/items/browse?output=atom&tags=Southeast%20Baltimore <![CDATA[Explore 91ĘÓƵ]]> 2025-03-12T12:02:01-04:00 Omeka /items/show/525 <![CDATA[Polish Home Club]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:56-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Polish Home Club

Creator

Sierra Hallmen

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Dom Polski on Broadway

Story

The Polish Home Club, known then as the Polish Home Hall, opened to six hundred members of the Polish community on August 11, 1918, in an area of Fell's Point known as “Little Poland.” Baltimore’s Polish population grew rapidly in the late nineteenth century as Polish immigrants arrived at the port to work on the docks. By the turn of the century, the community was well-established with Polish churches, a Polish-language newspaper and financial institutions that offered loans to Polish people. By 1923, the Polish community had become large and organized enough to gain political representation through Baltimore’s first Polish city councilman, Edward Novak.

The Polish Home Hall, erected at a cost of $81,000 and affectionately called Dom Polski, opened to great fanfare. Marked by a banquet and speeches by Wladislaus Urbanski and Rev. Stanislaus Wachowiak, the dedication ceremonies revealed a beautiful community hall for future events. The night followed with music by the Polish National Band and dancing. Two years after the hall opened, it hosted the Polish Falcons’ Alliance, an international Polish organization, for an annual convention and accompanying athletic contests in Patterson Park.

When financial difficulties nearly led to the close of the Polish Home Hall, the Polish Home Club, organized in 1933 and led a community effort to raise funds for the building attracting around two thousand supporters. The Polish Home Club organized the first Polish Festival in 1973 at the Constellation Dock. The festival featured Polish food, music, dancing, and singing. In the years to follow, the festival enjoyed a long run at Rash Field, then Patterson Park, and currently, Timonium Fairgrounds.

The largest draw to the Polish Home Club is its restored wood dance floor. The club hosts a dance every Friday and Saturday evening where they play traditional Polish music and pop and serve Krupnik, the house drink, at the bar. The hall is also available for community events and gatherings.

The Polish population of Fell's Point has dwindled and a thriving Latino population has filled the void. As the neighborhood around the club changes, some fear that Polish traditions might be lost. However, the Polish Home Club hopes to stick around and be a cultural resource for future generations of people with Polish heritage.

Street Address

510-512 S. Broadway, Baltimore, MD 21231
]]>
/items/show/374 <![CDATA[Flag House Courts and Albemarle Square]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:54-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Flag House Courts and Albemarle Square

Creator

Jewish Museum of Maryland

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

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

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

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

Street Address

120 S. Central Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21202
]]>