Designed and built by George Frederick in 1870, the Moorish Tower remains an impressive sight for anyone visiting Druid Hill Park or driving on the Jones Falls Expressway. The structure stands over thirty feet tall with eighteen-inch wide solid marble walls. Inside, early visitors found a spiral iron staircase leading to an observation deck with an astonishing view of Jones Falls valley and the city beyond.

For decades, cyclists, pedestrians, and carriage riders enjoyed the tower as a place to rest and look out over the city. In 1910, visitors crowded into the tower, lined the walkway and covered the hillside to watch the dedication of the Union Soldiers and Sailors memorial. Later that same year, picnickers and families traveled to the Moorish Tower searching for the best vantage point to view an airship as it flew over Baltimore.

As time went on and the tower began to deteriorate, the Park commissioners debated dismantling the structure. Not only was the tower considered to be “in the way,” but the rusted iron staircase and crumbling walls were viewed as a safety hazard for those visitors hoping to still use it as an observation deck. Fortunately, the high cost of demolition and enduring affection for a local landmark encouraged the preservation of the Moorish Tower.

The city removed the rusted staircase, sealed off the entrance, and reinforced loose blocks and the base of the tower. The renewal of this iconic landmark has helped to encourage a broader revitalization of Druid Hill Park supported by residents, park advocates, and Baltimore City.

900 Druid Park Lake Drive, Baltimore, MD 21217

Glass Greenhouses for the histroic Druid Hill Conservatory

Established in 1888 as the Druid Hill Conservatory, the Howard P. Rawlings Conservatory has grown from the original Palm House and Orchid Room to include three greenhouses, two display pavilions, and outdoor gardens. In 1874, Baltimore's park commissioners proposed the establishment of a botanical conservatory in Druid Hill Park and directed George A. Frederick, the park architect, to design and make plans for the new building. Abbott Kenny, a member of the committee for the conservatory, traveled to Europe to visit the famous Kew Gardens of London, a model for the new design. The idea was abandoned for a decade but then revived in 1885. Construction soon began on a structure of iron and wood with a Palm House at its center. The Conservatory opened August 26, 1888, to a well-received audience of about three hundred visitors. Holding steady through the years, the affectionately named Baltimore Conservatory was closed to the public in 2002 for a major renovation. The newly redesigned production houses were to include a Mediterranean House, a Tropical House and Desert House. The conservatory re-opened September 24, 2004, and shortly thereafter its official name was changed by law to the Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory & Botanic Gardens, in honor of the former Maryland House of Appropriations chair Pete Rawlings. The Conservatory is the second-oldest steel framed-and-glass building still in use in the United States.

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3100 Swann Drive, Baltimore, MD 21217

Although it imitates the arrangement of the U.S. Capitol with a central dome and symmetrical wings, the Baltimore City Hall is covered in French architectural elements, including banded rustication, arched windows, and a crowning Mansard roof. How did this come about?

Between 1861 and 1865, the U.S. Civil War stopped most building projects. By the time the war ended, tastes had changed. Although the Italianate style remained popular (especially in conservative Baltimore), the antebellum Greek and Gothic Revival styles faded away. Indeed, this whole era in American architecture bears a European name: “Victorian,” for the queen of Great Britain between 1837 and 1901. Victorian buildings showed off the new products of the industrial revolution then creating out a wealth of new building products: cheaper bricks and cut stone, encaustic tiles and terracotta, various forms of structural iron.

The Victorian style from France is named for the Second Empire of the Emperor Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, who styled himself Napoleon III. It was this Napoleon who extended the Louvre and laid out the boulevards and sewers that made Paris the most modern city in the world in the late nineteenth century. The Second Empire style became very popular for government buildings after the Civil War; it was sometimes called the “General Grant” style after the eighteenth President. In Baltimore, George A. Frederick’s design, completed in 1875, employed a good deal of cast iron, including the 227-foot tall dome designed by Wendel Bollman and cast by Bartlett, Robbins, and Company.

About seventy-five years after their construction, Victorian buildings inevitably came to be seen as downright ugly. In Baltimore, the construction of the Abel Wolman Municipal Building overshadowed City Hall, blocking any views from the north. In the 1970s, city officials seriously discussed demolishing City Hall. But wiser heads prevailed, and a prize-winning renovation equipped City Hall for continued use as the center of Baltimore’s government.

100 N. Holliday Street, Baltimore, MD 21202