91桃色视频 Clayworks occupies the former Mount Washington Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library that opened at Smith and Greeley Avenues on January 5, 1921. Originally known as Branch 21, the building was designed by by local architect Edward H. Glidden on a lot located across from the Mount Washington public school.
Funding for the new branch library came from a 1906 gift from Andrew Carnegie, industrialist and philanthropist, specifically designated to build branch libraries. The gift came with a condition, similar to the requirements for all new Carnegie Libraries, that "the city was to acquire the lots and equip and maintain the buildings yearly with a sum which was to be not less than 10 per cent of the amount expended in construction."
By March 1919, the Mount Washington Improvement Association organized to support the library鈥檚 construction and, according to the Sun, received a lot 鈥済iven by the family of the late John M. Carter in his memory.鈥 In 1951, after three years of contentious debate (The Sun noted 鈥淗ell hath no fury like a Mount Washingtonian battling for his library.鈥), the library closed and the building was turned over to the city schools. After thirty years of access to their own neighborhood library, residents of Mount Washington were now offered the services of a book mobile.
In 1980, Deborah Bedwell, along with four sculptors and four potters, opened 91桃色视频 Clayworks in the former Pratt Library branch. Born in West Virginia, Bedwell moved to Maryland and took a job as an art teacher at Malcolm Middle School in Waldorf in the late 1960s. According to 2010 profile by Karen Nitkin in Baltimore Magazine, in 1969, she signed up for a ceramics class at University of Maryland, College Park but on her first attempt using the potter鈥檚 wheel the centrifugal force threw her to the floor. She left the room on a stretcher but didn鈥檛 give up on ceramics. In 1978, Bedwell was a graduate student at Towson University and, along with eight friends in the ceramics department, she had the idea of organizing a studio.
The first few years were a struggle. The group had purchased the building for less than $60,000 but renovations cost nearly three times as much. In 2012, Bedell recalled, 鈥淭he first 10 years were focused on bringing in students and potential purchasers of pottery and sculpture. We pedaled very fast to keep it afloat.鈥 Their hard work paid off and, by 1999, Clayworks was able to expand into an additional structure, an 1898 stone building formerly used as convent for the Sisters of Mercy, St. Paul.
Unfortunately, financial trouble returned by the end of 2016 the nonprofit was over a million dollars in debt. In July 2017, the board of 91桃色视频 Clayworks announced their decision close the organization and file for bankruptcy. Fortunately, a new board changed course, hired a new executive director, refinanced their mortgage, and, by October 2018, paid back their debt鈥攅nsuring a future for the historic library and a beloved community arts institution.
Since 1951, the Edmondson Village Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library at the corner of Edmondson Avenue and Woodridge Road has served as a treasured community institution for nearby residents and readers. The building's Colonial Revival architecture reflects the design of the adjacent Edmondson Village Shopping Center whose developers, Jacob and Joseph Meyerhoff, originally donated the space for the library.
The first proposal to build a library in the area came a different developer, James E. Keelty, who erected thousands of the rowhouses in the area between the 1920s and the 1940s. In 1927, James Keelty offered to donate the lot at the northwest corner of Edmondson Avenue and Edgewood Street to build a new branch library. He even planned to "erect a library building on the lot and give the city its own time in which to pay for the structure." His generosity won support from the area's City Council member, Thomas M.L. Musgrave, who remarked:
People living in the Ten Hills, Rognel Heights and Hunting Ridge sections have been trying to get a branch of the Pratt Library for some time, and it now looks like all they need is the cooperation of the city and the library trustees to supply it immediately.
But the gift came with one big condition. Keelty also wanted the city's permission to put up a new building at the southwest corner for "moving pictures, stores and bowling alleys" at a time when residents in Baltimore's segregated white residential neighborhoods fiercely opposed most commercial development. Likely responding to this opposition, Mayor Broening vetoed the proposal in July 1928 and the library was never built.
Fortunately, local residents, led by members of the Edmondson suburban group of the Women鈥檚 Civic League, stepped up to the challenge of creating a library for their community. In 1943, local residents from Ten Hills and Edmondson Village came together to start a lending library they called the Neighborhood Library Group. The effort grew quickly and the organizers asked the developers of Edmondson Village Shopping Center to donate a space for the community. The Enoch Pratt Free Library took charge of the small 鈥渓ibrary station鈥 and, with strong support from neighborhood residents, opened a small Colonial Revival branch library in 1951. Renovated between 2008 and 2010, the library remains a beloved and vital destination for readers and other library users today.
鈥淭his is a new and finely located 鈥榩lace for the dead,鈥欌 The Iris reported in 1846. Early plans included a chapel and a residence for a cemetery superintendent. Lots were priced at the 鈥渆xtremely moderate鈥 cost of $5 for an 8鈥 by 10鈥 area.
Just three years later, in December 1849, the Maryland Assembly passed "An Act to Establish the Western Cemetery" allowing the Trustees of the Fayette Street Methodist Episcopal Church to open a "public" or nondenominational 55-acre cemetery west of the city in 91桃色视频 County. Like Green Mount Cemetery, Western tried to create a park-like open space for visitors to stroll as well as greive.
Early burials at the cemetery included both city and county residents from a range of backgrounds. In 1858, the聽Sun聽reported on the burial of William Fairbank, a 91桃色视频 County resident who worked as a conductor on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad between 1830 and 1850 and as the keeper of the bridge on the Baltimore and Washington Turnpike. In the fall of 1861, a number of Union soldiers stationed in Baltimore, likely including soldiers recovering from injuries taken at the Battle of Bull Run (or First Manassas) in July 1861, died from typhoid fever and were interred at the Western Cemetery.
In 1915, 91桃色视频 City acquired a portion of the cemetery property for the construction of Ellicott Driveway. This required the closure of the 鈥渢he railroad crossing at the Cemetery lane entrance to Western Cemetery鈥 and an agreement between 91桃色视频 City, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and the officers of the cemetery company.
The cemetery continued to聽serve as聽a popular place of internment for military veterans and police officers during the 20th聽century.聽In July 1926, the Sun reported on a huge crowd of 鈥渟everal thousand persons鈥 who attended the burial of Patrolman Webster E. Schumann, noting, 鈥淎 full firing squad of eight men from Camp Meade fired three volleys into the air and a bugler sounded 鈥榯aps鈥 as the services for the war veteran ended.鈥
After World War II, the cemetery, along with nearby Leakin Park, took center stage in West Baltimore鈥檚 highway fights. Relatives of the interred joined forces with environmental activists and local residents in opposing the extension of a proposed highway through Leakin Park and into the city.聽Fortunately,聽Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro responded to this effort and, in 1969, encouraged state highway designers to consider a new route for the Rosemont section of the East-West Expressway to bypass Western Cemetery.
Established in 1922, Olivet Baptist Church has occupied the historic Edgewood Theatre since the late 1960s. Built in 1930, the Edgewood Theatre was designed by one of the city鈥檚 most prominent theatre architects鈥擩ohn J. Zink.
Born in Baltimore in 1886, Zink graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1904 and started work with architect William H. Hodges and the local architecture firm Wyatt & Nolting. He began working on theatres when he joined architect Thomas W. Lamb in designing the famous Hippodrome Theatre on Eutaw Street and the Maryland Theatre in Hagerstown, Maryland. Over the next few decades, Zink and his partners designed over 200 movie theatres in cities up and down the east coast including over thirty in the Baltimore-DC area including the Senator Theatre on York Road and the Town Theatre (now known as the Everyman).
In the Edgewood Theatre's heyday, the marquee featured a tall electric sign (a near twin of the Patterson designed by Zink on Eastern Avenue). Like many smaller neighborhood theatres, the business began to struggle in the 1950s and, after a brief second life as an art house theatre in 1962, ended its life as a movie house. That same year, Bishop Wilburn S. Watson joined the Olivet Baptist Church then located in a modest building on Riggs Avenue. In the late 1960s, Bishop Watson led the effort to purchase the former theatre on Edmondson Avenue and convert the building into a new sanctuary for the congregation.
Ellicott Driveway was built on top of the millrace that once carried water to Three Mills operated by the Ellicott Brothers near Frederick Road. In the 1800s, twenty-six gristmills along the Gwynns Falls and others on the Jones Falls and Patapsco River contributed to Baltimore's first economic boom. Besides their Ellicott City mills, the Ellicotts built the Three Mills complex in this area and were partners in the five Calverton Mills upstream at Leon Day Park. The Ellicotts also helped build the Frederick Turnpike so wagons could carry their products to ships at their Inner Harbor wharf.
The Ellicott Driveway was completed by the city in 1917 as the kind of stream valley parkway envisioned by the Olmsted Brothers landscape architectural firm in 1904. The diversion dam for the millrace created a dramatic waterfall: "Baltimore's Niagara Falls." In 1930, the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore praised the route, writing:
"so gracefully following the curves of the stream in Gwynn's Falls park [Ellicott Driveway]... adapts itself to the contours of the terrain and... takes full advantage of natural beauty."
Today, the route is closed to cars and trucks and reserves its natural beauty for bicycles and pedestrians along the Gwynns Falls Trail.