/items/browse?output=atom&tags=Guilford%20Avenue <![CDATA[Explore 91Ƶ]]> 2025-03-12T12:08:04-04:00 Omeka /items/show/493 <![CDATA[Terminal Warehouse]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:55-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Terminal Warehouse

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

The Flour Warehouse of the Terminal Warehouse Corporation

Story

Designed by well-known local architect Benjamin B. Owens, the "Flour Warehouse" is a unique industrial landmark on the east side of Baltimore's downtown. When contractor S.H. and J.F. Adams erected the building for the Terminal Warehouse Company in 1894, the Northern Central Railroad maintained a line down Guilford Avenue connecting Baltimore's factories and warehouses to far-flung farms and markets across the state and country.

The company expanded in 1912 with an addition built by the Noel Construction Company and, through the 1970s, remained one of the oldest warehouses in continuous use by the same corporation. For several years, the building housed the Baltimore City Archives and the Baltimore City Department of Planning. After a new owner planned to demolish warehouse in 2007, local residents successfully fought to preserve the building for future reuse.

Related Resources

Street Address

211 E. Pleasant Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21202
]]> /items/show/404 <![CDATA[Northern Central Railroad Baltimore Freight Shed]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Northern Central Railroad Baltimore Freight Shed

Subject

Transportation

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Built by the Northern Central Railroad, the former Baltimore Freight Shed is a rare example of composite timber and iron roof construction of the mid nineteenth century.

The roof structure is comprised of a series of tricomposite trusses with timber top chords, wrought iron tension rods, and cast iron compression members. This use of both timber and iron in the same roofing system formed a transition period between short span timber trusses and longer span iron and steel trusses that would be in widespread use by the end of the century. The building remains in use today as the home of the Merritt Downtown Athletic Club.

Related Resources

Adapted from the description provided by the .

Official Website

Street Address

210 E. Centre Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]> /items/show/79 <![CDATA[Copycat Building]]>
Maryland native William Painter invented the "crown cork" bottle cap - a predecessor of the bottle cap still common today - at Murrill & Keizer's machine shop on Holliday Street in 1891. A prolific inventor with over 85 patents, Painter established the Crown Cork & Seal Company in 1892 and started producing both bottle caps and bottling machines. The business quickly outgrew their factory on East Monument Street and moved north to Guilford Avenue in September 1897 into a grand six-floor factory with handsome Victorian details.

As with all industrial enterprises in Baltimore, their growth was driven by the labor of thousands of men, women and children who worked at the factory and frequently organized to seek improved conditions and wages. In 1899, for example, 65 boys between the ages of 13 and 18 employed feeding the machines that placed the cork seals into the caps went on strike. Company officials remained unconcerned, remarking that the "places of any who may not come back will be easily filled by other boys." The firm continued to expand, adding a machine shop (now known as the Lebow Building) next door on Oliver Street in 1914, and building new factory buildings in Highlandtown where they moved in the 1930s.

The building on Guilford Avenue remained in use by a wide range of tenants from the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s through a whole host of over twenty industrial enterprises occupying the building in the 1960s. In 1983, Charles Lankford purchased the building and converted the industrial space to art studios. Soon artists began illegally converting their studio spaces into apartments and by the mid-1980s, the Copycat began to host a vital community of local artists and musicians. The building remains an anchor in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District - rezoned as "mixed-used" to accommodate the diverse tenants - and offers a unique perspective on the history of industry in central Baltimore.]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:49-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Copycat Building

Subject

Architecture
Industry

Description

For over twenty years, the Copycat - named for the roof top billboard of the Copycat printing company - has offered studio space and living space for countless artists, musicians, and performers. The history of creativity in this local landmark has a long history extending back to the construction of the Copycat Building in the 1890s as a factory complex for Baltimore's Crown Cork & Seal Company.

Maryland native William Painter invented the "crown cork" bottle cap - a predecessor of the bottle cap still common today - at Murrill & Keizer's machine shop on Holliday Street in 1891. A prolific inventor with over 85 patents, Painter established the Crown Cork & Seal Company in 1892 and started producing both bottle caps and bottling machines. The business quickly outgrew their factory on East Monument Street and moved north to Guilford Avenue in September 1897 into a grand six-floor factory with handsome Victorian details.

As with all industrial enterprises in Baltimore, their growth was driven by the labor of thousands of men, women and children who worked at the factory and frequently organized to seek improved conditions and wages. In 1899, for example, 65 boys between the ages of 13 and 18 employed feeding the machines that placed the cork seals into the caps went on strike. Company officials remained unconcerned, remarking that the "places of any who may not come back will be easily filled by other boys." The firm continued to expand, adding a machine shop (now known as the Lebow Building) next door on Oliver Street in 1914, and building new factory buildings in Highlandtown where they moved in the 1930s.

The building on Guilford Avenue remained in use by a wide range of tenants from the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s through a whole host of over twenty industrial enterprises occupying the building in the 1960s. In 1983, Charles Lankford purchased the building and converted the industrial space to art studios. Soon artists began illegally converting their studio spaces into apartments and by the mid-1980s, the Copycat began to host a vital community of local artists and musicians. The building remains an anchor in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District - rezoned as "mixed-used" to accommodate the diverse tenants - and offers a unique perspective on the history of industry in central Baltimore.

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

For over twenty years, the Copycat - named for the roof top billboard of the Copycat printing company - has offered studio space and living space for countless artists, musicians, and performers. The history of creativity in this local landmark has a long history extending back to the construction of the Copycat Building in the 1890s as a factory complex for Baltimore's Crown Cork & Seal Company.

Maryland native William Painter invented the "crown cork" bottle cap - a predecessor of the bottle cap still common today - at Murrill & Keizer's machine shop on Holliday Street in 1891. A prolific inventor with over 85 patents, Painter established the Crown Cork & Seal Company in 1892 and started producing both bottle caps and bottling machines. The business quickly outgrew their factory on East Monument Street and moved north to Guilford Avenue in September 1897 into a grand six-floor factory with handsome Victorian details.

As with all industrial enterprises in Baltimore, their growth was driven by the labor of thousands of men, women and children who worked at the factory and frequently organized to seek improved conditions and wages. In 1899, for example, 65 boys between the ages of 13 and 18 employed feeding the machines that placed the cork seals into the caps went on strike. Company officials remained unconcerned, remarking that the "places of any who may not come back will be easily filled by other boys." The firm continued to expand, adding a machine shop (now known as the Lebow Building) next door on Oliver Street in 1914, and building new factory buildings in Highlandtown where they moved in the 1930s.

The building on Guilford Avenue remained in use by a wide range of tenants from the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s through a whole host of over twenty industrial enterprises occupying the building in the 1960s. In 1983, Charles Lankford purchased the building and converted the industrial space to art studios. Soon artists began illegally converting their studio spaces into apartments and by the mid-1980s, the Copycat began to host a vital community of local artists and musicians. The building remains an anchor in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District - rezoned as "mixed-used" to accommodate the diverse tenants - and offers a unique perspective on the history of industry in central Baltimore.

Official Website

Street Address

1501 Guilford Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]> /items/show/15 <![CDATA[Public School 32]]>
Contractor James B. Yeatman broke ground for the new building on Guilford Avenue in Feburary 1890 with the plan to have the building ready for students by the fall. The building had a front of pressed brick with with brown sandstone trim and included six class-rooms, two clock-rooms and a teachers' room on each floor. 1890 eventually set a new record for the Baltimore public school system with a total of 11 new school buildings completed thanks to the availability of "special funds for the purchase of sites and the erection of school-houses" provided by a building loan to the city of $400,000 in 1888 and 1892.

When the building opened that fall, Catherine S. Thompson became one of the teachers and went on to become the longest serving educator at the school remaining through her retirement as principal in 1926. A graduate of Eastern High School at the southeast corner of Alsquith and Orleans, Thompson began her career in education at the age of 17 in School No. 6 in East Baltimore. Thompson became the head of the school in 1905 and remained there for over 20 years. She lived nearby at 1601 Calvert Street and after her death on December 5, 1937 she was buried in Greenmount Cemetery, just a few blocks east of the school where she worked for years.

When the nearby Benjamin Banneker Elementary School, previously known as Colored School No. 113, closed in the early 1960s with the continued desegregation of the Baltimore City public school system, the school expanded with the addition of a large new building just to the south on Guilford. Designed by the firm of Wheeler, Bonn, Shockey and Associates, the new building was designed to contain, "14 classrooms, 2 kindergartens, 330-seat auditorium, gymnasium, cafeteria, health suite, library, instructional materials center, administrative offices, and utility rooms" at a cost of a $962,000. The school took on the name Mildred Monroe in 1980, to honor a long time custodian at the building and a friend of many students.

After the school closed in 2001, it served as a homeless shelter and then as a location for the fourth season of The Wire on HBO, highlighting the challenges of Baltimore's public school system. In the past few years, both buildings have taken on new life as the home to the Baltimore City Montessori School.]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:48-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Public School 32

Subject

Education

Description

Built in 1890, Public School No. 32, now better known as home to the Baltimore Montessori School, is a rare historic community school building, one of scores built in the late 19th century to support the city's rapidly growing population. Like most school buildings at the time, the building was designed by the Baltimore Inspector of Buildings J. Theodore Oster, who served in the position from 1884 through 1896. The building shares a number of features that can still be found on old school buildings throughout the city, such as the double stair (one stair for girls and one for boys) along with the tower above. Born in Maryland in 1844, Oster had followed his father, Jacob Oster, to work as a carpenter and draftsman in their firm J. Oster & Son and rose to his position after serving as assistant building inspector in the early 1880s.

Contractor James B. Yeatman broke ground for the new building on Guilford Avenue in Feburary 1890 with the plan to have the building ready for students by the fall. The building had a front of pressed brick with with brown sandstone trim and included six class-rooms, two clock-rooms and a teachers' room on each floor. 1890 eventually set a new record for the Baltimore public school system with a total of 11 new school buildings completed thanks to the availability of "special funds for the purchase of sites and the erection of school-houses" provided by a building loan to the city of $400,000 in 1888 and 1892.

When the building opened that fall, Catherine S. Thompson became one of the teachers and went on to become the longest serving educator at the school remaining through her retirement as principal in 1926. A graduate of Eastern High School at the southeast corner of Alsquith and Orleans, Thompson began her career in education at the age of 17 in School No. 6 in East Baltimore. Thompson became the head of the school in 1905 and remained there for over 20 years. She lived nearby at 1601 Calvert Street and after her death on December 5, 1937 she was buried in Greenmount Cemetery, just a few blocks east of the school where she worked for years.

When the nearby Benjamin Banneker Elementary School, previously known as Colored School No. 113, closed in the early 1960s with the continued desegregation of the Baltimore City public school system, the school expanded with the addition of a large new building just to the south on Guilford. Designed by the firm of Wheeler, Bonn, Shockey and Associates, the new building was designed to contain, "14 classrooms, 2 kindergartens, 330-seat auditorium, gymnasium, cafeteria, health suite, library, instructional materials center, administrative offices, and utility rooms" at a cost of a $962,000. The school took on the name Mildred Monroe in 1980, to honor a long time custodian at the building and a friend of many students.

After the school closed in 2001, it served as a homeless shelter and then as a location for the fourth season of The Wire on HBO, highlighting the challenges of Baltimore's public school system. In the past few years, both buildings have taken on new life as the home to the Baltimore City Montessori School.

Creator

Eli Pousson

Relation

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

19th Century School Reused as a 21st Century Charter School

Lede

Built in 1890, Public School No. 32, now better known as home to the Baltimore Montessori School, is a rare historic community school building, one of scores built in the late 19th century to support the city's rapidly growing population.

Story

Like most school buildings at the time, Public School 32 was designed by the Baltimore Inspector of Buildings J. Theodore Oster, who served in the position from 1884 through 1896. The building shares a number of features that can still be found on old school buildings throughout the city, such as the double stair (one stair for girls and one for boys) along with the tower above. Born in Maryland in 1844, Oster had followed his father, Jacob Oster, to work as a carpenter and draftsman in their firm J. Oster & Son and rose to his position after serving as assistant building inspector in the early 1880s.

Contractor James B. Yeatman broke ground for the new building on Guilford Avenue in Feburary 1890 with the plan to have the building ready for students by the fall. The building had a front of pressed brick with with brown sandstone trim and included six class-rooms, two clock-rooms and a teachers' room on each floor. 1890 eventually set a new record for the Baltimore public school system with a total of 11 new school buildings completed thanks to the availability of "special funds for the purchase of sites and the erection of school-houses" provided by a building loan to the city of $400,000 in 1888 and 1892.

When the building opened that fall, Catherine S. Thompson became one of the teachers and went on to become the longest serving educator at the school remaining through her retirement as principal in 1926. A graduate of Eastern High School at the southeast corner of Alsquith and Orleans, Thompson began her career in education at the age of 17 in School No. 6 in East Baltimore. Thompson became the head of the school in 1905 and remained there for over 20 years. She lived nearby at 1601 Calvert Street and after her death on December 5, 1937 she was buried in Greenmount Cemetery, just a few blocks east of the school where she worked for years.

When the nearby Benjamin Banneker Elementary School, previously known as Colored School No. 113, closed in the early 1960s with the continued desegregation of the Baltimore City public school system, the school expanded with the addition of a large new building just to the south on Guilford. Designed by the firm of Wheeler, Bonn, Shockey and Associates, the new building was designed to contain, "14 classrooms, 2 kindergartens, 330-seat auditorium, gymnasium, cafeteria, health suite, library, instructional materials center, administrative offices, and utility rooms" at a cost of a $962,000. The school took on the name Mildred Monroe in 1980, to honor a long time custodian at the building and a friend of many students.

After the school closed in 2001, it served as a homeless shelter and then as a location for the fourth season of The Wire on HBO, highlighting the challenges of Baltimore's public school system. In the past few years, both buildings have taken on new life as the home to the Baltimore Montessori Public Charter School.

Official Website

Street Address

1600 Guilford Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21202
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