company produced porcelain and enamel coating for kitchen and bathroom appliances and tiles; perhaps most notably, Pemco supplied the orange roofing tiles for Howard Johnson hotels and restaurants. Karl Turk, Sr., a German immigrant who founded the company, became a leader in the porcelain industry after inventing a process for coating iron in porcelain. Turk was also the first to add color to porcelain coatings. In 1926, Pemco won acclaim at the Gas Association Conference for a new a line of kitchen stoves in various colors.

The company continued to grow in the years following WWII. According to a Baltimore Sun article from 1958, “The plant has a battery of eight continuous smelters operating 24 hours a day, several days a week to provide porcelain enamels for appliance makers producing ranges, refrigerators, washing machines, bathroom and kitchen fixtures.” The $750,000 Pemco research lab on Eastern Avenue opened in 1962 and was the first business in the city to have its own heliport.

By the next decade, however, the company ran into problems with environmental issues. In 1979, city officials demanded that the company clean the lead contamination on the complex on Eastern Avenue. The following year Pemco’s owner, Mobay Chemical Corp. had to pay a $10,000 fine for “excessive fluoride emissions.” Currently, the site is in the process of undergoing redevelopment plans. Purchased by local investment group MCB Real Estate, the company has plans to develop the site as a mixed-use facility similar to Canton Crossing.

Creator

Rachel Donaldson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Founded in 1911, the Pemco International Corporation site on Eastern Avenue is a reminder of the enduring environmental legacy of Baltimore’s industrial businesses. First known as the Porcelain Enamel Manufacturing Corporation, the company produced porcelain and enamel coating for kitchen and bathroom appliances and tiles; perhaps most notably, Pemco supplied the orange roofing tiles for Howard Johnson hotels and restaurants. Karl Turk, Sr., a German immigrant who founded the company, became a leader in the porcelain industry after inventing a process for coating iron in porcelain. Turk was also the first to add color to porcelain coatings. In 1926, Pemco won acclaim at the Gas Association Conference for a new a line of kitchen stoves in various colors.

The company continued to grow in the years following WWII. According to a Baltimore Sun article from 1958, “The plant has a battery of eight continuous smelters operating 24 hours a day, several days a week to provide porcelain enamels for appliance makers producing ranges, refrigerators, washing machines, bathroom and kitchen fixtures.” The $750,000 Pemco research lab on Eastern Avenue opened in 1962 and was the first business in the city to have its own heliport.

By the next decade, however, the company ran into problems with environmental issues. In 1979, city officials demanded that the company clean the lead contamination on the complex on Eastern Avenue. The following year Pemco’s owner, Mobay Chemical Corp. had to pay a $10,000 fine for “excessive fluoride emissions.” Currently, the site is in the process of undergoing redevelopment plans. Purchased by local investment group MCB Real Estate, the company has plans to develop the site as a mixed-use facility similar to Canton Crossing.

Street Address

5601 Eastern Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21224
]]>
/items/show/379 <![CDATA[O'Connor's Liquors and the Steel Workers Organizing Committee ]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

O'Connor's Liquors and the Steel Workers Organizing Committee

Creator

Rachel Donaldson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Package Store, Restaurant. and New Deal Labor Landmark

Lede

O'Connor's, a package store and restaurant, has been located since the early 1920s in the heart of Greektown at the corner of Eastern Avenue and Oldham Street. In the 1940s, this unassuming, two-story, brick building played a significant role in the city labor movement of the New Deal era.

Story

O'Connor's, a package store and restaurant, has been located since the early 1920s in the heart of Greektown at the corner of Eastern Avenue and Oldham Street. In the 1940s, this unassuming, two-story, brick building played a significant role in the city labor movement of the New Deal era. Baltimore steel workers fought to unionize between 1940 and 1942 and turned O’Connor’s into the meeting spot where they could discuss the progress of organizing efforts. Similar meetings took place at the Finnish Hall in nearby Highlandtown at Ponca and Foster Streets. The Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) moved their headquarters into the second floor of O’Connor’s and, in 1943, the committee became the United Steelworkers of America, a CIO union.

Ellen Pinter was part of the Finnish community of Highlandtown, and her father worked at the steel mill in Sparrow’s Point. She saw firsthand the effects of underemployment on the steelworkers and their families during the Great Depression. Some only received work for one to two days a week. Many families ran up debts at the grocery store or fell behind on rent. Some families took in boarders to try to make ends meet. Ellen took a job for $18 week working for the steel workers’ union SWOC around 1937 in the office on top of O’Connor’s.

In a 1980 interview with the Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project, Ellen recollected:

"The quarters were small but the activity was small. I can vividly remember when the miners came to Baltimore and started the big organization drive of the CIO. The men were pouring into that hall with their pockets just bulging with dollar bills as they were signing up men into the union. There was such a tremendous upsurge of interest in the union. Of course, the mills were full of foreign-born people who knew the value of unions because they had come from European countries where they had been a little more politically astute. And Finns were aware of unionization and more progressive thought… Oh I can remember the Italians, the Finns, the Czechs, the Americans, they were organizing left and right then, in Bethlehem Steel Company."

Pinter also notes African American participation in the organizing activity—Finnish activists welcomed African Americans at the Finnish Hall during the early days of organizing activity, even though Highlandtown remained a segregated white neighborhood. Racial antagonisms, however, were not absent in the social activities of the union. For instance, Pinter remembers being at a union picnic; a black man asked her to dance and she accepted, only to have a white man cut in and demand to know how she could dare dance with a black man. O’Connor’s still remains in operation today.

Street Address

4801 Eastern Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21224
]]>
/items/show/377 <![CDATA[Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery

Creator

Sharon Reinhard

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Immanuel Lutheran Church purchased a six-acre farm on Grindon Lane near Harford Road in 1874 for the purpose of a cemetery. This area, known as Lauraville, was a sparsely populated community of farming families. The church, which served a mostly German congregation, was located at the time on Caroline Street and is now at Loch Raven Boulevard and Belvedere Avenue.

The purchase of the cemetery was financed by selling $5 shares to the members of the congregation. These shares were redeemable, either in cash or in burial lots. The majority of the members took advantage of the latter offer.

A chapel was built in 1882 and a home for the caretaker was added in 1890. The chapel is still used for funerals, Easter Services, and other events. The caretaker’s home is now a private residence.

The cemetery became the final resting place for a few notable Baltimoreans, such as Johnny Neun, a local Major League baseball player, and John J. Thompson, a Civil War veteran who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his service during that conflict.

Official Website

Street Address

2809 Grindon Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21214
]]>
/items/show/376 <![CDATA["The Little House" on Montgomery Street]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

"The Little House" on Montgomery Street

Subject

Architecture

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

With thousands of rowhouses in every shape, size, and style across the city, not every house stands out. But, 200 ½ East Montgomery Street has earned a rare distinction as the narrowest rowhouse in Baltimore—measuring less than nine feet wide! This mid-nineteenth century treasure was built before the Civil War by the owner of the adjoining house at 200 E. Montgomery Street. Despite its age and small size, the "Little House" features a stylish stained-glass transom and tight brickwork.

In 1974, 91ĘÓƵ honored Mr. and Mrs. John McNair, then owners of the house, at the sixth annual restoration awards in recognition of their work saving 200 and 200 ½ East Montgomery Street from neglect and decay. The couple brought a passion for old houses when they moved to Baltimore from New England and purchased 200 East Montgomery Street (a generous 22 feet wide) and the six-room house next door at 200 ½. The restoration included repointing masonry while matching the original color of the mortar, restoring the interior woodwork, and refinishing the original wood floors.

Street Address

200 1/2 E. Montgomery Street, Baltimore, MD 21230
]]>
/items/show/375 <![CDATA[East Baltimore Street Delicatessens]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

East Baltimore Street Delicatessens

Subject

Food and Drink

Creator

Jewish Museum of Maryland

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

The history of delicatessens in East Baltimore is not limited to Lombard Street. In the thoughtfully restored 800 block of East Baltimore Street, Harry Goodman established one of the city’s earliest delicatessens at 825 E. Baltimore Street around 1905 and Herman Buderak followed with a delicatessen at #813 around 1910. In 1915, Jacob H. Sussman, a 23-year-old immigrant from Minsk, moved to 905 E. Baltimore where he operated the New York Import Company.

It is at 923 E. Baltimore where Sussman and Carl Lev went into business together in 1926 as importers, wholesalers, and retailers of “appetizing delicatessen and all kinds of herring, smoked fish, and imported candies.” In the buildings between Sussman’s two businesses, two of Baltimore’s oldest delicatessens operated before 1910: Harry Caplan’s at 915 and Frank Hurwitz’s at 919. Caplan moved his deli several times before settling near Mikro Kodesh Synagogue in the 1920s.

Street Address

825 E. Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>
/items/show/374 <![CDATA[Flag House Courts and Albemarle Square]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Flag House Courts and Albemarle Square

Creator

Jewish Museum of Maryland

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Albemarle Square is a new residential development that makes up virtually all the housing in the Jonestown neighborhood today. Albemarle Square opened in 2006 on the footprint of the old Flag House Courts public housing project.

The history behind Albemarle Square is a story of urban change and revitalization. Upwardly mobile Jewish immigrants began to move out of the neighborhood in the 1920s. From the 1930s to the 1950s, the area housed a diverse population of the working poor: black and white, Italians, Jews, and others. Declared “blighted” by city officials, the neighborhood’s sagging old row houses were torn down and replaced by Flag House Courts in 1955. The public housing project’s mix of three massive high-rise apartment buildings and 15 low-rise buildings lasted until 2001, its final years plagued by crime and neglect.

Realizing that “warehousing” the poor in vast concrete structures was a failed solution to poverty, city officials demolished Flag House Courts and designed Albemarle Square as an innovative mixed-income development with architecture that echoes the row houses of old. The residents of the development now include both homeowners and tenants.

Street Address

120 S. Central Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>
/items/show/373 <![CDATA[Old Hamilton Library]]>
Designed by Baltimore architect Theodore W. Pietsch and built by Baltimore contractor R.B. Mason on a property donated through the organized efforts of the Woman's Club of Hamilton and the Hamilton Improvement Association, the Old Hamilton Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library is a handsome example of the work of an accomplished Beaux Arts architect and an enduring legacy of the enterprising efforts of civic and social organizations in promoting community development and civic life of northeast Baltimore during the early 20th century. In addition, the Old Hamilton Library is distinguished as one of a collection of libraries in Baltimore and across the nation built from the late 1900s through the 1920s with support from Pittsburgh industrialist Andrew Carnegie.

In May 1917, the Woman’s Club of Hamilton and Ms. E.W.H. Scott, a library organizer with the Maryland Public Library Association established a “library organization” with the goal of building a free public library in Hamilton. They combined their efforts with the Hamilton Improvement Association to raise funds and purchase a lot for the library at the northwest corner of Hamilton.

The building remained in use as a library for nearly three decades, providing books to patrons and serving as a social center for the broader community with exhibits from local painters and evening movie screenings. By the late 1940s, however, the growing number of library patrons living in northeast Baltimore made it difficult for the small building to keep up. After more years of efforts by local residents, construction began on a new library building designed by architects Cochran, Stephenson and Wing on April 2, 1957. In 1959, a new Hamilton Branch Library opened on Harford Road at Glenmore. The original building passed into use as commercial office building and remained occupied in this use by a variety of tenants through the early 2000s. 91ĘÓƵ worked with the Hamilton-Lauraville Main Street program to list the building on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.]]>
2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Old Hamilton Library

Description

The Old Hamilton Branch Library at 3006 Hamilton Avenue is a historic branch library building constructed in 1920 to serve the community of Hamilton in the developing Harford Road corridor of northeast Baltimore. The library remained at this location through 1959 when a new Hamilton Branch Library building opened on Harford Road.

Designed by Baltimore architect Theodore W. Pietsch and built by Baltimore contractor R.B. Mason on a property donated through the organized efforts of the Woman's Club of Hamilton and the Hamilton Improvement Association, the Old Hamilton Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library is a handsome example of the work of an accomplished Beaux Arts architect and an enduring legacy of the enterprising efforts of civic and social organizations in promoting community development and civic life of northeast Baltimore during the early 20th century. In addition, the Old Hamilton Library is distinguished as one of a collection of libraries in Baltimore and across the nation built from the late 1900s through the 1920s with support from Pittsburgh industrialist Andrew Carnegie.

In May 1917, the Woman’s Club of Hamilton and Ms. E.W.H. Scott, a library organizer with the Maryland Public Library Association established a “library organization” with the goal of building a free public library in Hamilton. They combined their efforts with the Hamilton Improvement Association to raise funds and purchase a lot for the library at the northwest corner of Hamilton.

The building remained in use as a library for nearly three decades, providing books to patrons and serving as a social center for the broader community with exhibits from local painters and evening movie screenings. By the late 1940s, however, the growing number of library patrons living in northeast Baltimore made it difficult for the small building to keep up. After more years of efforts by local residents, construction began on a new library building designed by architects Cochran, Stephenson and Wing on April 2, 1957. In 1959, a new Hamilton Branch Library opened on Harford Road at Glenmore. The original building passed into use as commercial office building and remained occupied in this use by a variety of tenants through the early 2000s. 91ĘÓƵ worked with the Hamilton-Lauraville Main Street program to list the building on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

The Old Hamilton Branch Library at 3006 Hamilton Avenue is a historic branch library building constructed in 1920 to serve the community of Hamilton in the developing Harford Road corridor of northeast Baltimore. The library remained at this location through 1959 when a new Hamilton Branch Library building opened on Harford Road.

Designed by Baltimore architect Theodore W. Pietsch and built by Baltimore contractor R.B. Mason on a property donated through the organized efforts of the Woman's Club of Hamilton and the Hamilton Improvement Association, the Old Hamilton Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library is a handsome example of the work of an accomplished Beaux Arts architect and an enduring legacy of the enterprising efforts of civic and social organizations in promoting community development and civic life of northeast Baltimore during the early twentieth century. In addition, the Old Hamilton Library is distinguished as one of a collection of libraries in Baltimore and across the nation built from the late 1900s through the 1920s with support from Pittsburgh industrialist Andrew Carnegie.

In May 1917, the Woman’s Club of Hamilton and Ms. E.W.H. Scott, a library organizer with the Maryland Public Library Association established a “library organization” with the goal of building a free public library in Hamilton. They combined their efforts with the Hamilton Improvement Association to raise funds and purchase a lot for the library at the northwest corner of Hamilton.

The building remained in use as a library for nearly three decades, providing books to patrons and serving as a social center for the broader community with exhibits from local painters and evening movie screenings. By the late 1940s, however, the growing number of library patrons living in northeast Baltimore made it difficult for the small building to keep up. After more years of efforts by local residents, construction began on a new library building designed by architects Cochran, Stephenson and Wing on April 2, 1957. In 1959, a new Hamilton Branch Library opened on Harford Road at Glenmore. The original building passed into use as commercial office building and remained occupied in this use by a variety of tenants through the early 2000s. 91ĘÓƵ worked with the Hamilton-Lauraville Main Street program to list the building on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.

Street Address

3006 Hamilton Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21214
]]>
/items/show/372 <![CDATA[Jewish Immigrants on Lombard Street]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Jewish Immigrants on Lombard Street

Creator

Jewish Museum of Maryland

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

In the early 1900s, more than 600 people lived in the 70 houses on just a single block of Lombard Street between Lloyd and Central Avenue. For example, two households lived in 1139 E. Lombard Street in 1910. The Bergers consisted of Morris, a 55-year-old pants presser; his 50-year-old wife Eva; their 18-year-old daughter Fannie, a coat operator; their newlywed son, 26-year-old Harris, a pants maker; and Harris’s wife Rebecca, age 20. The Sundicks included 36-year-old Max, a pants presser; his 35-year-old wife Sarah; and their four children ages 6 months to 10 years.

As they made the difficult economic and cultural adjustment to life in America, struggling Jewish immigrants like the Bergers and Sundicks often relied on the many charitable organizations run by uptown German Jews. One of the best known, the Hebrew Friendly Inn and Aged Home (which later became Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital) began in 1890. In the early 1900s, it was located at 1153 E. Lombard Street, just east of Weiss Deli.

On the site of what is today Lenny’s Deli, Louis Herman operated a shvitz bad (Russian bath) in the early 1900s at 1116 E. Lombard. While very few homes featured hot water or indoor bathrooms, going to the Russian baths was generally an indulgence reserved for special occasions. For most residents, bathing meant a trip to the Walters Free Public Bath on High Street near Pratt (demolished 1953) where a nickel bought a shower, soap and a towel.

Street Address

1153 E. Lombard Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>
/items/show/371 <![CDATA[Hendler Creamery Company]]> 2023-11-10T09:51:09-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Hendler Creamery Company

Subject

Industry

Creator

Jewish Museum of Maryland

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

This building was slated for demolition in 2023. 

Looking up at this large, handsome red brick and stone building across Baltimore Street, one can just make out the remnants of “Hendler Creamery Company” written across the front façade. Manuel Hendler (1885-1962) opened this ice cream manufacturing plant in 1912. Born to Jewish immigrants and raised on a Baltimore County dairy farm, Hendler became a household name in Baltimore. His popular ice cream attracted the attention of the New Jersey-based Borden Company, which bought his operation in 1928.

Watch our on this building!

Sponsor

Jewish Museum of Maryland

Street Address

1100 E. Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>
/items/show/370 <![CDATA[Jewish Working Girls Home and the Russian Night School]]> 2019-05-07T15:42:21-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Jewish Working Girls Home and the Russian Night School

Subject

Immigration

Creator

Jewish Museum of Maryland

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

On a vacant lot facing the McKim Center, once stood a mid-nineteenth century Greek revival townhouse that served as the Jewish Working Girls Home in the early 1900s. The home at 1200 East Baltimore Street was a boarding house operated by the Daughters in Israel, founded in 1890 to aid immigrant girls and daughters of immigrants.

The adjoining vacant lot at 1208 East Baltimore Street was the former site of the acclaimed Russian Night School, run by Baltimorean Henrietta Szold, who later achieved fame as the founder of Hadassah, the Zionist women’s organization. Szold’s work with the Russian Night School reaffirmed her commitment to the often-despised Eastern European Jewish immigrants, whom she found to be intelligent, cultured, and well-versed in history and literature.

The Russian Night School closed in 1898 after city officials assured its directors that public night schools for immigrants would soon open.

Street Address

1200 E. Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>
/items/show/369 <![CDATA[Labor Lyceum and Talmud Torah]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Labor Lyceum and Talmud Torah

Subject

Immigration

Creator

Jewish Museum of Maryland

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

In the early 1900s, the Labor Lyceum at 1023 E. Baltimore Street was a busy union hall and neighborhood cultural center. Americans once used the term “lyceum” to describe public halls used for lectures and meetings. The Labor Lyceum was one of many halls serving working class immigrants. Local men and women came here to read newspapers, socialize, and discuss job prospects. During strikes, which occurred frequently, the Labor Lyceum became the center for organizing union members, planning strategy and garnering public support.

In March 1913, more than one hundred East Baltimore female garment workers gathered at the Labor Lyceum before marching to a downtown train station, where they joined other women’s groups on their way to Washington, D.C., for a demonstration in favor of working women’s rights and female suffrage. Today, the Lyceum is the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg building, part of the Helping Up Mission complex.

A few steps away stands the former home of the Arbeiter Ring, more commonly known as the Workmen’s Circle. Established in 1898, the 1,200-member Workmen’s Circle was the center of Jewish socialist and labor activities for decades and moved to 1029 E. Baltimore Street in 1930. From 1909 to the early 1920s, the same building housed Talmud Torah, Baltimore’s first large Hebrew school. Founded in 1889 by recently arrived Russian Jews, the Hebrew Free School, as it was known, attracted students from very poor families and often provided shoes and clothing.

Street Address

1023 E. Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>
/items/show/368 <![CDATA[Attman's Delicatessen and Corned Beef Row]]> 2019-11-30T22:04:52-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Attman's Delicatessen and Corned Beef Row

Creator

Jewish Museum of Maryland

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Attman’s Delicatessen at 1019 E. Lombard Street is one of just a few delis the remain at the heart of the old Lombard Street market that once stretched from Albemarle Street to Central Avenue. Imagine New York’s famed Lower East Side, minus the tenements. Here, Russian immigrants became fish sellers offering fresh carp in white-tiled pools; poultry dealers selling live chickens, ducks, and geese from wooden cages; bakers and grocers; dry goods merchants, and shochets (a slaughterer who follows Jewish religious laws when killing animals).

Food has a long history at 1019 E. Lombard Street. After starting their business on Baltimore Street in 1915, Harry and Ida Attman purchased this building in the early 1930s. They bought it from Nathan and Elsie Weinstein, whose grocery business also dated back to 1915. Before that, around 1910, Russian-born Joseph Lusser sold fish and poultry here. His family shared the house with two other Russian Jewish families.

The opposite side of Lombard Street was occupied from the 1930s through the 1970s by the well-known Tulkoff’s horseradish plant, now located in Dundalk. Another local fixture, David Yankelove, sold chickens on the north side of the street until the 1980s. David’s father, Louis, had been a butcher here beginning in the early 1900s.

The next row down from Attman’s at 1005-1011 E. Lombard is an early block of houses with steeply pitched roofs that suggest they were built before the Civil War. The deep-back buildings are later additions, constructed to accommodate immigrant families in search of affordable housing. These houses speak volumes about commercial life on the turn-of-the century Lombard Street. From the 1910 census, we learn that 1105 housed a grocer, 1007 was an Italian-owned fruit store, 1009 featured a butter and egg business, and 1011 was a poultry dealer.

The empty space to the right of Attman’s was formerly Smelkinson’s Dairy. During the Riots of 1968 following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Smelkinson’s burned to the ground. However, most of Lombard Street survived the riots with little damage and the street remained vital until the late 1970s, when a combination of inner city decline and the rise of the suburban shopping mall caused its small family businesses to close.

Official Website

Street Address

1019 E. Lombard Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>
/items/show/366 <![CDATA[Presbyterian Eye, Ear & Throat Charity Hospital]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Presbyterian Eye, Ear & Throat Charity Hospital

Subject

Health and Medicine

Creator

Jewish Museum of Maryland

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Today, the entire south side of the block between Exeter and Lloyd is occupied by the Helping Up Mission, a transitional housing and recovery center which has recently completed renovation of the several historic buildings that it occupies. Their building at 1017-1021 E. Baltimore Street has long history of providing care to the residents of East Baltimore since it first opened in 1877 as the Presbyterian Eye, Ear & Throat Charity Hospital.

The hospital’s mission was “to serve the suffering poor of East Baltimore.” By the early 1900s, when tuberculosis was rampant in the neighborhood, its patients included many Russian Jewish families.

Across Baltimore Street from the hospital stood the Brith Sholom Hall at 1012 E. Baltimore Street (demolished in the fall of 1998. A self-help institution for Russian Jewish immigrants, the Independent Order of Brith Sholom formed in 1902. Under the leadership of Cabman Cohen, it helped newly arriving “greenhorns,” raised money for Jewish causes at home and abroad, and served as headquarters for men’s lodges and women’s auxiliaries. It moved to this location in 1914.

Sponsor

Jewish Museum of Maryland

Street Address

1017 E. Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>
/items/show/365 <![CDATA[Jewish Educational Alliance]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Jewish Educational Alliance

Subject

Education

Creator

Jewish Museum of Maryland

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

The Levy Building on East Baltimore Street

Story

Of the many Jewish institutions in East Baltimore, the Jewish Educational Alliance at 1216 East Baltimore Street is one of the most fondly remembered. The organization formed in 1909 when the Daughters in Israel merged with the Macabbeans, a similar organization serving local boys.

The JEA building, donated by the Levy family, opened in 1913. It immediately became a refuge where local adults and children participated in activities that included English classes; art, dance, and music programs; citizenship, business, and job training; and athletic, literary, and social clubs. There was also a nursery, kindergarten, health clinic, and rooftop playground.

In 1951, with Jewish families gone from the neighborhood, the JEA merged with related organizations to form the Jewish Community Center (JCC), located in northwest Baltimore, and this building was sold to the maritime Seafarer’s Union. It later became an adult day care center. Through the years, the building was altered so that the original brick facade is no longer visible but it is still the same building that served thousands of Jewish residents in East Baltimore.

Related Resources

, December 21, 2016, Jewish Museum of Maryland.

Street Address

1216 E. Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>
/items/show/362 <![CDATA[Maryland Art Place]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:53-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Maryland Art Place

Subject

Industry

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

The Maryland Art Place is a local cultural institution occupying a five-story Richardsonian Romanesque industrial building on the west side of Baltimore’s Downtown.

The building on Saratoga Street was erected in 1907 as a factory for the Erlanger Brothers Clothing. Owned by New York textile merchants, Abraham and Charles Erlanger, Erlanger Brothers’ best-known product was BVD underwear. Some assumed BVD stood for Baltimore Ventilated Drawers, but, in reality, the letters stood for the names of Bradley, Voorhees & Day, who founded the brand in 1876.

By 1921, the Saratoga Street building hosted showrooms for the Peabody Piano Company where Baltimoreans could purchase pianos, Victor-brand records and Victrola record players. Eventually the building became the Johnson Brothers Radio Producers & Retailers for making early radio receivers and later televisions.

Maryland Art Place started in 1981 when a group of artists and committed citizens began organizing around the needs of visual artists throughout the state and the desire of many people to have more access to and information about artists working in Maryland. The Maryland State Arts Council supported their efforts and, in 1982, this dedicated group of volunteers formed Maryland Art Place (MAP).

In 1986, the Maryland Art Place moved into the former factory on Saratoga Street and, after renovations, opened exhibition spaces on three floors. Long-time executive director Amy Cavanaugh Royce recalled the experience in an interview with the Baltimore Sun, “It's a cavernous building. It has its own aura. I began walking around the back stairwells and the basement and it grew on me." MAP bought the building in 1988.

Today, artists fill the former factory (Jordan Faye Block, a Chicago-born artist and curator, owns a contemporary gallery on the fifth floor) and MAP is building a members gallery.

Official Website

Street Address

218 W. Saratoga Street, Baltimore, MD 21201
]]>
/items/show/361 <![CDATA[Institute of Notre Dame]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:53-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Institute of Notre Dame

Subject

Education

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Lede

The Institute of Notre Dame is a Baltimore landmark that has educated young women for over 150 years.

Story

Originally established in 1847 as the Collegiate Institute of Young Ladies, the Institute of Notre Dame High School (IND) was founded by Baltimore’s own Mother Theresa – the Blessed Mother Theresa of Jesus Gerhardinger.

A native of Munich, Bavaria, Mother Theresa helped to found the School Sisters of Notre Dame (SSND) in Germany and came to Baltimore with a small group of sisters to educate the children of immigrants and minister to the poor. Mother Theresa purchased the original convent building from the Redemptorist priests assigned to nearby St. James in 1847 and soon expanded the convent into a boarding school when the sisters discovered two orphans left on their doorstep. By 1852, the sisters had built the school that still stands today.

The school continued to grow through the years: adding an auditorium in 1885, a chapel in 1892, additional classroom space in 1926, and their gymnasium in 1992. Since the first graduation ceremony on July 24, 1864, over 7,000 alumnae have graduated from IND including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (1958) and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (1954) who later recalled, “They taught me more than geography or mathematics; they taught me to help those in need of help. They inspired my passion for service.”

Official Website

Street Address

901 Aisquith Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>
/items/show/360 <![CDATA[Friends Burial Ground]]> 2020-07-20T09:51:07-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Friends Burial Ground

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Baltimore's Oldest Cemetery

Story

Contained on a little less than three acres across from Clifton Park in northeast Baltimore, the Friends Burial Ground tells the stories of generations Baltimore's Quaker families across their 300 years of rich history in our city. Established in 1713 on a tract of land known as Darley Hall when the Friendship Meetinghouse was built on what is today Harford Road, the cemetery has been in continuous use ever since.

While small, and a bit unassuming, the Friends Burial Ground has approximately 1,800 graves with the earliest legible marker dating from 1802 and, without a doubt, many date from the 1700s. The stone wall around the grounds and the Sexton's House both date back to the 1860s and, in 1926, 122 graves were moved from a Friends cemetery at the Aisquith Street Meeting House in Old Town.

The many notable interments include Louisa Swain, who made history in Wyoming on September 6, 1870 as the first woman to vote in a general election in the United States at age 69, and Dr. Thomas Edmondson who lived in a grand estate that eventually became Harlem Park in West Baltimore. Dr. Edmondson recently resurfaced in the public light as his collection of Richard Caton Woodville’s artwork was exhibited at the Walters Art Museum.

Related Resources

Official Website

Street Address

2506 Harford Road, Baltimore, MD 21218
]]>
/items/show/359 <![CDATA[Emory Grove]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:53-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Emory Grove

Subject

Religion

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Emory Grove, located in Glyndon, has provided its summer residents with spiritual inspiration and respite from Baltimore City's summer heat for over 145 years. Originally founded in 1868 as a Methodist camp meeting site during the religious reawakening that swept the nation in the aftermath of the Civil War, the Grove now welcomes campers of any denomination. The camp’s 47 rustic cottages only recently saw the installation of flush toilets and electric lights but the lush setting in a cool wooded 62-acres has made it an idyllic retreat for generations of Marylanders.

The Emory Grove Hotel, built in 1887, is a stately Victorian structure on the National Register of Historic Places. At the center of the Grove is an open-air tabernacle that is the heart of the community. Religious services are held weekly along with sing-alongs and dance recitals.

Official Website

Street Address

102 Waugh Avenue, Glyndon, MD 21071
]]>
/items/show/358 <![CDATA[Gundry/Glass Hospital]]> 2019-09-13T15:17:20-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Gundry/Glass Hospital

Subject

Health and Medicine

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Grand Gundry Sanitarium

Story

Dr. Alfred T. Gundry established the Gundry Sanitarium on his family farm in the late 1800s, and the Gundry family continued to operate the facility up through 1990. Dr. Gundry served as the medical superintendent at nearby Spring Grove Hospital from 1878 to 1891, where he was a pioneer in ending the use of mechanical restraints on psychiatric patients.

One advertisement from 1903 described the santitarium:

“Splendidly located, retired and accessible to Baltimore, surrounded by 28 acres of beautiful grounds. Buildings modern and well arranged. Every facility for treatment and classification. Under the medical management of Dr. Alfred T. Gundry.”

Street Address

2 North Wickham Road, Baltimore, MD 21229
]]>
/items/show/357 <![CDATA[William Donald Schaefer on Edgewood Street]]> 2019-05-09T23:25:52-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

William Donald Schaefer on Edgewood Street

Subject

Politics

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Born on November 2, 1921, William Donald Schaefer lived most of his life in a modest rowhouse on Edgewood Street. The only child of William Henry and Tululu Irene Schaefer, he attended Lyndhurst Elementary School, Baltimore City College and the University of Baltimore.

After serving in Europe during WWII, Schaefer made two unsuccessful attempts for a seat in the Maryland House of Representatives. In 1955, local political king-maker Irvin Kovens, nicknamed the "The Furniture Man" for his West Baltimore furniture store, and Phillip H. Goodman, founder of the Dandy Fifth Democratic Club, recruited Schaefer to run for the Fifth District Baltimore City Council seat. From this modest beginning, Schaefer went on to become Baltimore City Council President, then Mayor, and Governor of Maryland.

Related Resources

Street Address

620 Edgewood Street, Baltimore, MD 21229
]]>
/items/show/355 <![CDATA[Saint John's in the Village]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:53-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Saint John's in the Village

Subject

Religion

Creator

Saint John's Church

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

A Waverly Landmark since 1843

Story

The Episcopalian congregation of Saint John's Church has worshiped together on the same site in Waverly since 1843. At that time the area was the small village of Huntingdon, Maryland: a collection of about seventeen large estates, and the more modest homes of a new and emerging middle class.

The village extended from Huntingdon Avenue (present day Remington) on the west to Harford Road on the east; from Huntingdon Avenue (25th Street) on the south to Boundary Avenue (42nd Street) on the north. In 1888, Baltimore City annexed the area from Baltimore County and the post office was renamed Waverly, after Sir Walter Scott's popular Waverly novels.

In November 1843, the Episcopal Bishop of Maryland, William Rollinson Whittingham, sent Reverend W. A. Hewitt to Huntingdon. Local resident Thomas Hart requested the appointment because he wanted his grandchildren baptized but did not want to travel to the parish church, Saint Paul's, in Baltimore City. The bishop happily obliged since he was eager to establish new congregations in Maryland embodying the ideals of the Oxford Movement, which sought to reinstate older Christian traditions in the Anglican Church.

The congregation at Saint John's Church held their first service the “barracks”: a powder magazine and post for federal troops located a short distance southwest of the present church building. On July 10, 1844, Saint John's Church was legally incorporated as a diocesan mission church within the bounds of Saint Paul's parish and by 1845 became an independent congregation. The congregation laid the cornerstone for its first church in April 1846, and was consecrated by Bishop Whittingham on November 11, 1847. The church opened as a “free church”—rejecting the then-common practice among Anglican, Catholic, and Presbyterian churches of raising money by charging parishioners "pew rents".

For the first two years the rector returned his stipend to the treasurer as his offering toward the building expenses. He also installed a furnace at his own expense, assuring the warm devotion and gratitude of his flock. However, on May 15, 1858, just eleven years after its consecration, the church caught fire and burned to the ground.

Poorer but undaunted, the congregation worked to rebuild and Bishop Whittingham laid cornerstone of the present church on September 11, 1858. The first service in this building was held on May 22, 1859, and its consecration was on All Saints' Day in 1860. The congregation prospered and the church added a Parish House (1866) and a Rectory (1868) in a matching Gothic style. In 1885, the church built an orphanage for boys but the institution closed in 1912 and the building has been demolished. An 1850s cemetery still survives on the property.

The design of the church was influenced to the principles of the Cambridge Camden Society (later known as the Ecclesiological Society) which promoted revival of the Gothic style in architecture. The church was enlarged in 1875 with the addition of transepts (creating the classic cruciform shape visible today), a baptistery (the present Lady Chapel), sacristy, enlarged sanctuary, and a bell tower and spire. The interior decoration was completed in 1895 in the same Gothic Revival style.

After several modernizations of the decor, a whitewash, and years of neglect, the restoration of much of the original decoration was undertaken from 1983 to 1985 by the Reverend R. Douglas Pitt, the eleventh rector. This work was resumed in 1994 under the Reverend Jesse L. A. Parker, twelfth rector. All of the restoration work has been accomplished by the well-known decorative artist Janet Pope, of J. Pope Studios, Baltimore, which specializes in historic decorative restoration.

Official Website

Street Address

3009 Greenmount Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21218
]]>
/items/show/353 <![CDATA[Corpus Christi Church]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:53-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Corpus Christi Church

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

A Mount Royal Landmark by architect Patrick Keeley

Story

Corpus Christi Memorial Church was built in 1891 in memory of Thomas and Louisa Jenkins by their children. Their goal was to build the most exquisite church in Baltimore. Patrick Keeley, the foremost architect of Catholic churches in his day, designed the building.

The interior, designed by John Hardman & Company of London, glitters and glows with colorful mosaics accented with gold tessera, stained glass windows, and a high vaulted ceiling with clerestory windows. Famous for its large Florentine style mosaics adorning the chancel, Corpus Christi also has smaller mosaic Stations of the Cross as well as a charming mosaic depicting the founding of Maryland. There are four chapels and a baptistery that boast gold mosaic ceilings, marble walls, statues of saints, and stained glass windows.

Official Website

Street Address

110 W. Lafayette Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217
]]>
/items/show/351 <![CDATA[Strawbridge United Methodist Church]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:53-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Strawbridge United Methodist Church

Subject

Architecture
Religion

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

The Strawbridge United Methodist Church has a rich history. First established in 1843 as the Howard Street Station, the church moved to a grand sanctuary on Park Avenue under the leadership of Rev. John F. Goucher in 1881. Unfortunately, over the past several years, the church deferred essential but costly maintenance resulting in a damaged roof and deteriorating interior. The building has been stabilized for now but estimates by the Methodist Church suggest that a substantial rehabilitation is urgently needed. A committee of neighbors from the Mount Royal Improvement Association is currently working to find a permanent solution for the preservation and rehabilitation of the building.

Strawbridge Memorial Methodist Church first began in June 1836, when Maryland's growing Methodist community established a Sunday school in the home of William Coulter at 850 North Howard Street near Richmond Market. In 1839, the community built a small frame building for the school on the opposite side of Howard Street for $1,000 and held a dedication in February 1840. In April 1843, the Howard Street Station formally incorporated as a Methodist Episcopal Church and began making plans for a new building. The congregation bought a lot at Linden (then Garden) and Biddle Streets and laid the cornerstone in a ceremony on September 4, 1845. The church began holding services on the ground floor the following year, completed the auditorium by 1847, and dedicated the building in November 1848.

In 1860, Howard Street Station changed their name to the Strawbridge Methodist Episcopal Church in honor of Robert Strawbridge an Irish evangelist credited with bringing Methodism to America. Born in Ireland, Robert Strawbridge immigrated to Maryland around 1760 and settled on Sam's Creek in what was then Frederick County (now part of Carroll County). Strawbridge established a Methodist Society and built a "Log Meeting House" near his home—a building later considered one of the first Methodist churches in America. The modest structure (a little less than 25-feet square) was replaced in 1783 but a relic of the building survived in the pulpit of Strawbridge Methodist Episcopal Church, which was made from logs salvaged from the old meeting house.

In 1880, Dr. John F. Goucher arrived at Strawbridge and titled his first sermon "Rise and Build," launching his successful effort to spur the congregation into building a new church. Goucher had previously led the relocation of the Gilmore Street Methodist congregation and helped them to build a new church on Harlem Park, a fast-growing prosperous suburb in West Baltimore.

The congregation accepted a new site at Park Avenue and Wilson Street from member Erastus Mitten and sold their Biddle Street church to an African American congregation. The building was late demolished to make way for State Center. As the new building went up, the community held services in a tent placed on an adjoining lot. Finally, in a special watchnight service on December 31, 1881, the congregation moved into their newly finished chapel.

Goucher's abilities at fundraising enabled the congregation to dedicate the church free of debt in a ceremony with Bishop Matthew Simpson in June 1882. Goucher moved on shortly after to help the Lovely Lane Methodist Church build their iconic St. Paul Street home a few years later.

The Strawbridge Church on Park Avenue added a parsonage on Wilson Street in 1885, which was eventually converted into a Guild House. The church bought a house on Bolton Street south of Wilson Street and later moved the parsonage again to 1719 Park Avenue.

Street Address

201 Wilson Street, Baltimore, MD 21217
]]>
/items/show/350 <![CDATA[Bell Foundry]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:53-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Bell Foundry

Subject

Industry

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Former Factory and Former Art Space

Story

For years, the Bell Foundry operated as a cooperatively run arts space that took its name and its building from the historic McShane Bell Foundry. But, since December 2016, the building has stood vacant. After the "Ghost Ship" warehouse fire in Oakland, California, the city cracked down on code violations in local DIY art spaces and evicted the tenants at the Bell Foundry.

Henry McShane started the McShane Bell Foundry at Holliday and Centre Streets in 1856. By the late nineteenth century, when the business expanded to Guilford Avenue (then known as North Street) the firm had already produced tens of thousands of bells and chimes, shipping them out to churches and public buildings across the country.

In 1935, the Henry McShane Manufacturing Company sold the foundry to William Parker, whose son continues to operate the business today. The McShane Bell Foundry moved in 1979 to Glen Burnie, Maryland, where their total production is over 300,000 bells made for cathedrals, churches, municipal buildings, and schools in communities around the world—including the 7,000-pound bell that hangs in the dome of Baltimore's City Hall. The firm is the only large Western-style bell maker in the United States and one of a handful of bell manufacturers around the world.

The entrance to the former foundry is now on Calvert Street. For years, the Bell Foundry was a thriving art space including the building and the adjacent grounds, where there is a community garden and a communal skate park. The basement was used for shows and rehearsal space. The Castle Print Shop was located upstairs along with rehearsal space for the Baltimore Rock Opera Society. Outcry over the evictions in December 2016 prompted the creation of the Safe Art Space Task Force to address the broader issue of safety in underground art spaces. Unfortunately, no immediate repairs were available for the Bell Foundry and, in April 2017, the building's owners put it up for sale.

Street Address

1539 N. Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>
/items/show/349 <![CDATA[Stieff Silver Building]]> 2021-02-22T09:36:18-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Stieff Silver Building

Subject

Industry

Creator

Auni Gelles

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

For more than 85 years, the large sign atop the Stieff Silver Building has spelled out the name of a company once synonymous with Baltimore. The movement of the Stieff Company from downtown to the bucolic neighborhood of Hampden mirrored the changes that Baltimore and many other cities experienced during the twentieth century. The Kirk-Stieff Company was the oldest silversmith firm in the country when the factory closed its doors in 1999, marking the end of a tradition that had flourished in Baltimore since the early nineteenth century. Entrepreneur Charles Clinton Stieff founded the company in 1892 at 110 W. Fayette Street. After several name changes, the Stieff Company became a major player in the silver manufacturing business. In 1894, Stieff opened a showroom at 17 N. Liberty Street near the Howard Street shopping district, which turned Stieff into a familiar name for generations of Baltimoreans. Watch our Five Minute Histories video on this site! Charles C. Stieff’s son Gideon took over in 1914 around the same time automobiles were changing the pace of city life. A few years later, a trip to Druid Hill Park would forever change the face of Stieff Silver. Gideon and his future wife Claire were enjoying an outing at the park when she pointed out a plot of land that she thought would suit the company’s plans for a new factory. They were looking at the mill village of Hampden, just across the Jones Falls from the park. Although the city annexed this community in 1888, it still remained relatively isolated well into the twentieth century. This sylvan streetcar suburb attracted the Stieffs, who marketed the new building’s “out-of-the-congested district” location with unlimited parking to appeal to shoppers in the mid-twentieth century. The Stieff Company purchased the land from Mount Vernon Mill in 1922 and broke ground on the project in 1924. Production began at the Hampden location in 1925 and was so successful, the company decided to double the size of the factory in 1929. They might have reconsidered the addition had they been able to predict the Great Depression, but the company managed to hang on during the difficult economic times of the 1930s. A degree of stability was established in 1939 when Stieff signed a contract to reproduce silver for Colonial Williamsburg. During World War II, when the federal government took control of the nation’s silver supply, the company made surgical equipment and aluminum ice trays to remain solvent. They began working with pewter in the 1950s, which quickly became the majority of their business. Demand for silver and pewter was high in the postwar period when the company opened a retail store on the 200 block of N. Howard Street and, in 1970, built a large addition to the Hampden factory. They purchased S. Kirk and Son, another Baltimore silversmith firm that had been in the business since 1815, and assumed the name Kirk-Stieff in 1979. The company, like many other industries in Baltimore and across the U.S., faced serious challenges in the 1980s and 1990s. The Howard Street showroom closed in 1981, adding yet another vacant storefront to the once bustling commercial center. The Kirk-Stieff Company ceased operations in January 1999. Local developers Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse bought the building for $1.5 million in 2000. After investing $13.2 million to renovate the interior into office space, several nonprofit groups moved to the Wyman Park Drive location in 2002. Although its occupants have changed, the large electric sign atop the Stieff Silver Building remains an icon for many Baltimoreans.

Watch on this site!

Street Address

810 Wyman Park Drive, Baltimore, MD 21211
]]>
/items/show/348 <![CDATA[Grove of Remembrance Pavilion]]> 2020-10-16T11:30:07-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Grove of Remembrance Pavilion

Subject

Parks and Landscapes

Creator

Allyson Schuele

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

The Grove of Remembrance Pavilion has stood nestled amongst the trees on Beechwood Drive near the Maryland Zoo for nearly a century. Designed by architect E.L. Palmer, the rustic pavilion’s placement within the Grove of Remembrance is fitting. The grove was planted on October 8, 1919 to honor those who had died in World War I and the pavilion is a monument to First Lieutenant Merrill Rosenfeld, a prominent Baltimore attorney, killed while serving in the military during World War I. Lieutenant Rosenfeld was born in Baltimore in 1883 as the eldest son of Israel Rosenfeld and Rebecca Rosenfeld, née Stern, second generation German Jewish immigrants. Israel Rosenfeld owned a successful clothing retail business and achieved the rank of colonel serving as an aid-de-camp to Governor John Walter Smith. Merrill Rosenfeld was much like his father. He graduated from the Johns Hopkins University in 1904 and joined the Maryland Bar in 1906. He fought during the Mexican Revolution of 1910, earning the rank of top sergeant, and joined the 115th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division during World War I. Having attained the rank of first lieutenant, he was leading his men during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive when he died October 16, 1918. The U.S. government recognized his sacrifice by awarding him with a Distinguished Service Cross for “extraordinary heroism” and praised him for his “display…[of] the greatest bravery and heroism” before his death. He received further honors in 1919 when the Court of Appeals commissioned architects J.B. Noel Wyatt and William Nolting to build a bronze memorial honoring him and five other Baltimore attorneys who had died in the war and in 1921, when the Maryland Bar Association commissioned a similar memorial. When Israel Rosenfeld died on October 10, 1925, he left $10,000 for the pavilion’s construction in Druid Hill Park. Baltimore was a city with a history of tolerance towards the Jews, particularly those of German heritage, in the early 1900s. The Rosenfelds had thrived in this environment, and Israel wanted to ensure that Baltimoreans would remember his late son’s military achievements and sacrifice for years to come.

Watch our on this site!

Street Address

Beechwood Drive, Baltimore, MD 21217
]]>
/items/show/347 <![CDATA[Richard Wagner Memorial Bust]]> 2019-05-07T13:48:00-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Richard Wagner Memorial Bust

Subject

Music
Public Art and Monuments

Creator

Allyson Schuele

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Lede

Dedicated in 1901, the Richard Wagner Bust was donated to the city by the United Singers of Baltimore who received the monument as the first prize trophy for the annual Sängerfeste choral competition.

Story

The Wagner Bust is as German as any statute could be. Cast in bronze, mounted on a granite base, and situated on the lawn of the Rogers-Buchanan Mansion, the bust of German composer Richard Wagner was created by a German-born sculptor R.P. Golde based on a portrait by German painter Franz van Lenbach. Though the bust may seem out of place for visitors to Druid Hill Park today, the placement made perfect sense when the sculpture was created.

R.P. Golde was commissioned to create the bust as the first prize for Sängerfeste, an annual choral competition held that year in Brooklyn, New York, with five thousand performers attending. The United Singers of Baltimore won with their performance of D. Melamet’s “Scheiden” (“Parting”). The Singers, who believed that their victory and prize would add to Baltimore’s glory and beauty, donated the Wagner Bust to Druid Hill Park. The bust’s dedication ceremony was a grand affair. Thirty thousand spectators gathered in attendance on October 6, 1901, to watch L.H. Wieman, an agent representing the Baltimore branch of a national, Minneapolis-based flour company, present the bust to the City of Baltimore on behalf of the United Singers. The crowd watched as the Wagner Bust, draped in German and American flags and the singing societies’ banners, was unveiled. The ceremony and the bust’s placement on the mansion lawn served as an expression of Baltimore’s pride in its singers and the German immigrants pride in their heritage and their talent.

Baltimore was home to over forty thousand German immigrants at the start of the twentieth century. Monuments to German artists, philosophers, politicians, musicians, poets, and composers decorate the landscape of many major American cities. Memorials of composers were particularly popular in the era of immigrant monument-building, partly due to the importance of singing clubs in German-American communities.

The Wagner Bust points to the popularity of singing clubs in Baltimore, as does another sculpture by R.P. Golde, that of the composer Conradin Keutzer, located in Patterson Park and also won by the United Singers of Baltimore at the 1915 Sängerfeste.

Street Address

Mansion House Drive, Druid Hill Park, Baltimore, MD 21217
]]>
/items/show/346 <![CDATA[William Wallace Monument]]> 2020-10-16T11:28:00-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

William Wallace Monument

Subject

Parks and Landscapes

Creator

Jessi Deane

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

On the west side of Druid Lake, opposite of the Moorish Tower, stands an imposing statue. At nearly thirty feet from the ground to the tip of the sword, the Wallace the Scot statue strikes an imposing figure. Bearing little resemblance to Mel Gibson’s “Braveheart,” the question remains of why a statue of a national Scottish hero is in Druid Hill Park. Beginning in 1905, the St. Andrew’s Society of Baltimore, or the Scottish Society, has used the Wallace the Scot statue as a site of pilgrimage. Gathering at the monument on St. Andrew’s Day, the anniversary of real William Wallace’s death, and the founding of their organization in 1806, members of the society wear traditional clothing (such as kilts or capes) and celebrate their heritage as Scottish Americans. By the 1850s, more than 100,000 Scottish immigrants were living in the United States and, between 1890 and 1910, this number grew to over a million. Successful Baltimore banker William Wallace Spence was proud of his heritage as a Scottish immigrant and claimed to be a distant descendant of William Wallace. Considering Wallace a personal hero as well as a national one, he shared how he admired Wallace’s character and saw him as a “champion of freedom whose memory not only Scotland, but all the world should honor." As the leader of the Scottish resistance against English rule, the original William Wallace spent most of his life battling with English forces for Scottish independence. His takeover of Stirling Castle is considered by many historians to be the first major victory for the Scottish resistance. Unfortunately, his victory was short lived and after a defeat at the Battle of Falkirk, Wallace was taken captive and executed in 1305. The statue itself is cast in bronze, a perfect replica of the famous William Wallace statue that stands on Abbey Craig in Scotland. Originally sculpted by D.W. Stevenson in 1881, Spence commissioned his replica at a large scale to make the figure seem more dramatic and imposing. The figure stands at an impressive fourteen feet tall, from his feet to the tip of his raised sword. The sculptor specifically chose the pose for its symbolic meaning—Wallace supposedly struck this pose at the Abbey Craig as he watched the army of Edward I gather before the Battle of Stirling Bridge. Stevenson also designed the pedestal upon which the Druid Hill Park statue now rests. The sixteen-foot tall granite base was carved of Maryland granite and is engraved with the inscription "William Wallace, Patriot and Martyr for Scottish Liberty, 1305."

Watch our on this statue!

Street Address

3100 Swann Drive, Baltimore, MD 21217
]]>
/items/show/345 <![CDATA[St. Peter Claver Catholic Church]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:53-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

St. Peter Claver Catholic Church

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Religion and Community Activism on Pennsylvania Avenue

Story

Saint Peter Claver Church at Pennsylvania Avenue and Fremont Street takes its’ name from a sixteenth-century Spanish priest who is considered the patron saint of slaves. The building dates back to 1888 making it the city’s second oldest African-American Roman Catholic Church. True to the inspiration of Saint Claver, the congregation and their leaders, have long been active in seeking equal rights for African Americans in Baltimore.

Father Henry Offer led the church from 1960 to 1971 and was a member of the NAACP and Urban League. In 1968, he was one of the city’s African American leaders to speak out after the riots following the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., criticizing Governor Spiro Agnew for laying blame for the unrest on local black activists. Later that same year, the parish chartered buses to transport its members, as well as community residents, to the Poor People’s March on Washington. The march, planned by the by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference before King’s death, was led by Civil Rights activist Ralph Abernathy.

In 1966, Father Philip Berrigan advocated for the disinvested urban neighborhoods from his position at the church. Berrigan, whose long career as a Catholic activist included burning Vietnam War draft cards with his brother Daniel Berrigan and others of the Catonsville Nine. In the years leading up to this, Berrigan worked from St. Peter Claver to establish the Baltimore Interfaith Peace Mission and actively lobbied and demonstrated for the city’s African American communities.

Another Civil Rights activist coming from St. Peter Claver in the 1960s was Father John Harfmann. In 1967, Harfmann, who was white, worked with Black activist Dickey Burke to provide recreation opportunities in West Baltimore through Operation CHAMP. During his tenure at the church, he also participated in integration activities with church members and actively supported efforts of BUILD (Baltimoreans United In Leadership Development) to create housing, provide job opportunities, and rebuild neighborhoods in the city. At his funeral, fellow priests remembered how Harfmann was “wholly dedicated to being a priest in the African American community,” and recalled him as “a tireless fighter for justice who did things that people said were not possible.”

Today, the church continues their long tradition of civil rights and community activism, in part, by hosting the No Boundaries Coalition that works to unite communities around the church that have historically been divided by racial and economic barriers.

Official Website

Street Address

1526 N. Fremont Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217
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