Stories by author "Johns Hopkins": 44
Stories
Grace & St. Peter's Church
The first true brownstone building in Baltimore, today鈥檚 Grace & St. Peter鈥檚 Church opened its doors in 1852 as Grace Church on Park Avenue in Mount Vernon. Architecturally, it was the first church built of stone in the city and with stained…
Motor House
Built in 1914 for Eastwick Motors, Baltimore鈥檚 first Ford dealership, 120 West North Avenue has been home to a surprising array of owners and occupants. After its days with Eastwick (a proud supporter of Amoco gasoline and its American Oil Company鈥
Munsey Building
The Munsey Building was erected by and named after the publisher, Frank Munsey, who had purchased the Baltimore News to add to his publishing empire. Though he wanted the paper, he did not like the five-year old building that housed it. So, he had a鈥
Pimlico Race Course
Alfred G. Vanderbilt once said of Pimlico that it is 鈥渕ore than a dirt track bounded by four streets. It is an accepted American institution, devoted to the best interests of a great sport, graced by time, respected for its honorable…
The Ivy Hotel
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,…
American Brewery Building
The American Brewery Building at 1701 North Gay Street might be the most 鈥淏altimore鈥 of all buildings in the city. It is in the style of High Victorian architecture, as so much of our city was built, and is just plain quirky. Since 1973, the 1887鈥
Hotel Brexton
The Hotel Brexton was built in 1881 for Samuel Wyman, a wealthy Baltimore merchant. The six-story Brexton was built as a residential hotel in the Queen Anne Style, with Baltimore pressed brick and Scotch sandstone. Noted architect Charles Cassell鈥
Druid Hill Park Superintendent's House
The Superintendent鈥檚 House in Druid Hill Park dates to 1872 and was designed by architect George Frederick (who also designed City Hall). It was built using local 鈥淏utler Stone鈥 from Baltimore County and has wonderful Gothic decorations including鈥
Arch Social Club
The Arch Social Club at Pennsylvania and North Avenues started its life as Schanze's Theater, a movie house constructed in 1912. After serving time as a Wilson's Restaurant from the 1930s through the 1960s (when the lower facade was covered over),鈥
Monumental Life Building
Beginning in 1928 when it was built and for 84 years afterwards, the Monumental Life Insurance Company occupied what was ubiquitously known as the Monumental Life Building. In 2012, however, Monumental Life consolidated offices downtown and moved…
Gunther Brewery
From brewery to apartments, the reuse of the Gunther brewery complex is remarkable for its scope and quality. The building is in what鈥檚 now called, aptly, the Brewer鈥檚 Hill neighborhood east of Canton. This area started to populate with German鈥
Elisha Tyson's Falls Road House
Originally the summer home of industrialist and abolitionist Elisha Tyson in the early 1800s, 732 Pacific Street is a classic Federal style house built with native granite two feet thick. Among many other accomplishments, Tyson helped finance the鈥
Clifton Park Valve House
The Clifton Park Valve House on St. Lo Drive in Clifton Park is a magnificent Gothic revival stone and tile-roofed structure built between 1887 and 1888. It was built to house the machinery used in the operation of Lake Clifton, which was once part鈥
McDonogh School
John McDonogh, a Baltimore-born merchant and philanthropist, was born in 1779 and died in 1850, bequeathing half of his estate to the City of Baltimore to educate children. However, since the public school system already existed in Baltimore, the鈥
Dickeyville
The Gwynns Falls first saw industrial development as early as the late 1700s and, by 1808, the small industrial village began to form around an early paper mill along the water where Dickeyville sits today. Although few of these early stone鈥
Perry Hall Mansion
Erected high on a hill above the Gunpowder River Valley, Perry Hall Mansion dominated life in northeastern Baltimore County in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Built in the 1770s by Harry Dorsey Gough, Perry Hall was named after鈥
Rogers Mansion in Druid Hill Park
The Mansion House, built by Revolutionary War Colonel Nicholas Rogers, has stood in what is now Druid Hill Park since 1801. The house is the third to stand in this location. Originally a castle known as 鈥淎uchentorolie,鈥 built by Rogers鈥 ancestors,鈥
Baltimore Arena
In 1961, the cornerstone of the Baltimore Civic Center (as it was then called) was laid, enclosing a time capsule with notes from President John F. Kennedy, Maryland Governor Millard Tawes, and Baltimore Mayor Harold Grady. Located on the site of…
Francis Scott Key Monument
The Key Monument on Eutaw Place is a grand reminder of how Baltimoreans have kept the memory of the Battle of Baltimore and the War of 1812 alive over two hundred years. Francis Scott Key was a Maryland lawyer and slaveholder who was on board the鈥
Peale Museum
On August 15, 1814, almost exactly one month before the Battle of Baltimore and the bombing of Ft. McHenry in the War of 1812, Rembrandt Peale opened "Peale's Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Paintings" on Holliday Street in downtown Baltimore.鈥
Maryland State Medical Society (MedChi) Building
In January 1799, the Maryland Legislature approved a petition for a charter to incorporate a society of physicians in Maryland to be known as the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of the State of Maryland. As written, this special act of the Maryland鈥
Everyman Theatre
Constructed across from the venerable Ford's Theater in 1911, the Empire Theatre (as the Everyman was first called) was designed in the Beaux Arts style by Baltimore architects William McElfatrick and Otto Simonson. Although its advertising…
Miller's Court
Erected in stages between 1890 and 1910, the former H.F. Miller & Son Company building consists of a 77,000 square foot brick manufacturing plant that occupies half of the city block bounded by 26th Street on the south, 27th Street on the north,鈥
First & Franklin Presbyterian Church
In 1761, a group of Scots-Irish "Dissenters" (opponents of the Church of England) came to Baltimore Towne from Pennsylvania to escape the French and Indian War. They founded the First Presbyterian Church, appropriately named as it really…
Garrett-Jacobs Mansion
Beginning in 1872, the mansion was the home of Robert Garrett, president of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and his wife Mary Frick Garrett. After Robert Garrett's death, Mrs. Garrett married Dr. Henry Barton Jacobs and the couple added the…
Baltimore Design School
A survivor that has endured decades of abandonment, the 1914 Lebow Building is an impressive example of early twentieth century industrial architecture that is just starting a new future as the Baltimore Design School. While it takes its popular…
Masonic Grand Lodge
In 1869, the Freemasons finished a new Grand Lodge for the State of Maryland on Charles Street in downtown Baltimore, with each room more decorated than the last. Originally designed by Edmund G. Lind, who also designed the Peabody Institute in the鈥
Taylor's Chapel
Taylor's Chapel has its roots to the Taylor family, which is one of the oldest in Maryland, stretching back to the 1600s. As brothers, John Taylor was one of the first commissioners of Baltimore County and Thomas Taylor ("Colonel Taylor" at the…
St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church
There are few places where you can stand in the middle of a room and almost everything you see is made or decorated by Tiffany: glass, paint, finishes, etc. St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church on St. Paul Street, with its entire interior…
Old Otterbein Church
Old Otterbein Church, built in 1785, is one of the oldest churches still standing in Baltimore. With its classic brick and white trim tower (with bells brought over from Germany), the church shows off its landmark stature for countless Orioles fans鈥