St. Peter the Apostle Church served southwest Baltimore's large Irish Catholic community for over 160 years. From its dedication in September 1844 through its final service in January 2008, the church earned a reputation as "The Mother Church of West Baltimore" for its role in the growth of the Catholic church.

Built from 1843 to 1844, the handsome Greek Revival building was designed by prominent Baltimore architect Robert Cary Long, Jr. who modeled the church on the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, Greece. The building is now owned by nearby Carter Memorial Church.

13 S. Poppleton Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Edgar Allan Poe, writer, poet, inventor of detective fiction, is probably most famous for his poem “The Raven.” He spent time in Baltimore off and on through his entire life. Though born in Boston, he first arrived in Baltimore on a family visit to his paternal grandparents when he was just five weeks old in 1809.

Poe's association with this house began around the beginning of 1833, when Maria Clemm moved her family to this modest 2 ½ story rowhouse on Amity Street (originally number 3, now 203 North Amity Street). The household consisted of Maria, her daughter Virginia Clemm, her mother Elizabeth Poe, her nephew Edgar Allan Poe, and perhaps her son Henry. The small, five-room house was situated quite differently than today, surrounded by a few scattered houses and mostly open fields. Poe likely slept on the top floor, under low, slanted ceilings, accessed by a narrow, winding staircase.

Over the next two years, Poe continued to unsuccessfully explore various careers, and wrote for various publications. Notably, he was awarded first and second place for a fiction and poetry contest, respectively, sponsored by the Baltimore Saturday Visiter. He also established contact with the Southern Literary Messenger, and submitted both fiction and editorial pieces for publication, as well as providing technical advice to the editor.

In addition to the numerous poems and short stories, he wrote for the Visiter and Messenger at 203 Amity Street. It is also presumed that he penned a poem titled “To Elizabeth,” dedicated to a cousin, and "Latin Hymn," which is a comment on the Egyptian-Ottoman War (1831-1833). The war was called for by Mohammad Ali, who demanded control of Syria from the Ottoman Empire as a reward for his assistance with other battles.

The family was forced to move from Amity Street in 1835 after the death of the grandmother, Elizabeth Poe, and the loss of her pension.

The house was scheduled for demolition in 1938 to make way for a public housing project, but was saved by the Edgar Allan Poe Society, which was established in 1923 to promote Poe’s works through readings and lectures. The Society provided 91ĘÓƵ of the house from 1950 to 1977 when operation of the museum was taken over by Baltimore City’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation (CHAP). It is operated today by Poe Baltimore, a non-profit organization.

, Maryland Historical Society

203 N. Amity Street, Baltimore, MD 21223

As early as the 1840s, a small oasis of green known as Perkins' Spring became a popular destination at the edge of the rapidly growing city. The park's unique value to local residents came from the fresh-water spring that poured out at a rate of 60 gallons a minute. One resident later recalled how their neighbors carried water away "by the barrel in the '80′s, especially when heavy rains flooded and polluted the normal supplies." In 1853, the city purchased a small triangle of land around the spring from the estate of Dr. Joseph Perkins bounded by Ogston Street, George Street, and Myrtle Avenue. The city hoped to protect the spring from development and preserve it as an amenity for a soaring population on the west side of Baltimore. City officials soon improved the new park with a brick enclosure and a cast iron Moorish-style canopy over the spring.

Mayor Joshua Van Sant appointed an official park keeper who lived in a frame house by the park's Myrtle Avenue entrance. The grounds were soon planted with hundreds of flowers of every shape, size and color, coleus and petunias the most common, all grown in the park's greenhouse built in 1887 and arranged in decorative patterns and designs.

Like many West Baltimore neighborhoods, the area around the park was primarily occupied by white households at its beginning but by the late nineteenth century, the city's black community had started to settle in the area. For example, in 1880, a church built by a German evangelical congregation facing the park at the corner of George and Ogston Streets became home to an African American congregation that soon established the Perkins Square Baptist Church. By the 1920s, Baltimore's black residents used the park for every day relaxation and special entertainment. On one warm June evening in 1922, over 3,000 black Baltimoreans crowded into the park to hear the Colored City Band, established by A. Jack Thomas, performing a selection of popular marches and operas.

In the decades after WWII, city leaders decried poor housing conditions in the neighborhoods around the park and resolved to address the situation through the construction of the new high-rise George B. Murphy Homes. Beginning with a ground-breaking ceremony at the corner of Myrtle and George Streets in December 1961, 758 housing units including four 14-story towers on a 13-acre site were built, surrounding Perkins Square on all sides. The complex opened to great acclaim on New Year's Eve 1963 but by the early 1970s, the housing project had already started to experience challenges. By the 1990s, Murphy Homes became known for crime and violence and plans moved forward for its demolition. Finally in 1999 on a bright July morning, 375 pounds of dynamite brought the towers to the ground. The park and the historic gazebo remain at the center of Heritage Crossing, a $53 million mixed-income development, still offering a restful bit of green for West Baltimore.

George Street and Myrtle Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21201