Before the corner of N Charles and W Eager was a CVS, it was a Baltimore institution: Club Hippo. For more than 35 years, Club Hippo was a refuge for Baltimore’s queer community. The dance venue was always a place where, as the club's motto read, “everybody is welcome.” The space gave people the ability to express themselves freely without fear.��

The Hippo’s owner during this time was Charles “Chuck” Bowers. Bowers purchased the club in 1978 from its original owners, Kenny Elbert and Don Endbinder. In 1972 Elbert and Endbinder had turned the space into a gay-friendly nightclub. But Bowers was the one responsible for turning the club into a cornerstone of Baltimore’s queer community and the Mount Vernon business district. For instance, Baltimore City’s annual Pride Block Party, with few exceptions, took place at the intersection of Charles and Eager street, anchored by the Hippo.��

During the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, Bowers was an outspoken advocate for gay men who contracted the disease. The Hippo at this time also hosted performances by Broadway stars. The Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS organization sponsored the performances to spread awareness and raise money to fight the deadly disease.��

Bowers also helped to raise money for local charities fighting the AIDS epidemic including Baltimore’s Movable Feast and Light Health and Wellness by putting on fundraisers at the Hippo. Baltimore’s Movable Feast is an organization that provides meals to people with chronic and life threatening illnesses, including AIDS. In 1997, cast members of the Broadway touring company of “Cats” treated the guests of the Hippo to a special performance in order to raise money for Baltimore’s Movable Feast. Light Health and Wellness is a nonprofit that helps Baltimore youth and families who are affected by HIV/AIDS. The Hippo served an important role as a place for members of the community to come together to support each other in both good times and bad times.��

Although the club permanently closed in October 2015, those that danced there cherish�� fond memories of the Baltimore institution. Erik J. Akelaitis, who attended the final dance at Club Hippo said:��

"Although I had a blast dancing and reminiscing with friends one last time, it was sad to see a long-standing Baltimore institution, landmark, and vital part of Baltimore’s LGBT history come to an end. The dance floor was packed one last time with a playlist of songs they had played over the years. It felt like old times, and the way things should be… where everyone is welcome!"��

The research and writing of this article was funded by two grants: one from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority and one from the Baltimore National Heritage Area.

John Stuban moved from New York City to Baltimore, Maryland in 1987 and settled in a small rowhouse on Tyson Street. That same year, a group of New York City activists founded ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). The new organization focused on bringing new visibility to AIDS and HIV through disruptive direct action. Since 1981, the number of known AIDS cases had grown from 234 to over forty thousand. Despite the growing crisis, President Ronald Reagan did not even acknowledge the existence of the disease until 1985 and didn't hold a press conference on the topic until 1987.

ACT UP criticized the lack of action by the federal government by staging “die-ins,” where protestor laid on the ground wearing t-shirts with the words “Silence=Death” and blocking roads until they were bodily removed by law enforcement. John Stuban brought this same approach to AIDS activism to Baltimore when he helped found a local chapter in 1990.

Together with other local activists, Stuban picketed the mayor's home and delivered a coffin to City Hall. A group of ACT UP protestors chained themselves to front doors of the city health department offices. They disrupted a Board of Estimates meeting seeking a promise from the mayor to consider complaints about Baltimore's AIDS programs and distributed condoms to students at the Baltimore School for the Arts. Stuban also sat on the mayor's AIDS advisory committee, the executive committee of the Greater Baltimore HIV Planning Council, and served as the president of the local chapter of the People with AIDS Coalition.

In 1994, Stuban died of AIDS at age thirty-eight. In his obituary the Sun described him as "outspoken, uncompromising, and unrelenting in his efforts to pressure local public officials to provide more AIDS care and to demand a fair share of money for AIDS-related research." Garey Lambert, a friend,��projectionist at the Charles Theater, editor for the Baltimore Alternative gay newspaper, and founder of AIDS Action Baltimore, explained the importance of Stuban's efforts:

He made AIDS visible. He was an inspiration. He was upfront and in your face. He was the guy with the conscience, the guy who kept community scrutiny going on and on, and without that, there would be nothing done.

Even after his death, the work continued. Over two hundred people attended Stuban's memorial service at Emmanuel Episcopal Church at Cathedral and Read Streets. After the service ended, many of the mourners marched to city hall where they placed an empty coffin on the steps of city hall to memorialize Stuban's death and demand action on behalf of the thousands of people still living with AIDS.

Chase Brexton Health Care was founded in 1978 as a gay men's STD screening clinic. The clinic operated as program of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Baltimore from 1978 until 1989. In 1989, Chase Brexton became an independent healthcare provider retaining its ties to the LGBT community and greatly expanding its health care services. As an acknowledgement of their origins, the new organization took the name Chase Brexton because the GLCCB was located at the intersection of Chase and Brexton Streets.

After operating many years at Cathedral and Eager Streets,��Chase Brexton Health Services purchased the Monumental Life Building at 1111 North Charles Street in 2012 and by the end of 2013 had transformed the buildings from offices into a new health clinic. The work included repairing the limestone exterior, even keeping and repairing the signature gold lettering spelling out “MONUMENTAL LIFE.” Original marble walls and floors were restored and imitation gold leaf ceiling was refinished using the original methods. An original wood-paneled 1928 board room was fully restored after having been subdivided into offices.

The move enabled Chase Brexton to continue to expand its services to the broader community while maintaining its long standing ties to the LGBT community in the Mount Vernon neighborhood. An iconic Mount Vernon Building had not only found a new owner, but found a new life and promises to serve as a great asset for years to come.

Robert L. Gale,����from the Modern American Poetry Site.

A novelist, playwright, poet, and essayist, Gertrude Stein is remembered as a literary innovator who fearlessly experimented with language in the early twentieth century. Today, Gertrude Stein is still renowned as a magnet for those who would profoundly change art and literature. In 1892, at age 18, newly-orphaned Gertrude and her brother Leo moved to Baltimore. Her experiences in Baltimore paved the way for her later successes, as she wrote in her biting 1925 piece "Business in Baltimore": "Once upon a time, Baltimore was necessary."

The siblings lived briefly with their Aunt Fanny Bachrach in Baltimore before moving to Massachusetts for college. In 1897, the duo truly settled in Baltimore, living at 215 East Biddle Street, marked by the traditional Baltimorean marble front steps. The unique environment of Mount Vernon introduced Stein to a variety of people and perspectives that would influence both her literature and her life.

The Steins' five-bedroom rowhome was luxurious, dictating a certain lifestyle. Like their neighbors, the Steins kept servants. Through her familiarity with the neighborhood servants, who generally were African American women, along with her experience caring for African American patients during clinical rotations, Gertrude developed an understanding of "black language rhythms" and a knack for reaistic characterization of African Americans, both of which later appeared in her writing.

Like their servants, Biddle Street residents also influenced Stein. The gossip that filled the parlors of Biddle Street and the affairs that occurred in the bedrooms above reappeared in several of Stein's works. For instance, Wallis Simpson of 212 East Biddle Street, future Duchess of Windsor, inspired Ida, while Stein's own relationship with May Bookstaver and the ensuing love triangle created by Bookstaver's lover, Mabel Haynes, provided the plot for the novel Q.E.D.��as well as the story "Melanctha."

Life in Baltimore influenced more than just Stein's literature. Her experiences, particularly while studying medicine at Johns Hopkins University, prompted her lifelong habit of challenging societal standards. She learned to smoke cigars, confronted sexist professors (thereby earning the nickname "old battle ax"), took up boxing, rejected feminine stereotypes and instead "went flopping around...big and floppy and sandaled and not caring a damn," as one male classmate remembered.

Stein left Baltimore in 1903 after leaving Hopkins following her third year of medical school. However, despite her 39-year absence, Stein claimed Baltimore as her "place of domicile" in her will, as, in her words, she was "born longer [in Baltimore] because after all everybody has to come from somewhere."

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