Tiny Bedford Square in Guilford, at the intersection of St. Paul and North Charles streets, hosts a life size bronze bust of Simón Bolivar. Also referred to as the “George Washington of South America,” the Venezuelan-born Bolivar was the military and political leader of the revolutions against Spanish colonial rule across the continent in the early 19th century. The bust sits on a limestone pedestal, with the words “Simón Bolivar, 1783-1830, Liberator of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia” carved on the front. On the back it reads, “Presented to the Citizens of Baltimore by the Government of Venezuela, April 19, 1961.”

Guilford is a neighborhood known for its large houses and tree lined, curving streets, not for its political monuments. Built by the Roland Park Company, the houses are stone and brick in Neoclassical and Colonial Revival styles. The noted American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. designed its streets and parks. It opened in 1913, and, like the nearby neighborhoods of Roland Park and Homeland, included a racial covenant preventing African Americans from owning homes within its borders, which was overturned in 1948.

The Bolivar bust was created by the Austrian-American sculptor Felix de Weldon. He is best known for his work on the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, which shows soldiers raising the American flag at Iwo Jima in 1945. Throughout the 20th century Venezuela gave statues and busts of Bolivar to a number of American cities, including New York, Washington D.C., New Orleans, Bolivar (West Virginia), and Bolivar (Missouri).

In April 1959 President Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke at the reception of a bronze equestrian statue of Bolivar in Washington D.C., making reference to the recent democratic election of President Rómulo Betancourt after over a decade of military dictatorship. He declared, “The Venezuelan people have steadfastly maintained their faith in the ultimate realization of Bolivar’s democratic ideals. It is therefore fitting that this ceremony should follow closely upon the inauguration of President Betancourt, chosen by his countrymen in an election so conducted as to typify the true meaning of democracy.”

The symbolic value of these gifts held extra resonance during the Cold War. The United States was concerned with suppressing communist movements in Latin America, especially after the 1959 Cuban revolution established the first communist state in the region. Oil companies were anxious for influence and continued access to oil rich Latin American nations like Venezuela. By 1961 relations between the United States and Latin America were at a low point and discontent, inequality, and violence was growing. In response, the newly inaugurated President John F. Kennedy proposed the “Alliance for Progress,” a ten-year, multibillion-dollar aid program for the region.

A few months after the proposal, and just two days after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, a small ceremony took place in Bedford Square to unveil this bust. Baltimore Mayor J. Harold Grady accepted the gift from the Venezuelan ambassador on a windy and rainy April 19th, Venezuelan Independence Day. Dr. Frank Marino, president of the Park Board (the predecessor to The Department of Parks and Recreation) seemed to reference the tensions with Cuba at the time, saying “It is very appropriate that the Ambassador’s remarks should come at this time in our history.” Chosen because it had space for the statue, for a few minutes in 1961 little Bedford Park in Baltimore reflected the drama of the greatest geopolitical forces of the time.

4421 Bedford Place, Baltimore, MD 21218

Monument by James Early Reid on Pennsylvania Avenue

The Billie Holiday Monument on Pennsylvania Avenue commemorates the life and legacy of the famed "Lady Day" who was born as Eleanora Fagan in Baltimore on April 7, 1915.

Billie Holiday's childhood was difficult. Both of her parents were teenagers when she was born. In 1925, a ten-year-old Holiday was raped by an older neighbor and was sent to The House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic penal institution (sometimes known as a "reform school") for Black girls. Holiday was held there for two years. After her release in 1927, she moved to New York City with her mother.

As a teenager, Billie began singing for tips in bars and brothels but soon found opportunities to sing with accomplished jazz musicians including Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, and Count Basie. She returned to Baltimore as a touring musician playing at clubs and restaurants along Pennsylvania Avenue. Unfortunately, after struggles with addiction and a sustained campaign of harassment by law enforcement, Holiday died on July 17, 1959 at age 44 and was buried in an unmarked grave at St. Raymond's Cemetery in New York City.

Planning for a statue in Baltimore began around 1971 as part of the urban renewal redevelopment of Pennsylvania Avenue and the surrounding Upton neighborhood. The original plans included both a statue and a drug treatment center in Holiday's honor but while plans for the center were dropped the Upton Planning Council continued to push for the sculpture.

In 1977, Baltimore commissioned thirty-seven-year-old Black sculptor James Earl Reid to design the monument. A North Carolina native, Reid recieved a master’s degree in sculpture from the University of Maryland College Park in 1970 and stayed at the school as a professor. Unfortunately, by 1983, rising costs of materials due to inflation led to a legal dispute between Reid and the city over payment and delays. The $113,000 eight-foot six-inch high bronze sculpture was unveiled on top of a cement pedestal in 1985 but Reid skipped the ceremony.

Reid's original vision was finally realized in July 2009 when the city found $76,000 to replace the simple pedastal with 20,000-pound solid granite base with incised text and sculptural panels. Inspired by one of Holliday's most famous performances, the haunting anti-lynching song "Strange Fruit," one of the two panels depicts a lynching. The other, inspired by the song "God Bless the Child," includes the image of a black child with an umbilical cord still attached in a visual reference to the rope used in the hanging. At the re-dedication in 2009, Reid celebrated the completion of the work and the life of Billie Holliday explaining, "She gave such a rich credibility to the experiences of black people and the black artist."

Watch on this statue!

1400 Pennsylvania Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217

Nitty Gritty, the Chesapeake Bay Retriever in Bronze

On a blustery winter day in December 1987, a small crowd of spectators gathered around the Field House at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). They had assembled for the unveiling of a life-size bronze sculpture of the young university’s mascot. The Retriever statue, aka the True Grit statue, currently located in the plaza in front of the Retriever Activities Center (RAC) continues to stand as a reminder of the student body’s pride in their university.

The Retriever was chosen as the school mascot in 1966 by the first class of UMBC. A competition was held and forty different suggestions were presented. After a university-wide vote, administrators selected the Chesapeake Bay Retriever, a dog breed native to Maryland, as the school’s official mascot. The Retriever has since gone on to become the name of the student newspaper, yearbook, and athletic teams.

In 1986, Alumna Paulette Raye, philosophy major and self-proclaimed dog-lover, was commissioned by UMBC administrators to construct a statue for the school’s 20th anniversary, based on the university’s beloved mascot. Raye took several studio art classes during her time at UMBC, even earning three credits towards her degree, for creating the life-size bronze model of the Retriever. Raye’s “conception was that the dog should represent the study body—alert, intelligent, eager to learn and friendly.” To capture this “alertness,” Raye designed a statue of True Grit that would stand upright and gaze straight ahead with his ears cocked.

Raye worked on the statue for almost two years, using a local five year old Chesapeake Bay Retriever named Nitty Gritty as her model. True Grit was the name of Nitty Gritty’s father, and in an interview with UMBC Magazine Raye recalled that she wasn’t exactly sure “why the mascot received that name [True Grit instead of Nitty Gritty]… other than it sounded bold and strong—like the [school’s] team.” Nitty Gritty later had the honor of pulling a black cloth off the statue of himself at the statue’s inauguration.

During the unveiling ceremony on December 7, 1987, UMBC Chancellor Michael Hooker instituted a new tradition for the young university: rubbing True Grit’s nose for good luck. At the unveiling, Hooker remarked, “Tradition is exceedingly important. We used to be young [but] we are adults now. It is appropriate that we begin a new tradition.” Since its unveiling, the Retriever statue has remained a beloved campus landmark, often greeting students with a student newspaper in its mouth or bedecked with a cap and gown during graduation. Students continue to stop by during finals to rub True Grit’s nose, now discolored due to almost thirty years of UMBC students and faculty taking part in a campus-wide tradition.

University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250

This sculpture is depicts Glory, an allegorical figure that looks in this sculpture like an angel, holding up a dying Confederate soldier in one arm while raising the laurel crown of Victory in the other. The dying soldier holds a battle flag. Underneath, the inscription states “Gloria Victis,” meaning “Glory to the Vanquished.”

The Maryland Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy funded the construction of this monument. It was sculpted by F. Wellington Ruckstuhl (also spelled Ruckstull), a French-born sculptor based in New York. It is located in a wide median on Mount Royal Avenue near Mosher Street in Bolton Hill. The inscriptions on the monument are the following:

Inscription on front of base: GLORIA VICTIS/ TO THE/ SOLDIERS AND SAILORS/ OF MARYLAND/ IN THE SERVICE OF THE/ CONFEDERATE STATES/ OF AMERICA/ 1861-1865.
On base, right side: DEO VINDICE
On base, left side: FATTI MASCHII/ PAROLE FEMINE
On base, back side: GLORY/ STANDS BESIDE/ OUR GRIEF/ ERECTED BY/ THE MARYLAND DAUGHTERS/ OF THE/ CONFEDERACY/ FEBRUARY 1903

The Latin phrase on the base is "Deo Vindice, " meaning "Under God, Our Vindicator." The Italian phrase on the base, "Fatti Maschii, Parole Femine" is Maryland's state motto, "Strong deeds and gentle words," although the direct translation is "Manly deeds, womanly words."

This monument bears a striking resemblance to two of Ruckstuhl's other sculptures - one Union, one Confederate. The Union Soldiers and Sailors Monument (1896) in Major Mark Park in Queens, New York, features the solitary Glory holding the laurel crown. The Confederate Monument (1903) in Salisbury, North Carolina is almost an exact replica of Baltimore's Confederate Soldier's and Sailors Monument, except that the dying soldier is holding a gun instead of a flag.

W. Mount Royal Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217

Dedicated in 1901, the Richard Wagner Bust was donated to the city by the United Singers of Baltimore who received the monument as the first prize trophy for the annual Sängerfeste choral competition.

The Wagner Bust is as German as any statute could be. Cast in bronze, mounted on a granite base, and situated on the lawn of the Rogers-Buchanan Mansion, the bust of German composer Richard Wagner was created by a German-born sculptor R.P. Golde based on a portrait by German painter Franz van Lenbach. Though the bust may seem out of place for visitors to Druid Hill Park today, the placement made perfect sense when the sculpture was created.

R.P. Golde was commissioned to create the bust as the first prize for Sängerfeste, an annual choral competition held that year in Brooklyn, New York, with five thousand performers attending. The United Singers of Baltimore won with their performance of D. Melamet’s “Scheiden” (“Parting”). The Singers, who believed that their victory and prize would add to Baltimore’s glory and beauty, donated the Wagner Bust to Druid Hill Park. The bust’s dedication ceremony was a grand affair. Thirty thousand spectators gathered in attendance on October 6, 1901, to watch L.H. Wieman, an agent representing the Baltimore branch of a national, Minneapolis-based flour company, present the bust to the City of Baltimore on behalf of the United Singers. The crowd watched as the Wagner Bust, draped in German and American flags and the singing societies’ banners, was unveiled. The ceremony and the bust’s placement on the mansion lawn served as an expression of Baltimore’s pride in its singers and the German immigrants pride in their heritage and their talent.

Baltimore was home to over forty thousand German immigrants at the start of the twentieth century. Monuments to German artists, philosophers, politicians, musicians, poets, and composers decorate the landscape of many major American cities. Memorials of composers were particularly popular in the era of immigrant monument-building, partly due to the importance of singing clubs in German-American communities.

The Wagner Bust points to the popularity of singing clubs in Baltimore, as does another sculpture by R.P. Golde, that of the composer Conradin Keutzer, located in Patterson Park and also won by the United Singers of Baltimore at the 1915 Sängerfeste.

Mansion House Drive, Druid Hill Park, Baltimore, MD 21217

Overlooking the Inner Harbor from Federal Hill stands the statue of Major General Samuel Smith (1752-1839). Smith's life as a Revolutionary War officer, merchant, ship-owner, and U.S. Senator earned him the experience and fortitude in the momentous crises before to successfully command Baltimore during the War of 1812 and its darkest hour: the British attack on Washington and Baltimore in 1814.

The statue, funded by the city's 1914 centennial celebration of the Battle of Baltimore, is the design of sculptor Hans Schuler (1874-1951) who studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art. The statue was first erected at Wyman Park Dell at North Charles and 29th Streets in 1917 and dedicated on July 4, 1918.

In 1953, the Recreation and Parks Department moved the sculpture to "Sam Smith Park" at the corner of Pratt and Light Streets, the future waterfront site of the 1980 Rouse Company Harborplace project. In 1970, with the Inner Harbor renewal project underway, the statue moved again to the present site on Federal Hill, where in 1814 a gun battery had been erected and the citizens of Baltimore witnessed the fiery bombardment of Fort McHenry.

The inscriptions on the monument read:

MAJOR-GENERAL SAMUEL SMITH, 1752-1839 / UNDER HIS COMMAND THE ATTACK OF THE BRITISH UPON BALTIMORE BY LAND AND SEA SEPTEMBER 12-14, / 1814 WAS REPULSED. MEMBER OF CONGRESS FORTY SUCCESIVE YEARS, / PRESIDENT U.S. SENATE, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY, MAYOR OF BALTIMORE. /HERO OF BOTH WARS FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE – LONG ISLAND – WHITE / PLAINS – BRANDYWINE – DEFENDER OF FORT MIFFLIN – VALLEY FORCE – / MONMOUTH – BALTIMORE. /

ERECTED BY THE NATIONAL STAR-SPANGLED BANNER CENTENNIAL

Federal Hill Park, 300 Warren Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21230

Monument to a Literary Icon at the University of Baltimore

The Edgar Allan Poe statue sitting in the Gordon Plaza at University of Baltimore has a colorful past. The statue was commissioned in 1911 by the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association of Baltimore and was the last work of renowned American sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel. Born in Richmond, Virgina, Ezekiel was a decorated Confederate soldier who moved to Europe in 1869 and, in 1910, was knighted by King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy for his artistic accomplishments.

The Women's Literary Club established the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association in 1907 and hoped the statue would be completed for the centennial of Poe's birth in 1909, but a lack of funds, a series of mishaps, and poor timing delayed the statue's arrival in Baltimore until 1921. Ezekial completed the first model in 1913 but a fire at a custom house destroyed the sculpture en route to a foundry in Berlin; the second model, completed in 1915, was destroyed in Ezekiel's studio by an earthquake; and the third model, completed in 1916, was due to be shipped across the Atlantic, but was delayed another five years due to World War I. By the time the statue arrived in Baltimore, Ezekiel had already been dead for four years.

After the statue's arrival in Wyman Park during the summer of 1921, more complications arose. The inscription, a quote from Poe's famous poem "The Raven," had two typos and read: "Dreamng(sic) dreams no mortals(sic) ever dared to dream before." In 1930, Edmond Fontaine, incensed over the typo on the word "mortal," came to the park in the middle of the night and chiseled away the incorrect "s." The police arrested Fontaine for his vigilantism but he was never prosecuted.

Over the years the Poe statue suffered from neglect, vandalism, and weather damage. In 1983, the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore recommended the statue be moved to the Gordon Plaza at the University of Baltimore where it still stands today. The statue has become a mascot of sorts for the university, and during the NFL playoffs it can be seen bathed in a purple light in support of the Baltimore Ravens, a team named after Poe's famous poem.

Krainik, Clifford.

1415 Maryland Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21201

Erected by the Maryland Association of Veterans of the Mexican War

On an auspicious afternoon in late September 1903, a crowd of Baltimoreans converged onto the intersection of Mount Royal Avenue and Lanvale Street to witness the unveiling of the William H. Watson monument. The monument, erected by the Maryland Association of Veterans of the Mexican War, honored Marylanders who lost their lives during the U.S.-Mexican War.

Taking place on the fifty-seventh anniversary of Lieutenant Colonel Watson’s death during the Battle of Monterey, spectators watched as aged survivors of the war took their places on the grandstand. Meanwhile, they also laid eyes on the over ten-foot statue, draped in the flag that had shrouded Watson’s corpse as it left Mexico. The most symbolic moment came when Watson’s last surviving child, Monterey Watson Iglehart, walked towards her father’s likeness and unveiled the statue. The unveiling by Iglehart, born on the day her father died, was the highlight of a ceremony that included speeches from U.S.-Mexican War veterans, politicians, and other dignitaries.

Given U.S. activity in the Caribbean at the time, and the monument’s connection to the U.S.-Mexican War, the memorial presented a counterpoint to the overall anti-imperialist sentiment that existed in Baltimore. By highlighting the valor and honor of Baltimore’s U.S.-Mexican War heroes, the public viewed the veterans as heroes of a conflict which greatly benefited the United States, as opposed to participants in an unjustifiable land grab. Thus, the monument served to legitimize the United States’ imperialist endeavors of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

The monument, created by sculptor Edward Berge, was originally located at Lanvale Street and Mount Royal Avenue. In 1930, the monument was moved to Reservoir Hill—what was then the entrance to Druid Hill Park—because of a planned extension of Howard Street. Today, the monument blends into the scenery of west Baltimore. The war that it commemorates has faded from memory.

, Richard Hardesty and David Patrick McKenzie, underberlly, January 24, 2013

W. North Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217