/items/browse/hsbakery.com/about-us/page/8?output=atom <![CDATA[Explore 91视频]]> 2025-03-15T09:35:50-04:00 Omeka /items/show/490 <![CDATA[Castalia]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:55-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Castalia

Subject

Architecture

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

The first headmaster of the Calvert School, Virgil Hillyer, built Castalia between 1928 and 1929, naming it after the spring at the foot of Mount Parnassas in Italy that is said to have been the inspiration for the muses. The prominent Baltimore architect Francis Hall Fowler was the architect of this Italian villa-inspired house. In 2006, the Calvert School acquired the building and proposed to demolish it for an outdoor amphitheater.

The Tuscany Canterbury Neighborhood Association led the effort to save the building, with 91视频 filing a successful nomination for the building to be added to the city鈥檚 historic landmark list in 2008. The building is now on the landmark list and the Calvert School has begun plans to preserve it for a school-related use.

Related Resources

Official Website

Street Address

200 Tuscany Road, Baltimore, MD 21210
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/items/show/489 <![CDATA[Pennsylvania Railroad Company District Office Building]]> 2019-05-10T23:00:13-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Pennsylvania Railroad Company District Office Building

Subject

Architecture

Creator

Laurie Ossman

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Built to house the Baltimore branch offices of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company following the Great Fire of 1904, this structure was an early commission of the architectural firm of Parker & Thomas (later Parker, Thomas & Rice), the preeminent architects of Baltimore鈥檚 Beaux Arts commercial & financial structures of the first quarter of the twentieth century.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the Pennsylvania Railroad vied with the locally owned Baltimore & Ohio Railroad for control of rights-of-way and development rights for lines in and out of the city. While the B&O was the older of the two competing railroads (founded in 1830), the Pennsylvania Railroad had surpassed the B&O in size, scope, and profitability by the 1870s.

Such was the nature of railroad competition in Baltimore that the two lines even maintained separate passenger terminals, with Mount Royal Station serving the B&O (and its dominance of lines running south) and the Pennsylvania maintaining a site between Charles and St. Paul Streets.

In 1900, under the leadership of Alexander Cassatt, brother of expatriate Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt, the Pennsylvania Railroad merged with the B&O, and the two companies shared a Board of Trustees. Partly in response to efforts in Washington to enact legislation prohibiting railroad monopolies, the Pennsylvania and B&O maintained separate corporate identities during this period, although the 鈥渦nion鈥 of the two companies was celebrated by Cassatt鈥檚 pet project, Washington, DC鈥檚 monumental Beaux-Arts style Union Station (1902).

When the 1904 Fire destroyed the Second-Empire style B&O headquarters on the northwest corner of Baltimore and Calvert Streets, the corporate officers elected to rebuild a grand, 13-story Beaux-arts tower on a new site, two blocks to the west. The Pennsylvania, by contrast, retained its site and elected the relatively small, restrained building seen today. The interrelationship of the two companies and the coordination of their post-Fire building schemes is attested to by the fact that both the Pennsylvania Railroad building and the B&O tower on Charles Street were designed by the same architectural firm, Parker & Thomas. The modesty of the Pennsylvania鈥檚 building (in spite of the company鈥檚 essential domination of the B&O) is part and parcel of the effort to maintain distinct identities for the two merged companies.

By 1906鈥攖he time of the Baltimore post-Fire rebuilding of both the Pennsylvania and B&O buildings鈥 Cassatt was dead, the Republicans had passed antitrust legislation and the two companies administratively pried themselves apart once again. Thus, what may have begun in 1905 as a somewhat disingenuous attempt to maintain the united railroad companies鈥 discrete corporate identities through the erection of two separate and stylistically and hierarchically distinct structures, became an accurate representation of corporate separation by the time the buildings were complete in 1906.

Street Address

200 E. Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
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/items/show/485 <![CDATA[Captain Isaac Emerson Mansion]]> 2020-10-16T11:24:21-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Captain Isaac Emerson Mansion

Subject

Architecture

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

The story of the Emerson Mansion began in 1895 when Captain Isaac Emerson commissioned the building as a home for his family. Captain Emerson lived at this location up to 1911 when he and his wife divorced. Emerson remarried just two months later and started work on the Emersonian, a large apartment building built with the intent to block his ex-wife鈥檚 view of Druid Lake. The Baltimore Sun later reported on the legend in August 11, 1985 noting that Emerson, "moved into one of the uppermost apartments so he would always be looking down on her."

The structure has served a wide range of uses in the century since Captain Emerson moved out. Maryland's Juvenile Services Division had offices in the building, as did The Mercantile Club, a private social club for businessmen. Since 1994, the property has been owned by James Crockett.

Watch our on this building!

Related Resources

Street Address

2500 Eutaw Place, Baltimore, MD 21217
]]>
/items/show/482 <![CDATA[Morgan State University Memorial Chapel]]> 2021-02-22T09:33:43-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Morgan State University Memorial Chapel

Subject

Civil Rights

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

A Center for Faith and Civil Rights Activism

Story

In 1939, the trustees of Morgan College decided to sell the institution to the State of Maryland. The proceeds from that transaction were earmarked for the construction of a center for religious activities, the Morgan Christian Center (now Morgan State University Memorial Chapel), a parsonage, and an endowment. This effort preserved the religious roots of Morgan College (founded in 1867 as the Centenary Biblical Institute) as they transitioned from 72 years as a private college to their future as a state institution. The building was designed by Towson-born African American architect Albert Irvin Cassell, FAIA who designed a number of buildings on the Morgan State campus and other historically black colleges and universities. Beginning in 1944, the director of the Morgan Christian Center was Rev. Dr. Howard L. Cornish鈥攁 1927 graduate of Morgan State College and math professor. Up until his retirement in 1976, Cornish lived in the parsonage and his home was known as a center of Civil Rights activities involving Morgan students, clergy and activists from throughout the Baltimore community. In 2008, the Morgan Christian Center trustees deeded the property to Morgan State University and the Center was renamed the Morgan State University Memorial Chapel, to reflect the diverse religious landscape on campus. That same year, the University named Dr. Bernard Keels director of the Chapel. Keels organized a group of volunteers, the Friends of the Chapel, who have supported an ongoing effort to restore the building and return it back into a essential part of the campus community. With additional support from Morgan State University students and faculty, the Memorial Chapel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.

Watch our on this site!

Official Website

Street Address

4307 Hillen Road, Baltimore, MD 21239
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/items/show/481 <![CDATA[Mount Auburn Cemetery]]> 2022-05-12T12:22:26-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Mount Auburn Cemetery

Creator

Aim茅e Pohl

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

In 1872 Baltimore鈥檚 historic Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist Church purchased land in Southwest Baltimore to establish a place for Black families to bury their dead. Today it is called Mount Auburn Cemetery. Covering approximately 32 acres, it was originally named 鈥淭he City of the Dead for Colored People.鈥 It is the oldest Black cemetery in Baltimore. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and is designated a historic landmark by Baltimore City. Mount Auburn has the interred remains of over 55,000 people, including community leaders, formerly enslaved people, and Black Civil War veterans. It is owned and operated by the Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist Church.

Its many famous occupants are too numerous to list here, but a few stand out. For example, there lie the remains of the boxer Joe Gans (1874-1910), the first African-American to win a world boxing championship and a lightweight boxing title. He is considered by many to be the greatest lightweight boxer of the 20th century. He was also the inspiration for an early short story by Ernest Hemingway called 鈥淎 Matter of Color.鈥

John Henry Murphy (1840-1922) is also buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery. He was born into slavery in Baltimore and became free at the age of 24. After fighting in the Union Army in the Civil War, Murphy became active in education for African-American children. In 1892 he founded the Afro-American newspaper, which became the largest Black newspaper on the East Coast by the time of his death in 1922. In 2022, the Baltimore Afro-American is still published weekly. It is the longest running family-owned African-American newspaper in the United States.

Also interred at Mount Auburn is Lillie May Carroll Jackson (1889-1975), who is known as the mother of the Civil Rights Movement. In the 1930s she ran multiple grassroots campaigns to end racial segregation, boycott racist businesses, register Black voters, equalize pay between Black and white teachers, and to pass Baltimore鈥檚 Fair Employment Practices law. She headed the Baltimore NAACP Chapter from 1935 to 1970.

Over the 150 years of its existence, the cemetery has often fallen into disrepair and has been the scene of gruesome situations. In 1918, 175 Black victims of the Spanish Flu epidemic lay unburied on its grounds for weeks as the usual laborers refused to bury them. The Mayor had to call in soldiers from Camp Meade to bury the bodies using army trucks and trenching machines. In 1930, the Afro-American reported that grave diggers working on the site accidentally unearthed skulls, bones, and caskets of the dead. Although it remained a popular burial ground, it has in recent decades again become dilapidated.

The cost of maintaining the graveyard is $25,000 a year. In 2012, Mount Auburn was cleaned up and rededicated by the State of Maryland with funding from the Abell Foundation, and with much of the work done by 40 state prison inmates. In recent years the 鈥淩esurrecting Mount Auburn Cemetery鈥 project has documented the names of 55,000 buried there and continues to work on identifying gravesites.

The research and writing of this article was funded by two grants: one from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority and one from the Baltimore National Heritage Area.

Related Resources

, Maryland State Archives

Official Website

Street Address

2614 Annapolis Road, Baltimore, MD 21230
]]>
/items/show/479 <![CDATA[Scottish Rite Temple]]> 2020-10-21T10:10:17-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Scottish Rite Temple

Subject

Architecture

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

The Scottish Rite of Freemasons began construction of the temple building on North Charles Street in 1930, and the building was opened in 1932. The building was designed by noted architect (and Scottish Rite Mason) Clyde N. Friz and renowned architect John Russell Pope. Friz鈥檚 other works in Baltimore include Enoch Pratt Free Library and Standard Oil Building. A nationally renowned architect, Pope designed the Jefferson Memorial, National Archives, National Gallery of Art, and the Masonic Temple of the Scottish Rite in Washington, as well as the Baltimore Museum of Art here in Baltimore. The Scottish Rite Temple on Charles Street is both Italian Renaissance and Beaux Arts Classical in style, with a columned portico based on the Pantheon in Rome. Eight 34-foot columns with Corinthian capitals provide the entrance facing Charles Street, and the entry consists of two massive bronze doors. The Scottish Rite Masonic order continues to occupy the building. After considering selling the building for demolition, the Masons are reconsidering options. The building was added to the city鈥檚 list of historic landmarks in 2009 with the support of 91视频 and any future plans for the buildings must meet the city鈥檚 strong preservation guidelines.

Watch on this building!

Related Resources

Official Website

Street Address

3800 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218
]]>
/items/show/478 <![CDATA[Royer's Hill Methodist Episcopal Church]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:55-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Royer's Hill Methodist Episcopal Church

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

The former Royer's Hill Methodist Episcopal Church at 400 West 24th Street is a small stone building with a gable roof used in 2010 as a garage. Despite several modern additions and changes, the building retains original window openings, original roof framing, and pressed tin ceiling panels. Constructed under the supervision of Rev. Edward L. Watson around 1891 as the 24th Street Methodist Episcopal Church, the building remained in use as a church until it was converted to use as a motor freight station sometime prior to 1951.

Related Resources

Street Address

400 West 24th Street, Baltimore, MD 21211
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/items/show/476 <![CDATA[Polish Home Hall]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:55-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Polish Home Hall

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Built around 1905 in the vernacular Beaux Arts style, the Polish Home Hall originally functioned as a town hall and home to the volunteer fire company of Curtis Bay. In 1919, when Baltimore City annexed the area from Anne Arundel County, the Wise brothers took over the building to sew sailcloth for the shipping industries emerging in the area. In 1925, the United Polish Societies of Curtis Bay purchased the building and returned it to use as a community space. Polish American children attended school and learned both English and Polish in the space, which was a few block from St. Anthanasius Catholic Church. The hall was also used for social functions, such as dances. Local residents, Casmir and Catherine Benicewicz, served as caretakers of the Polish Home Hall until the 1980s when it became too much for the pair to handle. They passed responsibility on to another Polish organization but the building soon began to suffer from neglect. The Polish Home Hall was no longer used for community events and became dilapidated.

In the early 2000s, the Baybrook Coalition, a non-profit community development corporation, sought to revive the hall as a community space. Carol Eshelman, director of the Coalition from 2002 until 2010, researched the deed of the dilapidated building and tracked down Catherine Benicewicz. A beautiful friendship and impressive rehabilitation endeavor began with Benicewicz deeding the building to the Coalition. The rehab was funded by a bond issue spearheaded by House Representative Brian McHale and State Senator George W. Della Jr. and supplemented by funds from the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation in addition to donations from local citizens and businesses. Donald Kann served as the architect for the renovation. 鈥淭he Hammers,鈥 local craftsmen volunteers, completed much of the work on the building. The Polish Home Hall was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007 when it reopened.

Street Address

4416 Fairhaven Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21226
]]>
/items/show/470 <![CDATA[Boss Kelly House]]> 2023-11-10T11:09:18-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Boss Kelly House

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

鈥淏oss鈥 John S. (Frank) Kelly, the leader of the West Baltimore Democratic Club, controlled all things political in West Baltimore in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He moved into the house in the 1860s and lived here for the rest of his life. Kelly ran the political machine of West Baltimore that elected several mayors, senators, judges, and state representatives. He was also the inspiration of Dashiell Hammett鈥檚 character Shad O鈥橰ory in the novel (and later movie) The Glass Key.

The Boss Kelly House at 1106 West Saratoga Street is part of a row of houses that were built between 1830 and 1845. Architecturally, the building is a prime example of the cumulative development of row house design in Baltimore, and is featured in the 1981 book, Those Old Placid Rows, by Natalie Shivers. The house and the others in the row are unusual, possibly unique in Baltimore, for their single second-story tripartite windows and gabled roofs. This row has been attributed to the work of architect Robert Cary Long, Jr., whose father designed a similar row in the unit block of Mulberry Street in Mt. Vernon.


*In 2021, Baltimore City razed this row of homes, including the Boss Kelly house.

Official Website

Street Address

1106 W. Saratoga Street, Baltimore, MD 21223
]]>
/items/show/467 <![CDATA[St. Vincent's Infant Asylum]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:55-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

St. Vincent's Infant Asylum

Subject

Architecture

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

The former St. Vincent鈥檚 Infant Asylum/Carver Hall Apartments buildings was a complex of structures built between 1860 and the 1910s to provide housing and medical services to dependent children and women, along with housing for the nuns who operated the facility. After years of declining use, the Infant Asylum left the facility around 1934 for a new location on Reisterstown Road.

Around 1941, the building was converted to use as Carver Hall Apartments offering a range of rental units to a largely African American group of tenants from the up through 2013. Since the 1970s, the management of the property has posed significant challenges for residents in the building with a major fire in 1978, a lawsuit in 1993 and issues with drug traffic and violence at the building in the 1900s.

In January 2015, the building caught on fire destroying the roof and gutting much of the interior. It now stands vacant. Unfortunately, in February 2018, the building was illegally demolished without a permit.

Official Website

Street Address

1401-1411 Division Street, Baltimore, MD 21217
]]>
/items/show/466 <![CDATA[U.S. Marine Hospital]]> 2019-05-09T10:10:29-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

U.S. Marine Hospital

Subject

Health and Medicine

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

From Sick Sailors to the Hopkins Homewood Campus

Story

The former U.S. Marine Hospital on Wyman Park Drive near the Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus was built in 1934鈥攂ut the Marine Hospital Service itself dated back over a century earlier.

In 1798, President John Adams signed "An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen" that supported the creation of Marine Hospitals in major American ports from Boston to Baltimore. Following the Civil War, a scandal broke out over the mismanagement of the Marine Hospital Fund (supported by a tax on the wages of all U.S. sailors). In 1870, the U.S. Congress responded to the controversy by converting the loose network of hospitals into a more centrally-managed bureau within the Department of Treasury.

Early on the Baltimore Marine Hospital was located in Curtis Bay on the same site later developed at the聽Bethlehem Fairfield Shipyard. The Maryland Hospital of U.S. Marine Hospital Service also maintained dedicated wards at St. Joseph鈥檚 Hospital at Caroline and Hoffman Streets before the construction of a new hospital complex on Remington Avenue around 1885. A 1901 directory of Baltimore charities invited sailors in need of medical care to apply for admission at the surgeon鈥檚 office located at the Baltimore Custom House, explaining:

Only those who have served as sailors on an American registered vessel for at least 60 days prior to application are strictly eligible, but any bona fide sailor taken sick or injured in the line of duty will receive attention.

In 1934, the old building was replaced by a modern 290-bed facility making Baltimore's聽hospital the second largest marine hospital in the country. In the 1950s, the hospital began serving a more general population, including both people enlisted in the military and local residents, as the United States Public Health Services Hospital.

In October 1981, the federal government closed all of the U.S. Public Health Service hospitals across the country. Baltimore's old Marine Hospital was taken over by a group known as the Wyman Park Health System and continued to treat many of the patients who had been going there for decades. In 1987, the group merged with Johns Hopkins University. One result of the merger was the creation of a new primary care organization, the Johns Hopkins Community Physicians, that has continued to provide outpatient medical services from the lower levels of the building today.

In 2008, the university considered plans for demolishing and replacing the building. Fortunately, in January 2019, the university announced plans to preserve and renovate the building for continued use by students and faculty.

Street Address

3100 Wyman Park Drive, Baltimore, MD 21211
]]>
/items/show/465 <![CDATA[Florence Crittenton Home]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:55-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Florence Crittenton Home

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

The Former Home of David Carroll of the Mount Vernon Mill Company

Lede

Crittenton Home was originally the home of David Carroll, owner of the Mount Vernon Mill Company. The building got its name after being absorbed by the Florence Crittenton Mission in 1925.

Story

Crittenton Home was originally the home of David Carroll, owner of the Mount Vernon Mill Company. The building got its name after being absorbed by the Florence Crittenton Mission in 1925.

The Mission was started in 1882 by wealthy New Yorker and Protestant evangelist Charles Crittenton who made his fortune in pharmaceuticals. After losing his four year old daughter Florence to Scarlet Fever, Crittenton dedicated himself to philanthropy, using his wealth to open sanctuaries for unwed mothers. He traveled across the country proselytizing and offering five-hundred dollars to each town willing to open a Home. In 1898, President McKinley signed a special act of Congress which granted a national charter to the Florence Crittenton Mission, making it the first charitable organization to receive a national charter from the United States. At its peak, the Mission had over seventy-five Homes internationally.

The mansion that became the Crittenton Home was likely constructed in 1845 during the development of Stone Hill, a company housing development for workers of the Mount Vernon mills. Positioned high on a hill, the mansion provided an impressive view over Stone Hill and the mills.Carroll could comfortably oversee his industrial domain from the comfort of his grand home, while employees catching glimpses of the house from their homes and workplace below could not shake the feeling that the boss was always watching.

Carroll died in 1881. Afterward other executives of the Mount Vernon Mill Company likely inhabited the mansion. (His son, Albert Carroll, had Evergreen on the Hill, a Greek Revival Mansion now used by the SPCA). After a devastating 1923 labor strike, the mill company moved its operations south in search of cheaper labor and in 1925, the mansion was sold to the Florence Crittenton Mission. The purchase was a response to overcrowding at Baltimore's first Crittenton Home located in Little Italy.

By the 1950s and '60s many Florence Crittenton Homes had become places where embarrassed middle class families hid their pregnant daughters. Under these arrangements, children were taken from their mothers and given up for adoption. With the introduction of birth control pills, the legalization of abortion, and the lessening of stigma against unwed pregnancy, Homes across the country began closing. The Hampden Florence Crittenton Home stayed in use until 2010.

The mansion is currently being renovated and converted to apartments. The mid-century dormitories that served the Florence Crittenton House have been demolished to make way for townhouses.

Street Address

3110 Crittenton Place, Baltimore, MD 21211
]]>
/items/show/459 <![CDATA[R. House]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:55-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

R. House

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

R. House was built on the southwest corner of the intersection of Remington Avenue and West 29th Street in 1924 as the Eastwick Motor Company garage. Up until the 1920s, most of Baltimore鈥檚 car dealerships were located in the "automobile triangle" bounded by Mount Royal, North Avenue, and Howard Street. The 2-story rectangular brick building, constructed to expand Eastwick, reflected the growing importance of Remington to automobile sales and service in the 1920s. Directories referred to the building as the "Dodge Maintenance Building" in the late 1920s, but the design makes clear that it was always intended to work as a showroom as well.

In 1926, Harter B. Hull, a successful automobile magnate in Memphis with Baltimore ties and a rising star in the dealership world, purchased the Eastwick Motor Company. After his untimely death in 1930, Gilbert A. Jarman, an officer and director of the Hull operation, assumed ownership control. Jarman Motors, Inc. expanded over the years and occupied the property up until 1968. Anderson Motor Company bought the property in 1994.

The Seawall Development Corporation purchased the property in 2014 and began a $12 million conversion of this former 50,000-square-foot automotive building to turn it into the R. House: a 鈥渇ood hall鈥 featuring ten chefs.

Official Website

Street Address

301 W. 29th Street, Baltimore, MD 21211
]]>
/items/show/458 <![CDATA[Eastern Female High School]]> 2021-02-22T09:45:21-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Eastern Female High School

Subject

Education

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Baltimore's Oldest Public School Building

Story

On July 11, 2015 the Eastern Female High School on Aisquith Street caught fire鈥攋ust the latest challenge for this 1869 school-house turned apartment building that has stood empty since it closed in 2001. Designed by architect R. Snowden Andrews, the Italianate-style, red-brick and white-trim structure is the city鈥檚 oldest surviving purpose-built public school building. It stands as a memorial to the post-Civil War expansion of secondary education opportunities in Baltimore.

The Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation list the building as a Baltimore City Landmark in 1976 and a 2002 Baltimore Sun editorial declared one of Baltimore鈥檚 鈥渁rchitectural gems鈥. The building was renovated and converted into apartments in the 1970s and Baltimore City transferred the building to Sojourner-Douglass College in 2004. Unfortunately, Sojourner-Douglass College was unable to develop the building and after the 2015 fire Eastern Female High School聽continues to stand boarded up and vacant.

Watch on this site!

Related Resources

Street Address

249 Aisquith Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>
/items/show/456 <![CDATA[Lenox Theatre]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:55-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Lenox Theatre

Subject

Architecture

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Christ Temple Church on Pennsylvania Avenue

Story

In December 1919, the Rainbow Theatre first opened on Pennsylvania Avenue entertaining an African American audience with vaudeville performances and films. The theatre continued in operation until 1925 and then spent a decade as a garage.

The building was then remodelled to the plans of architect David Harrison, and, on December 25, 1936, reopened as the Lenox Theatre. The theatre continued in operation up until 1964 when the property became home to Christ Temple Church.

Official Website

Street Address

2115 Pennsylvania Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217
]]>
/items/show/454 <![CDATA[Druid Health Center/Home of the Friendless]]> 2023-01-26T12:47:11-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Druid Health Center/Home of the Friendless

Creator

UMBC Research Interns

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

From Orphanage to Public Health Center

Story

The Home of the Friendless at 1313 Druid Hill Ave opened as a refuge for orphaned boys in 1870. An earlier institution, the Home of Friendless Vagrant Girls was established in 1854 on Pearl Steet. By 1860, it had moved to a new building on Druid Hill Ave. Five years later an adjoining lot was purchased for the construction of a boy鈥檚 home鈥攖oday鈥檚 1313 Druid Hill Ave.

The orphanage only accepted white children. Between 1870 and 1931, 200 children, half of whom were foreign born, lived here each year. By 1931, the rise of welfare programs, social services, and new approaches to childcare decreased the need for orphanages. The National Register of Historic Places states, 鈥淭he size of the building, the segregation of boys and girls, the racial make-up of the institution and its urban setting are representative of orphanages prior to concepts of civil rights, gender equality and foster care. By the early twentieth century, reformers called for child care facilities in cottage settings far from urban centers.鈥 The institution left the Marble Hill neighborhood for northwest Baltimore and eventually merged with the Woodbourne Center, which still operates today.

The federal Works Progress Administration then occupied the building until Baltimore City bought it in 1938 to create the Druid Hill Health Center. Notably, this was Baltimore鈥檚 first public health center for African Americans. Various health services were offered until 1961. The city鈥檚 Department of Housing then owned the building until 1992. It has been vacant since then.

The Marble Hill Community Association has been demanding that the city stabilize this deteriorating building for several years. In 2021, the building sustained damage from torrential rains. Falling debris became a hazard to pedestrians and traffic. In response, the city said it will stabilize the building.

*The research and writing of this article was funded by two grants: one from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority and one from the Baltimore National Heritage Area.

Related Resources

Official Website

Street Address

1313 Druid Hill Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217
]]>
/items/show/453 <![CDATA[Ross Winans Mansion]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:55-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Ross Winans Mansion

Subject

Architecture

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

One of a few (possibly the only!) fully intact late-nineteenth-century urban mansions designed almost exclusively by acclaimed by New York architect, Standford White of McKim, Mead & White, the Ross Winans House at 1217 Saint Paul Street is the epitome of cosmopolitan living in Baltimore.

Commissioned by Baltimore millionaire Ross R. Winans, heir to a fortune made by his father in Saint Petersburg, Russia, the forty-six-room, brick and brownstone French Renaissance Revival style mansion was built in 1882. The house features fine oak paneling, parquet, leaded glass, Tiffany designed tile and other fine materials throughout.

The Winans Mansion has remained a dominant architectural symbol of the neighborhood and has been used as a preparatory school for girls, a funeral parlor, and a doctors鈥 offices. 91视频 identified the building as a threatened landmark in 2000, after it sat unoccupied for many years. Not long after, Agora Inc. took control of the building and, in 2005, completed a multi-million dollar historic renovation that gained distinction by winning a 91视频 preservation honor award that year. Agora continues to own the building and uses it as offices.

Street Address

1217 Saint Paul Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>
/items/show/451 <![CDATA[Baltimore & Potomac Tunnel]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:55-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Baltimore & Potomac Tunnel

Subject

Engineering

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

The origins of the Baltimore & Potomac Tunnel begin in 1858, when Charles County planters pushed for the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad to connect their farms to markets in Baltimore. Progress remained slow until 1867, when the Pennsylvania Railroad Company bought the business.

In July 1872, the completion of the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel (below Winchester and Wilson Streets) enabled the B&P Railroad to start service between Baltimore and Washington, DC.

In 1983, the MARC train joined the list of commuter trains that have used those same tracks, ensuring the continued popularity of the station for travelers today. In 2014, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) and Amtrak are currently conducting an engineering and environmental study reviewing a range of options to modify or replace the existing tunnel.

Related Resources

Street Address

Wilson Street, Baltimore, MD 21217
]]>
/items/show/445 <![CDATA[Canton Methodist Episcopal Church]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:55-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Canton Methodist Episcopal Church

Subject

Religion

Creator

Lauren Schiszik

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Founded in 1847, the Canton Methodist Episcopal Church was the first church established in Canton. The Canton Company donated land for the congregation鈥檚 first and second church buildings, because the company strongly encouraged the establishment of religious institutions in their company town.

This church was important in the lives of the company鈥檚 employees, and the civic and social health of the community. The Gothic Revival style building is the congregation鈥檚 second church building, designed by renowned Baltimore architect Charles L. Carson and built by prominent Baltimore builder Benjamin F. Bennett in 1883/1884. The church was named the Canton Methodist Episcopal Church, and by the late twentieth century, it was known as the Canton United Methodist Church.

This 2 陆 story Gothic Revival building recently suffered from a fire but still retains arched stained glass windows, a slate roof, decorative brickwork, dormer windows, and buttresses.

Sponsor

Baltimore City Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation

Street Address

1000 S. Ellwood Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21224
]]>
/items/show/442 <![CDATA[9 North Front Street]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:55-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

9 North Front Street

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Former Home of Baltimore Mayor Thorowgood Smith

Story

9 North Front Street is the former residence of Thorowgood Smith, a successful merchant and Baltimore鈥檚 second mayor. Built around 1790, the Federal style residence served as Smith鈥檚 home between 1802 and 1804.

The federal style of architecture was popular during Baltimore鈥檚 most vigorous period of growth, from the 1790s to the 1850s, when Baltimore vaulted into second place among American cities. The new residents were mostly housed in 1, 2, and 3陆-story dormered brick row houses, less ornate than their Georgian predecessors. They are to be found all around the bustling harbor, from Fells Point through Little Italy and Jonestown to Federal Hill.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, the building served as a hotel, an auto-parts shop, and a restaurant. After Baltimore City purchased the property in 1971 for the urban renewal-era redevelopment of Shot Tower Park, the Women鈥檚 Civic League sponsored the property鈥檚 restoration.

Related Resources

, Monument City Blog

Official Website

Street Address

9 N. Front Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>
/items/show/440 <![CDATA[Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African-American History & Culture]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African-American History & Culture

Creator

Nathan Dennies

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

The 82,000 square-foot Reginald F. Lewis Museum opened in 2005 and immediately made history as the first major building in downtown Baltimore designed by African American architects鈥攁 joint effort between Philip Freelon of a North Carolina firm, the Freelon Group, and Gary Bowden of a Baltimore firm, RTKL Associates. Both architects are fellows of the American Institute of Architects, rare achievements considering that in 2016 African Americans make up just 2% of registered architects in the United States.

The museum represents the character, pride, struggle, and accomplishments of Maryland African Americans, and was the second largest African American museum in the United States at the time of construction. The museums took the name of Baltimore businessman Reginald Lewis, the first African American CEO of a Fortune 500 company, TLC Beatrice International. Lewis grew up in West Baltimore and, before his death in 1993, he expressed interest in building a museum to African American culture. The Reginald F. Lewis Foundation, which Lewis established in 1987, provided a $5 million grant for the construction of the museum in Baltimore.

The museum board turned down an offer to reuse the Blaustein City Exhibition Center on President Street after focus groups showed that people were not interested in taking over the site of an old museum. "African Americans are tired of left-over seconds," museum board vice chairman Aris Allen Jr. told the Baltimore Sun in 2005. Architects Freelon and Bowden sought to design a distinct building that evokes the spirit of African American culture. The black, red and yellow facade takes its colors from the Maryland flag. A bold red wall slices through the facade, representing the journey of African Americans and the duality of accomplishment and struggle.

The building won several awards from local and state American Institute of Architects chapter. The museum is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institute and along with permanent exhibits, includes space for special exhibits, an oral history and recording studio, a 200 seat auditorium, and a classroom and resource center.

Official Website

Street Address

830 E. Pratt Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>
/items/show/435 <![CDATA[Fleet-McGinley Company Building]]> 2019-09-13T15:15:25-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Fleet-McGinley Company Building

Subject

Business

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

"The Best Equipped Printing Office in Baltimore"

Story

The former Fleet-McGinley Company building at the northwest corner of Water and South Streets was built in 1908鈥攐ne of scores of new warehouses and factories built around downtown as the city rebuilt from the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904. The five-story brick and reinforced concrete warehouse was designed by the prominent Baltimore architectural firm of Baldwin & Pennington for the Johns Hopkins Hospital trustees at a cost of $70,000. One of the building's earliest and most prominent tenants was the Fleet-McGinley Printing Company, established in 1884 as a partnership between Charles T. Fleet and J. Edward McGinley.

In 1914, Fleet-McGinley boasted that their building was "the best equipped printing office in Baltimore" boasting "the most modern appliances and equipment" along with "skilled and competent artisans." In the aftermath of the recent catastrophe, the printer paid special attention to fire-proofing, describing their "fire-proof vaults for the storage of plates, engravings and designs, which make the destruction by fire of such valuable property practically impossible."

In 1926, the Manufacturers' Record, a trade publication printed by the firm since the 1880s, purchased Fleet-McGinley and moved their operations from South Street to the Candler Building on East Lombard Street. In 1965, the business (still located in the Candler Building) was renamed the Blanchard Press of Maryland. The building on South Street later served as offices for insurance agents Hopper, Polk & Purnell, Inc., as well as Levy Sons Company, manufacturer of women's underwear. In early 2015, Goodwill Industries of the Chesapeake purchased the building from the International Youth Foundation who had occupied the structure for over fifteen years.

Official Website

Street Address

32 South Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>
/items/show/433 <![CDATA[Whitehall Cotton Mill]]> 2019-06-10T22:08:40-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Whitehall Cotton Mill

Subject

Industry

Creator

Nathan Dennies

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Before the rise of textile mills, the fast-flowing water of the Jones Falls instead powered gristmills supplying Baltimore's lucrative flour trade. Whitehall Mill was established as a gristmill in the late 1700s and owned by James Ellicott, a member of the same family that settled Ellicott City. In 1839, David Carroll, Horatio Gambrill, and their associates purchased the mill from Ellicott and converted it to a textile mill for weaving cotton duck, a tightly woven canvas used to make ship sails.

Over the years, the mill was expanded, burned, rebuilt, renamed, and converted to a number of different commercial uses. To house their workers, Carroll and Gambrill built Clipper Village, a cluster of homes located across from Whitehall for the mill's workers. The capacity of the mill was doubled in 1845 and the mill was converted to steam power to keep up with manufacturing demand. By 1850, forty men and sixty-five women were working at Whitehall Mill with an output of 220,000 yards of cotton duck. Carroll and Gambrill quickly expanded by converting other gristmills along the Jones Falls to textile mills.

The three-story granite factory burned in 1854 and, after it was rebuilt, renamed Clipper Mill in recognition of the ships that used the cotton duck cloth for sails. By this point, William E. Hooper, a sailmaker who expanded his business to selling raw cotton to the textile mills, had joined as a partner. In the 1860s, Gambrill sold his shares in the company to Hooper and opened Druid Mill. After another fire in 1868, Clipper Mill was rebuilt at twice its size. The mill was sold in 1899 to the Mount Vernon-Woodberry Cotton Duck Company, a national conglomerate. In 1902, the mill manufactured the cotton duck for Kaiser Wilhelm's yacht, which was christened by Alice Roosevelt as the Meteor III. In addition to ship sails, the mill manufactured other heavy canvas items such as mail bags for the U.S. government.

In 1925, the mill was sold to Purity Paper Vessels, a firm that manufactured paper containers that could hold semi-liquid foods. The mill's cotton manufacturing machinery was shipped to Mount-Vernon-Woodberry Company's Southern mills in Tallassee, Alabama and Columbia, South Carolina. During the year of the sale, several elegiac articles appeared in the Baltimore Sun that looked back on the time when Baltimore's cotton duck manufacturing was at its peak and its clipper ships dominated international trade. Purity Paper Vessels later sub-leased part of the building to the Shapiro Waste Paper Company. In 1941, half the building was leased by the Army Quartermaster Office to be used as a warehouse for the Third Corps Area.

By the 1940s, the I. Sekine Brush Company, a maker of men's grooming products and toothbrushes, occupied the mill. The company was founded in 1906 and had been operating plants in Baltimore since 1928. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, H.H. Sekine, who had been living in the United States for over twenty years, was arrested and interrogated, along with dozens of foreign-born Baltimoreans connected to nations on the Axis side. At the time, Sekine was operating a factory in Reservoir Hill that the government shut down for two weeks. When it reopened shortly before Christmas, Sekine paid all his employees in full for the time they lost during the closure. Over time, portions of the Clipper Mill property were leased to other companies, including Penguin Books, The Maryland Venetian Blind Manufacturing Corporation, and Star Built Kitchen Units. Sekine maintained operations at the Whitehall mill location until 1992 when it was sold to Komar Industries.

Most recently, developer Terra Nova Ventures transformed the building into a mixed use development with a planned market. Architects Alexander Design Studio restored much of the long neglected mill, bringing new life to the historic structure. Numerous improvements were made for flood prevention, including the construction of a pedestrian bridge over Clipper Mill Road.

Official Website

Street Address

3300 Clipper Mill Road, Baltimore, MD 21211
]]>
/items/show/432 <![CDATA[Fifth Regiment Armory]]>
In addition to its role in training the Maryland National Guard, the armory has housed a military museum since 1982. The Maryland Museum of Military History contains artifacts and stories from not just the state鈥檚 National Guard, but from all Marylanders who served in the military. Over the last several years, the museum has opened new exhibits focusing on military history of today and yesterday. One of the new exhibits features the armed services from the 1991 Persian Gulf War to the present while another dives into the role of Marylanders in the War of 1812.]]>
2020-10-16T13:12:04-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Fifth Regiment Armory

Description

With thick buttresses, parapets, a crenelated roof-line, and a steel roof, the enormous 5th Regiment Armory has served as an imposing landmark between Bolton Hill and Mount Vernon since 1901. The building was designed by architects Wyatt and Nolting (who also designed the Pikesville Armory and Liriodendron Mansion in Bel Air among other notable buildings). In 1912, conventioneers to the Democratic National Convention packed the huge drill hall to nominate soon-to-be president Woodrow Wilson. Unfortunately, in 1933, a severe fire destroyed the roof and gutted the interior but the state soon rebuilt the structure and has continued to use the building up through the present.

In addition to its role in training the Maryland National Guard, the armory has housed a military museum since 1982. The Maryland Museum of Military History contains artifacts and stories from not just the state鈥檚 National Guard, but from all Marylanders who served in the military. Over the last several years, the museum has opened new exhibits focusing on military history of today and yesterday. One of the new exhibits features the armed services from the 1991 Persian Gulf War to the present while another dives into the role of Marylanders in the War of 1812.

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

With thick buttresses, parapets, a crenelated roof-line, and a steel roof, the enormous 5th Regiment Armory has served as an imposing landmark between Bolton Hill and Mount Vernon since 1901. The building was designed by architects Wyatt and Nolting (who also designed the Pikesville Armory and Liriodendron Mansion in Bel Air among other notable buildings). In 1912, conventioneers to the Democratic National Convention packed the huge drill hall to nominate soon-to-be president Woodrow Wilson. Unfortunately, in 1933, a severe fire destroyed the roof and gutted the interior but the state soon rebuilt the structure and has continued to use the building up through the present. In addition to its role in training the Maryland National Guard, the armory has housed a military museum since 1982. The Maryland Museum of Military History contains artifacts and stories from not just the state鈥檚 National Guard, but from all Marylanders who served in the military. Over the last several years, the museum has opened new exhibits focusing on military history of today and yesterday. One of the new exhibits features the armed services from the 1991 Persian Gulf War to the present while another dives into the role of Marylanders in the War of 1812.

Watch our on this building!

Official Website

Street Address

219 W. 29th Division Street, Baltimore, MD 21211
]]>
/items/show/431 <![CDATA[The Ivy Hotel]]> 2019-06-25T23:22:36-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

The Ivy Hotel

Subject

Architecture

Creator

Johns Hopkins

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Lede

Mount Vernon鈥檚 elegant and historic Ivy Hotel has a rich lineage: its roots are as a Gilded Age mansion and its uses have included city offices, a city owned and operated inn, and now a private boutique hotel.

Story

The historic Ivy Hotel got its start in the late nineteenth century when a prominent Baltimore banker named John Gilman commissioned a mansion in Mount Vernon for the princely sum of $40,000. Gilman died before the building's completion in 1889, but his widow lived there for several years before selling it to William and Harriet Painter. William Painter was the head of Crown Cork and Seal company and his invention of the bottle cap made him one of the city鈥檚 leading businessmen.

After the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Painter, the mansion went through several other owners, including Robert Garrett, grandson of the president of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and the gold medalist in both discus and shot put at the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896. Mr. Garrett eventually donated the building to the Playground Athletic League, which he chaired, and in 1939 the PAL donated it to Baltimore City for use as offices for the Department of Recreation and Parks. In 1985, Mayor William Donald Schaefer had the city purchase two adjacent rowhouses, undertook a complete historic renovation project, and turned the building into a city owned hotel: the Inn at Government House.

In 2015, the Azola Companies, Ziger/Snead Architects completed a restoration turning the building into a boutique historic hotel, complete with parquet floors, pocket doors, stained glass, and a grand staircase.

Official Website

Street Address

1125 N. Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>
/items/show/430 <![CDATA[Ma & Pa Roundhouse on Falls Road]]> 2024-03-14T10:05:54-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Ma & Pa Roundhouse on Falls Road

Subject

Transportation

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Lede

The former Ma & Pa Railroad Roundhouse is an often overlooked landmark located on Falls Road just north of the Baltimore Streetcar Museum.

Story

The Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad, known as the Ma & Pa, connected Baltimore, Maryland and York, Pennsylvania, over a circuitous seventy-seven mile route. In 1881, the Falls Road site became the Baltimore terminal for the Baltimore & Delta Railway (a predecessor of the Maryland & Pennsylvania) originally including a wood frame roundhouse. The original roundhouse burned down in 1892 but, in 1910, the Ma & Pa rebuilt built tracks, roundhouse, the adjoining yard office and power house, as part of a $47,000 investment in their terminal facilities.

The Ma & Pa thrived in the 1900s and early 1910s providing regular commuter service between Belair and Baltimore, country excursions for city residences, and milk and mail delivery between Baltimore and Pennsylvania. The business began to decline after WWI and, by the 1950s, passengers had dwindled to about 12 people per train. After the company lost the contract to operate the Railway Post Office, they abandoned their Maryland operations and moved offices to York, Pennsylvania.

In 1960, two years after the Ma & Pa ceased operations, the city bought the roundhouse and the terminal complex. Baltimore City purchased the buildings for $275,000 with plans to use the roundhouse as a highway department warehouse.

For the past 58 years, the site has been used by Baltimore City for truck parking and winter road salt storage. While the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum has successfully preserved the former Mount Clare Roundhouse in southwest Baltimore as an iconic attraction for railroad buffs young and old, most roundhouses have been lost to demolition or neglect.

Years of service to the Baltimore Department of Transportation has taken a toll on this structure too. Unfortunately, in August 2014, the roof at the roundhouse suffered a partial collapse when the several salt-damaged supports failed. Action is needed to stabilize the building and prevent further deterioration.

Watch on this site!

Related Resources

, 91视频

Street Address

2601 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD 21211
]]>
/items/show/429 <![CDATA[Alma Manufacturing Company]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Alma Manufacturing Company

Subject

Industry

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Factory for the 鈥淪uperior Pantaloon Button鈥 and the 鈥淧erfect Trousers鈥 Hook鈥

Story

Founded in 1887 by twenty-eight-year-old German immigrant Herman Kerngood, the Alma Manufacturing Company manufactured a wide variety of metal clothing trimmings including buckles, clasps, fasteners and steel buttons. The new operation was conveniently located alongside the Baltimore & Ohio railroad tracks. Before Kerngood started his business, textile companies in the United States had imported all their steel buttons from Germany. The firm produced around 35,000 specialized products (the 鈥淪uperior Pantaloon Button鈥 and 鈥淧erfect Trousers鈥 Hook鈥 to name just a few) and could be found attached to hats, umbrellas, shoes and, of course, clothing produced at factories around the country.

Kerngood lived in northwest Baltimore at The Esplanade and attended Oheb Shalom Synagogue up until his death in 1932. Herman鈥檚 sons, Allan and Martin, continued to grow the business, producing around twenty-nine million pieces a month at its height, and maintaining sales offices in cities around the U.S. and internationally. The original complex on Monroe Street closed in 1940 and, in 1946, the Alma Manufacturing Company sold to the North and Judd Manufacturing Company of New Britain, Connecticut.

Over the past seventy years, the Monroe Street complex has been used by bakers, tailors and even candy manufacturers, including the Standard Tailors Company, Acme Packing Company, George Weston Bakers, Peyton Bakers Supply Company, Columbia Container Corporation and American Plastics Industries. Baltimore鈥檚 Naron Candy Company, founded in 1945 by Jim Ross and Gerald Naron, occupied the building in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s before their merger with Mary Sue Candies in 1996. Mahendra Shah purchased the building around 1983 and rented the facility as the Shah Industrial Park. In 2001, Shah started a fire in the building which has left it in a perilous state today.

Related Resources

, Baltimore Slumlord Watch, 2014 October 2

Street Address

611-661 S. Monroe Street, Baltimore, MD 21223
]]>
/items/show/428 <![CDATA[Eutaw Chapel at Herring Run Park]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Eutaw Chapel at Herring Run Park

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

The Eutaw Chapel is a largely forgotten landmark hidden in the woods above Hall's Springs in Herring Run Park. The former church dates to 1861 when the small stone building was built on a property donated by Horatio Whitridge, Esq. Located three miles outside the city, the chapel stood between Hall's Spring and the Columbian Cotton Factory. The name came from "Eutaw Farm"鈥攁 property owned and developed by William Smith in the late 1700s and Benedict William Hall in the early 1800s.

Like the nearby Ivy Mill, a former gristmill purchased by Morgan State University when they moved to northeast Baltimore in 1917, the building is made of Baltimore Gneiss. Baltimore Gneiss is a gray-green rock formed along the Herring Run over a billion years ago, making it the oldest material within city boundaries. The strength of the rock has kept the building standing despite years of neglect that have left the structure in terrible condition. Recent plans for Herring Run Park include the proposal to stabilize and reuse the structure as a public park pavilion.

Street Address

Hall Springs, Herring Run Park, Baltimore, MD
]]>
/items/show/425 <![CDATA[St. Philip's Lutheran Church]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

St. Philip's Lutheran Church

Creator

Jeremy Kargon

Relation

Research for this story included contributions from Nancy Fox, Amy Frank, and Khashayar Shahkolahi. Special thanks to Rev. Michael Guy, St. Philip鈥檚 Lutheran Church.

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

A Modernist Gem from Urban Renewal

Lede

Now in its sixth decade, the St. Philip鈥檚 edifice still serves the vibrant community that built it, despite the exigencies of Baltimore鈥檚 history over the years since the building鈥檚 dedication in 1958.

Story

The ordinary or quotidian in architecture often masks the unique, especially if time serves to dull the patina of something鈥檚 newness. St. Philip鈥檚 Lutheran Church is case-in-point: a faded Modernist gem, the church nevertheless embodies the remarkable story of its congregation鈥檚 persistence.

Now in its sixth decade, the St. Philip鈥檚 edifice still serves the vibrant community that built it, despite the exigencies of Baltimore鈥檚 history over the years since the building鈥檚 dedication in 1958.

Home to the nation鈥檚 second-oldest African American Lutheran congregation, St. Philip鈥檚 is also the first church in America to be built under the auspices of urban renewal. Accordingly, its design reflects both church-goers鈥 rapidly-changing expectations in the years after World War II and city planners鈥 embrace of modernist planning solutions. Set back from the street and moderately scaled鈥攍ike a suburban house鈥擲t. Philip鈥檚 Lutheran Church reflects mostly the ideas of its pastor at the time, the Rev. Francis B. Smith. Congregational lore and extant sketches by Rev. Smith attest to his direct involvement in the building鈥檚 design; the architect, Frederic Moehle, seems mostly to have translated Rev. Smith鈥檚 directions into the final, three-dimensional form.

Despite its modest exterior, St. Philip鈥檚 created considerable architectural drama within. Alone among Baltimore鈥檚 contemporary religious buildings, St. Philip鈥檚 low ceiling is illuminated extensively by continuous, floor-to-ceiling windows along both sides. An extensive clerestory window (now, unfortunately, covered over) washed the altar and its podium with 鈥渋neffable light.鈥 Otherwise, the original finishes of the church interior were entirely consistent with the Modernist鈥檚 creed: unfinished block and brick masonry (stacked bond), naturally-finished wood, linoleum tile floor, and serene abstraction throughout the space.

Rev. Smith and the St. Philip鈥檚 congregation fought hard to wrest those qualities from the City鈥檚 鈥淯rban Renewal Plan 3-A鈥 鈥 a.k.a. the 鈥淏roadway Redevelopment Plan鈥 鈥 laid out by architect Alex Cochran and first announced publicly in 1950. St. Philip鈥檚 had occupied a historic structure on Eden Street, designated by Plan 3-A to be demolished and appropriated for Dunbar High School鈥檚 expanded athletic fields. No provision was made in Cochran鈥檚 original plan to relocate St. Philip鈥檚, but a decade of persistent negotiation between Rev. Smith and Baltimore鈥檚 Redevelopment Commission resulted in the congregation鈥檚 purchase of the present site on Caroline Street. Construction proceeded apace, a year before Cochran鈥檚 own celebrated design for the nearby Church of Our Savior (now demolished) could begin.

Recent changes have tarnished St. Philip鈥檚 architectural shine: roof-top AC units, faux-wood paneling, 鈥渢raditional鈥 chandeliers, and much-needed heat-resistant glazing. An addition at the south-east corner provided accessibility for the disabled. But the building is still substantially the building it was in 1958. Especially on the exterior, the church鈥檚 bulk and orientation still express an ease belied only by Johns Hopkins Hospital鈥檚 looming physical presence immediately to the east. What appears 鈥渜uotidian鈥 is, therefore, merely that superficial change wrought by time; what is of interest at St. Philip鈥檚 remains entirely present, if just below the surface.

Related Resources

Research for this story included contributions from Nancy Fox, Amy Frank, and Khashayar Shahkolahi. Special thanks to Rev. Michael Guy, St. Philip鈥檚 Lutheran Church.

Official Website

Street Address

501 N. Caroline Street, Baltimore, MD 21205
]]>
/items/show/424 <![CDATA[New Covenant United Methodist Church]]> 2019-05-09T23:03:08-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

New Covenant United Methodist Church

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Former Central Methodist Episcopal Church South on Wildwood Parkway

Story

The church on Wildwood Parkway, now used as the New Covenant United Methodist Church, was originally built for the Central Methodist Episcopal Church South in 1930.

The church's original congregation was organized around 1866 and, in 1876, erected a sanctuary on Edmondson Avenue near Harlem Park. In 1926, the church purchased a property on the street then known as Wildwood Driveway and, in November 1929, sold the building on Edmondson Avenue and announced plans to begin building a three-story Sunday school designed by architect Guy E. Gaston.

Construction on a new church began in May 1930 with a cornerstone laying ceremony attended by three hundred people. The building was estimated to cost $65,000. Around 1954, the congregation merged with the Summerfield Methodist Church after the Rehoboth Church of God in Christ Jesus Apostolic purchased the latter congregation鈥檚 building on Poplar Grove Street.

Through the years, the church offered a variety of programs and religious services. In February 1965, the church (then known as the Central-Summerfield Methodist Church) offered an 鈥渙ld-fashioned minstrel show鈥 in their fellowship hall. While minstelry had a long history as popular entertainment for white Baltimoreans, the show was a particularly striking choice given the neighborhood's ongoing transition of largely segregated white to segregated black between 1960 and 1970.

Eventually, the church became the Wildwood Parkway United Methodist Church and operates today as the New Covenant United Methodist Church.

Street Address

700 Wildwood Parkway, Baltimore, MD 21229
]]>