91��ɫ��Ƶ

Pascault Row

2018-11-27T10:33:50-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Pascault Row

Subject

Architecture

Description

In 1819, wealthy French merchant Louis Pascault, the Marquis de Poleon, constructed a row of eight houses on Lexington Street that now remain as the one of the earliest examples of the Baltimore rowhouse. Born in France, Pascault later moved to the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now known as Haiti). By the late 1780s, nearly 500,000 enslaved Africans labored at plantations on the island producing nearly half of the world's sugar and more than half of the world's coffee. In 1791, free blacks and enslaved people rose in revolt and Pascault joined thousands of white refugees fleeing the island for cities in the United States.

Pascault settled at Chatsworth, a large country mansion on Saratoga Street between Pine and Green, and profited from the quickly growing city's booming trade. After the city expanded in 1816, Pascault, together with carpenter and master builder Rezin Wight and merchant William Lorman, commissioned William F. Small to design this elegant row of Federal style houses adjacent to his estate. The dwellings soon attracted a host of wealthy residents, earning the row the distinction of being highlighted in an 1833 guidebook to Baltimore - the only row noted on the map.

The row soon became home to some of Baltimore's wealthiest families and remained a prestigious address for decades. Columbus O'Donnell, who was president of Baltimore's Gas and Light Company in the mid-nineteenth century and a director of the B & O Railroad (1839-1847) lived here with his wife, Eleanor, who was Louis Pascault's daughter. O'Donnell's mother, Sarah Chew Elliott O'Donnell, whose portrait hangs in Washington's National Gallery, lived in this row during the early 1820s. Her husband and Columbus' father, was John O'Donnell, a wealthy merchant and politician who had a momentous impact on Baltimore's international trade, particularly with China and Asia as a whole, and the man for whom Baltimore's O'Donnell Square is named.

By the 1970s, the iconic homes fell into disrepair. Using funds procured under the College Housing Loan Program, the University of Maryland, Baltimore, purchased the row in 1978 and renovated the historic buildings, transforming them into offices and student housing.

Creator

David Thomas

Theresa Donnelly

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Official Website

Street Address

651 W. Lexington Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

John Jacob Abel at 1604 Bolton Street

2018-11-27T10:33:50-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

John Jacob Abel at 1604 Bolton Street

Subject

Medicine

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

First Professor of Pharmacology in the United States

Story

Born near Cleveland, Ohio, in 1857, John Jacob Abel received a Ph.B. (Bachelor of Philosophy) from the University of Michigan in 1883 and his M.D. from Strasbourg in 1888. In 1893, after further training from Henry Newell Martin of the Johns Hopkins University and at various European University, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine recruited Abel to start a department of pharmacology becoming first full-time professor of pharmacology in the United States.

Among the most notable legacies of Abel's work is his research on adrenalin, insulin, and an apparatus that is widely regarded as a forerunner of the artificial kidney.

Street Address

1604 Bolton Street, Baltimore, MD 21217

Francis Scott Key Monument

2022-07-27T09:35:32-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Francis Scott Key Monument

Subject

War of 1812

Public Art and Monuments

Creator

Johns Hopkins

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

The Key Monument on Eutaw Place is a grand reminder of how Baltimoreans have kept the memory of the Battle of Baltimore and the War of 1812 alive over two hundred years. Francis Scott Key was a Maryland lawyer and slaveholder who was on board the British vessel HMS Tonnant during the evening of September 13 and morning September 14, 1814, as part of a delegation to try to negotiate the release of prisoners. Key was stuck on board the British vessel to helplessly watch as the British Navy shelled Fort McHenry and Baltimore throughout the night.

At dawn, Key saw the Stars and Stripes still flying over the fort. That morning, the unsuccessful British allowed Key to return to shore, and on the return trip, he wrote a poem describing his experience the night before. The poem was quickly published in two Baltimore papers on September 20, 1814, and days later the owner of a Baltimore music store, Thomas Carr of the Carr Music Store, put the words and music together in print under the title "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Before his death in 1907, Baltimore resident Charles Marburg gave $25,000 to his brother Theodore to commission a monument to his favorite poet, Francis Scott Key. Theodore selected French sculptor Marius Jean Antonin Mercie known for monumental sculptures of Robert E. Lee (1890) in Richmond, Virginia, and General Lafayette (1891) in the District of Columbia. The Key Monument was added to Eutaw Place in 1911.

The monument was restored in 1999 after a multi-year fundraising campaign by local residents. In September 2017, the monument was spray painted with the words "Racist Anthem" and splashed with red paint to highlight Key's legacy as a slaveholder. The city quickly restored the monument.

Street Address

W. Lanvale Street and Eutaw Place, Baltimore, MD 21217

Woodrow Wilson at 1210 Eutaw Place

2018-11-27T10:33:50-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Woodrow Wilson at 1210 Eutaw Place

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Woodrow Wilson came to this house as a Ph.D. candidate at the Johns Hopkins University. From Eutaw Place he went on to become president of Princeton University, the governor of New Jersey and eventually President of the United States of America.

Street Address

1210 Eutaw Place, Baltimore, MD 21217

Howard Atwood Kelly at 1408 Eutaw Place

2018-11-27T10:33:50-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Howard Atwood Kelly at 1408 Eutaw Place

Subject

Medicine

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Home of the "Wizard of the Operating Room"

Story

Born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1858, Howard Atwood Kelly attended the University of Pennsylvania, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1877 and his M.D. in 1882. In 1889, he became the first professor of gynecology and obstetrics at the Johns Hopkins University launching a 30-year career at the school.

Kelly is remembered—along with William Osler, Professor of Medicine, William Stewart Halsted, Professor of Surgery, and William H. Welch, Professor of Pathology—as one of the "Big Four" founding professors at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was called a "wizard of the operating room" and was an early user of radium to treat cancer.

Street Address

1408 Eutaw Place, Baltimore, MD 21217

Florence Rena Sabin at 1325 Park Avenue

2018-11-27T10:33:50-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Florence Rena Sabin at 1325 Park Avenue

Subject

Medicine

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

First Female Professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Story

Born in Central City, Colorado, on November 9, 1871, Florence Rena Sabin, M.D. (1871-1953) was the youngest daughter of a mining engineer. After her mother's death from sepsis, Florence and her sister moved first to Chicago, then to stay with her paternal grandparents in Vermont.

She earned a bachelor's degree in 1893 from Smith College, then went to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where she became the first female graduate. She returned to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine a few years later on a research fellowship. She started teaching in the Department of Anatomy in 1902, with a promotion to associate professor in 1905 and finally full professor of embryology and histology in 1917, becoming the first female full professor at the college.

She introduced techniques for staining living cells and played an important role in the reform of Colorado's health laws. Her statue still stands in the U.S. Capitol.

Street Address

1325 Park Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217

Meyerhoff House

2018-11-27T10:33:50-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Meyerhoff House

Subject

Medicine

Description

The Maryland Women's Hospital, now known as the Robert and Jany Meyerhoff House for the Maryland Institute College of Art, was a pioneering medical institution in the late 19th century that remained a landmark in Bolton Hill through the 1960s.

When the hospital first opened at John and Lafayette in the early 1880s, it was only the second women's hospital in the nation. The hospital closed in the 1960s when the institution combined with the Presbyterian Eye, Ear and Throat Charity Hospital to form the Greater Baltimore Medical Center in Towson. In 2001, MICA renovated and rehabilitated the building as a dormitory for over 200 students, along with dining facilities, art studios and more.

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Former Maryland Women's Hospital now Student Dormitory

Story

The Maryland Women's Hospital, now known as the Robert and Jany Meyerhoff House for the Maryland Institute College of Art, was a pioneering medical institution in the late nineteenth century that remained a landmark in Bolton Hill through the 1960s.

When the hospital first opened at John and Lafayette in the early 1880s, it was only the second women's hospital in the nation. The hospital closed in the 1960s when the institution combined with the Presbyterian Eye, Ear and Throat Charity Hospital to form the Greater Baltimore Medical Center in Towson. In 2001, MICA renovated and rehabilitated the building as a dormitory for over 200 students, along with dining facilities, art studios and more.

Official Website

Street Address

140 W. Lafayette Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217

Eutaw Place Temple

2019-05-09T21:16:40-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Eutaw Place Temple

Subject

Religion

Architecture

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

An icon on Eutaw Place, the former Temple Oheb Shalom is a reminder of the vibrant Jewish community that thrived in the late nineteenth century in what were then Baltimore's expanding northwest suburbs. Built in 1892, architect Joseph Evans Sperry modeled the Eutaw Place Temple after the Great Synagogue of Florence, Italy. Since 1960, the building is home to the Prince Hall Grand Lodge that has boasted such notable members as Thurgood Marshall and Eubie Blake.

A small group of twenty-one young German Jews established the Oheb Shalom congregation in 1853 to provide an alternative to the Orthodox Baltimore Hebrew Congregation (1830) and the Reform Har Sinai (1846). The congregation moved to Eutaw Place in 1892 and remained through their 1960 when they moved into a midcentury modern synagogue on Park Heights Avenue in Pikesville and completed the move to in 1960. Temple Oheb Shalom has played a significant role in American Jewish life through the history of the rabbis and cantors who have led the congregation, most notably Rabbi Benjamin Szold who led Oheb Shalom through 1892 and whose daughter, Henrietta Szold, was the founder of Hadassah.

In 1960, Temple Oheb Shalom left Eutaw Place for Pikesville and the Prince Hall Grand Lodge, under the leadership of Samuel T. Daniels, purchased the building. Among the members of The Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Maryland are Baltimore-born Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and James Hubert "Eubie" Blake, one of the most significant figures in early-20th-century African American music. In 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited the lodge to campaign on behalf of President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Official Website

Street Address

1305 Eutaw Place, Baltimore, MD 21217

1311 Bolton Street

2018-11-27T10:33:50-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

1311 Bolton Street

Subject

Religion

Architecture

Description

While 1311 Bolton Street is best known today as the former location for the Bolton Street Synagogue, the story of this handsome stone building begins back in 1875 as the Reformed Episcopal Church of the Redeemer. This former church was converted to a residence in 2005 thanks to a three year creative reuse project by the current owners. Designing kitchens, bathrooms and living spaces in this magnificent and unconventional building meant working with stained glass windows, high ceilings, and spaces that were meant originally for public worship.

The cornerstone laying ceremony in October 1875 was attended by Bishop George David Cummings, who founded the Reformed Episcopal Church in 1873. The architect hired for the building, Charles Cassell, was a native of Portsmouth, Virginia who trained as a naval architect and arrived in Baltimore not long after the Civil War. Cassell, who helped found the 91��ɫ��Ƶ Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1870, also designed the former Stewart's Department Store on Howard Street, the Stafford Hotel in Mt. Vernon, and the chapel at the University of Virginia.

A handful of different churches and community organizations occupied the building from the 1930s through the 1980s. Finally, in 1986 the Bolton Street Synagogue was founded in Bolton Hill as an unaffiliated synagogue serving Baltimore's diverse Jewish community. The synagogue remained in Bolton Hill for 17 years before moving to Cold Spring Lane in 2003. The building found its new use in 2005 and remains a landmark to the long history of churches and creative adaptive reuse in Bolton Hill.

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Street Address

1311 Bolton Street, Baltimore, MD 21217

William H. Howell, Ph.D. at 232 West Lanvale Street

2018-11-27T10:33:50-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

William H. Howell, Ph.D. at 232 West Lanvale Street

Subject

Architecture

Medicine

Literature

Description

232 West Lanvale has a neat appearance that belies its age as the oldest house in Bolton Hill. Amazingly, it reportedly looks almost exactly the same today as it did when built in 1848. Originally part of a group of three Italianate houses facing towards downtown Baltimore, the home offered a country retreat to early northwest Baltimore residents. The owners added the bay window on Bolton Street 25 years after the house was built, salvaged from Charles Howard's mansion (where Francis Scott Key died) after the building was torn down to make way for the Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church. One of the longest residents in the house, Dr. William Henry Howell, rented the home for forty years as he taught medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Howell is best remembered for his discovery of the anti-coagulant heparin.

By the 1960s, the charming cottage had attracted its own literary community, including Maryland poet and scholar William F. Stead, who died there in 1967 at the age of 82. Stead was a friend of T.S. Eliot, William Yeats, and many other British poets thanks to decades spent living in England. His host at the home was Mrs. Edward C. Venable (nee Nancy Howard De Ford), a Maryland native, descendant of both John Eager Howard and Francis Scott Key, and a published poet and author. She married her husband, himself a well-known writer, in 1924 and the pair spent every summer in France returning to Lanvale Street in the fall. Among Mrs. Venable's friends was Tennessee Williams, who patterned one of his stage heroines after her: Violet Venable in Suddenly Last Summer.

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Street Address

232 W. Lanvale Street, Baltimore, MD 21217

John Street Park

2021-02-22T09:34:34-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

John Street Park

Subject

Urban Renewal

Parks and Landscapes

Description

For such a small park, this green block on John Street has had a large impact on the history of Bolton Hill. In the early 1950s, a group of local residents organized to establish the park, one of the first "vest pocket" urban parks in the country. Dedicated in 1955, the park was maintained by the Village Garden Club, now the Bolton Hill Garden Club, which took on the work of maintaining plantings and fencing. The Club started an annual spring plant sale, which continues to this day, to help pay for the upkeep of the park, joining the club's traditional Christmas Greens sale, which included decorations at the Women's Hospital on Lafayette Avenue.

The residents involved in the creation of the park built on their efforts and began advocating more broadly for the Mt. Royal area to be designated one of the city's first urban renewal areas under the Federal Housing Act of 1954. Their small success on John Street led to transformative changes across the area in the 1960s and 1970s with the demolition of many rowhouses and alley houses to make way for new high-rise apartment buildings and modern townhouse developments.

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

For such a small park, this green block on John Street has had a large impact on the history of Bolton Hill. In the early 1950s, a group of local residents organized to establish the park, one of the first "vest pocket" urban parks in the country. Dedicated in 1955, the park was maintained by the Village Garden Club, now the Bolton Hill Garden Club, which took on the work of maintaining plantings and fencing. The Club started an annual spring plant sale, which continues to this day, to help pay for the upkeep of the park, joining the club's traditional Christmas Greens sale, which included decorations at the Women's Hospital on Lafayette Avenue. The residents involved in the creation of the park built on their efforts and began advocating more broadly for the Mt. Royal area to be designated one of the city's first urban renewal areas under the Federal Housing Act of 1954. Their small success on John Street led to transformative changes across the area in the 1960s and 1970s with the demolition of many rowhouses and alley houses to make way for new high-rise apartment buildings and modern townhouse developments.

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Street Address

John Street, Baltimore, MD 21217

Baltimore Bargain House

2020-10-16T11:53:51-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Baltimore Bargain House

Subject

Commerce

Creator

Johanna Schein

Theresa Donnelly

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Wholesale History at the Nancy S. Grasmick Building

Story

One of the largest businesses on the West Side in the early twentieth century the Baltimore Bargain House—a mail-order wholesale business that employed over a thousand people and earned profits in the millions that grew to become the fourth largest wholesalers in the county. Driven by the devotion of Jewish Lithuanian immigrant Jacob Epstein, the Baltimore Bargain House became a hub for Southern Jewish merchants and a local business community. When firm's grand showroom at West Baltimore and North Liberty Streets opened in 1911, a crowd of 500 local businessmen, the Mayor of Baltimore, and the Governor of Maryland all attended the dedication. After spending years himself as an itinerant peddler, traveling throughout Western Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, Jacob Epstein first opened a small wholesale store in Baltimore in 1881. Epstein focused his attention on the American South, working specifically with Jewish peddlers and merchants. In the early 1900s, Epstein treated hundreds of merchants to annual visits to Baltimore to restock and view new merchandise. Arriving from North Carolina, Tennessee, and across the South, these merchants helped grow a successful and extensive business in Baltimore. Between 1881 and 1929 the Baltimore Bargain House was one of the most significant businesses in Baltimore, with gross sales over $34 million in 1921 alone, comparable to over $410 million today. To operate the Baltimore Bargain House, Epstein also built a local community of employees, which included over 1,600 people. The workforce was relatively diverse, comprising of immigrants from various countries as well as industry experts from across the nation. Many workers remained employed at the Baltimore Bargain House for decades. Although remarkable for his considerable business acumen and the success of the Baltimore Bargain House, the business' founder, Jacob Epstein was also well known for his extensive charitable donations to local Jewish groups and to institutions like the Baltimore Museum of Art.

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Street Address

6 N. Liberty Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Read's Drug Store

2018-11-27T10:33:50-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Read's Drug Store

Subject

Civil Rights

Description

Though the Baltimore Sun heralded the structure at the southeast corner of Howard and Lexington as an Art Deco design icon from the time of its construction in 1934, this building's role as an early and vital witness to a historic, but long over-looked Civil Rights sit-in makes the Read's Drug Store building truly noteworthy. Five years before the better known Greensboro, South Carolina sit-in protests at Woolworth's, students and citizens made civil rights history on this spot.

William Read started his Read's Drug Store chain at this corner, but the current building, designed by prominent Baltimore architects Smith & May, was built by Arthur Nattans bought the business from Read in 1899. Nattans grew the Read's chain to over forty locations by the early 1930s and planned the downtown location as a flagship store - a modern and well-appointed building, detailed with ornate terra cotta panels depicting sailing ships and chromed railing with swimming dolphins on the interior balcony elements commemorating the 300th anniversary of founding of the Maryland colony.

Like many downtown lunch counters in the early 1950s, the Read's chain maintained a strict policy of racial segregation. Discontent with the widespread policies of segregation and discrimination downtown led the Baltimore chapter of the Committee on Racial Equality (CORE) to start a campaign to end segregation at lunch counters on Lexington Street from Kresge's at Park Avenue to McCrory's right next door to Read's. At the same time, students from Morgan State University began working to desegregate the Read's Drug Store's Northwood Shopping Center location, just outside of Morgan's campus.

On January 20, 1955, CORE and Morgan state joined forces and a group of student activists from Morgan staged simultaneous "sit-in" demonstrations at the Howard & Lexington and Northwood Read's locations. According to an article in the Baltimore Afro American, an unnamed Read's official called Morgan State and pleaded with the school to call the protests off because the stores were losing business. School leaders and protesters held firm and within hours a Read's official announced that Read's Drug Store would end segregated lunch counters across all of their establishments. The front page headline for the Afro American on January 22 read, "Now serve all," with the announcement directly from Read's Drug Stores President Arthur Nattans Sr., "We will serve all customers throughout our entire stores, including the fountains, and this becomes effective immediately." Five years before the iconic Woolworth's sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, Baltimore's Morgan State students and CORE activists led one of the first successful student-led sit-in protests in the nation.

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Street Address

127 N. Howard Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Hutzler's

2018-11-27T10:33:50-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Hutzler's

Description

"If you wanted the good stuff, you went to Hutzler's," said Governor William Donald Schaefer and for generations of Baltimoreans, Hutzler's represented the height of downtown shopping, simply the place to shop. Many Marylanders still have fond memories of taking a streetcar down to Howard Street to shop at Hutzler's - the grande dame of Baltimore department stores with the richly detailed 1880s Palace building the modern 1930s Tower building next door.

Founded in 1858 as a single storefront at the corner of Howard and Clay streets by German-Jewish peddler Moses Hutzler and his son Abram, the store soon expanded to two additional Howard Street storefronts. Abram welcomed his brothers Charles and David into the retail operation in 1867 and the business incorporated as the Hutzler Brothers Company in the early twentieth century. The store carefully cultivated an image as not only a purveyor of fine goods, but a destination in itself. Hutzler's prided itself on being a place where shoppers could spend an entire day, complete with lunch in The Colonial or the Quixie, a haircut in the Circle Room Beauty Salon, and a shoeshine at the Shoe Fixery on the 8th floor.

The magnificent "palace" building on Howard Street reflects the reputation for class with a ornate Nova Scotia gray stone façade designed by the firm of Baldwin and Pennington. The store continued to grow in the 20th century with the construction of the Art Deco "tower" building in 1932 (which gained five additional stories in 1942) designed by architect James R. Edmunds, Jr.

Hutzler's claimed many innovations in Baltimore retailing including the widespread institution in 1868 of the now standard "one-price policy," which replaced a system of bargaining that favored the loudest or boldest bidder. Hutzler's offered an early liberal returns policy and was the first department store in Maryland to boast a fleet of delivery trucks. Like many department stores across the nation, Hutzler's sought to employ the latest technology; they installed Baltimore's first escalator in this building in the early 1930s.

In 1952, Hutzler's expanded to the Baltimore suburbs, opening a store Towson, Maryland, which was quickly followed by eight additional suburban outlets. Despite their forward-looking expansion, competition from national retailers and the continued decline of downtown business forced the 132 year-old family-owned business to close in 1990.

Creator

Theresa Donnelly

Sydney Jenkins

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

"If you wanted the good stuff, you went to Hutzler's," said Governor William Donald Schaefer and for generations of Baltimoreans, Hutzler's represented the height of downtown shopping, simply the place to shop. Many Marylanders still have fond memories of taking a streetcar down to Howard Street to shop at Hutzler's - the grande dame of Baltimore department stores with the richly detailed 1880s Palace building the modern 1930s Tower building next door.

Founded in 1858 as a single storefront at the corner of Howard and Clay streets by German-Jewish peddler Moses Hutzler and his son Abram, the store soon expanded to two additional Howard Street storefronts. Abram welcomed his brothers Charles and David into the retail operation in 1867 and the business incorporated as the Hutzler Brothers Company in the early twentieth century. The store carefully cultivated an image as not only a purveyor of fine goods, but a destination in itself. Hutzler's prided itself on being a place where shoppers could spend an entire day, complete with lunch in The Colonial or the Quixie, a haircut in the Circle Room Beauty Salon, and a shoeshine at the Shoe Fixery on the 8th floor.

The magnificent "palace" building on Howard Street reflects the reputation for class with a ornate Nova Scotia gray stone façade designed by the firm of Baldwin and Pennington. The store continued to grow in the twentieth century with the construction of the Art Deco "tower" building in 1932 (which gained five additional stories in 1942) designed by architect James R. Edmunds, Jr.

Hutzler's claimed many innovations in Baltimore retailing including the widespread institution in 1868 of the now standard "one-price policy," which replaced a system of bargaining that favored the loudest or boldest bidder. Hutzler's offered an early liberal returns policy and was the first department store in Maryland to boast a fleet of delivery trucks. Like many department stores across the nation, Hutzler's sought to employ the latest technology; they installed Baltimore's first escalator in this building in the early 1930s.

In 1952, Hutzler's expanded to the Baltimore suburbs, opening a store in Towson, Maryland, which was quickly followed by eight additional suburban outlets. Despite their forward-looking expansion, competition from national retailers and the continued decline of downtown business forced the 132 year-old family-owned business to close in 1990.

Street Address

200 N. Howard Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Schuler School of Fine Arts

2020-10-21T10:09:37-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Schuler School of Fine Arts

Creator

Nathan Dennies

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Hans Schuler's Home and Studio

Story

Baltimore is a city known for its sculptures. John Quincy Adams famously toasted "Baltimore—the monumental city" during a visit in 1823. The moniker is well deserved. Baltimore possess the first monument to George Washington in the United States. And during a time when Washington DC was recovering from the devastation of the War of 1812, Baltimore was erecting monuments to its triumph. Baltimore was also home to great sculptors. William Rinehart got his start in Baltimore owing to the patronage of William Walters. After an illustrious career, Rinehart endowed his estate to the Maryland Institute College of Art for the teaching of sculpture. Hans Schuler attended the Rinehart School of Sculpture, having emigrated to the United States at a young age from Germany with his parents. Upon graduation, he moved to Paris to study at the Julian Academy on a scholarship. In 1901, he became the first U.S.-based sculptor to win the Salon Gold Medal for his sculpture "Ariadne." It was in Paris that Schuler met William Lucas, an agent of Henry Walters, son of William Walters. Walters, a collector of fine art, purchased "Ariadne" for his gallery, now the Walters Art Museum. In 1906, Schuler returned to Baltimore and established a studio at 7 E. Lafayette Avenue, where he would become the city's leading sculptor and contribute to Baltimore's legacy as the Monumental City. Schuler's studio was designed by architect Howard Sill in an eclectic style, combining elements of several architectural styles and including architectural elements sculpted by Schuler himself. Sill designed the interior to accommodate the large scale of Schuler's work. The studio had one floor with a 24-foot ceiling. Large double doors allowed for the moving of large monuments. In 1922, a crane was installed inside. For six years, Schuler lived in an apartment near the studio with his wife, Paula, and daughter, Charlotte. By 1912, Schuler was established enough to hire Sill's apprentice, Gordon Beecher, to design a two bay wide, three bay deep, and two stories tall residence attached to the studio and capped with a mansard roof. As with the studio, Schuler sculpted architectural elements for the residence. Schuler received many commissions during his lifetime. One important patron was Theodore Marburg, a diplomat who, when he was not advocating for the League of Nations, was advocating for city parks and public art in Baltimore. Marburg founded the Municipal Art Society and would go on to save Schuler's career after nearly ruining him. His commision for a figure of Johns Hopkins hit a dead end after the university refused to take it. Schuler's compensation covered materials and little more, and the loss of income almost led to him selling his house. Schuler recovered and commissions came regularly until the United States entered World War I. Schuler considered working in a munitions factory, but Marburg intervened and provided more commissions, saving Schuler's career. Schuler became director of the Maryland Institute of Art in 1925. During his tenure he continued to work on commissions in his personal studio. He died in 1951 at the age of 77. His son, Hans, Jr., had been his full-time assistant, and like his father, worked at the Maryland Institute of Art. In the years that followed, the Institute began to lean more towards modern art in its teaching. A firm believer in the traditional techniques passed down from his father, Hans, along with his wife Ann, also a teacher at the Institute, formed the Schuler School of Fine Arts in 1959. The school trains students in the techniques of the Old Masters and offers courses in drawing, painting and sculpture and is located in the Schuler studio and residence that Hans Schuler, Sr. built. Both buildings remain historically intact with few changes.

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Official Website

Street Address

7-9 E. Lafayette Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21202

Congress Hotel

2021-02-22T09:43:05-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Congress Hotel

Subject

Music

Entertainment

Creator

Emma Marston

Theresa Donnelly

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Known originally as the Hotel Kernan, the Congress Hotel was built in 1903 by James L. Kernan. Kernan was a savvy businessman who sought to capitalize on the ways in which immigration had influenced the tastes of wealthy visitors and Baltimore natives alike. By the 1970s, the hotel also housed the Marble Bar - a nightclub that hosted many early punk and New Wave groups through the mid 1980s. When first built, the hotel included a luxurious Turkish bath and a massive rathskeller, a traditional German bar located in the basement of a building, and two theaters - the Auditorium and the Maryland - connected to the hotel by covered passageways. Thanks to entrepreneurial innovations from low ticket prices to an ever-changing roster of vaudeville performers, Kernan's "Million Dollar Triple Enterprise" soon proved to be a rousing success. Charlie Chaplin, Will Rogers, and Eddie Cantor - just to name a few - all appeared at the Hotel Kernan. The hotel remained an important part of Baltimore's entertainment history until it was sold in 1932. The Congress Hotel became a nightclub in the late 1970s. Roger and Leslee Anderson, a pair of local musicians, saw potential in the space and began to operate a nightclub located in the old rathskeller in the basement. Now called the Marble Bar, the music club played from 1978 to the mid-eighties. The Marble Bar was one of the first clubs in Baltimore to book emerging punk and new wave bands, and encouraged the growth of all kinds of music; the unofficial motto became "The Marble is the first place you play on the way up, and the last place you play on the way down." Although dark and dank, the Marble Bar still represented a place where musicians and members of the underground punk scene could gather and commiserate - the Marble Bar was not just a nightclub, but the center of a community. At its peak, bands like the Psychedelic Furs, REM, and Iggy Pop played the Marble Bar before becoming nationally recognized, and underground Baltimore stars like Edith Massey found her way to the Marble Bar as well. While the new sound of punk was not setting any trends – the style had already caught on in other cities across the nation – the Marble Bar remained one of the few to embrace that sound, creating a space for underground music in the city amid the more popular disco movement.

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Official Website

Street Address

306 W. Franklin Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Hackerman House

2020-10-21T10:19:04-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Hackerman House

Subject

Architecture

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Former Thomas-Jencks-Gladding House now part of the Walters Art Museum

Story

Built around 1848 for Dr. John Hanson Thomas, the great-grandson of John Hanson, President of the Continental Congress, The Hackerman House represented the height of elegance and convenience in the mid-nineteenth century. Renowned guests include the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) and General Kossuth. In 1892, Mr. and Mrs. Francis M. Jencks purchased the home and remodeled it extensively under the direction of Charles A. Platt. The graceful circular staircase was widened and the oval Tiffany skylight installed in the coffered dome. The bow window in the dining room was added and the entire house was decorated in the Italian Renaissance style. Following the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Jencks, the house was used as headquarters for various civic organizations and fell into a state of neglect and disrepair. Mr. Harry Leo Gladding purchased the building in 1963 and painstakingly restored it to its former elegance. Willard Hackerman purchased the building at 1 West Mount Vernon Place in the late 1980’s from the estate of its last owner, Harry Gladding. Mr. Hackerman was concerned with the possibility that the architectural anchor of Mount Vernon Place might be converted to commercial use. Story has it that he took the keys and placed them on the desk of then-Mayor William Donald Schaefer. In true Schaefer fashion, the Mayor held a contest to determine the best use of the historic structure. The Walters won the competition with a proposal to convert the house into galleries for its growing and important collection of Asian Art. Hackerman House opened in the spring of 1991. Mr. and Mrs. Hackerman have generously supported the Walters for many years and his firm, Whiting-Turner, has been the contractor for many of our additions and renovations. Over the years, he was a friend and mentor to our directors and Board members.

Watch our on Gladding!

Watch on the Hackerman House!

Official Website

Street Address

1 W. Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore, MD 21202

Mount Vernon Club

2018-11-27T10:33:49-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Mount Vernon Club

Subject

Architecture

Description

Built around 1842, the Mount Vernon Club is one of the oldest homes on Mount Vernon Place. Previously known as the Blanchard Randall House and the Tiffany-Fisher House, the home was built by William Tiffany, a wealthy Baltimore commission merchant. The building is a fine example of the Greek Revival architectural style and set a high standard for the new homes being built around the Washington Monument.

In 1941, The Mount Vernon Club, previously located across the street at 3 West Mount Vernon Place merged with The Town Club in the Washington Apartments and purchased the property, then home to Mr. Blanchard Randall, to serve as their club house. The Club has remained at the property through the present.

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Lede

Built around 1842, the Mount Vernon Club is one of the oldest homes on Mount Vernon Place.

Story

Previously known as the Blanchard Randall House and the Tiffany-Fisher House, the home was built by William Tiffany, a wealthy Baltimore commission merchant. The building is a fine example of the Greek Revival architectural style and set a high standard for the new homes being built around the Washington Monument.

In 1941, The Mount Vernon Club, previously located across the street at 3 West Mount Vernon Place merged with The Town Club in the Washington Apartments and purchased the property, then home to Mr. Blanchard Randall, to serve as their club house. The Club has remained at the property through the present.

Official Website

Street Address

8 W. Mt. Vernon Place, Baltimore, MD 21201

President Street Station

2018-11-27T10:33:49-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

President Street Station

Subject

Transportation

Civil War

Description

On April 19, 1861, just one week after the attack on Fort Sumter by Confederate forces marked the beginning of the Civil War, a train carrying Union volunteers with the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment pulled into the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad's President Street Station. At the time, railroad cars traveling south of Baltimore had to be pulled by horses along Pratt Street to Camden Station on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad to the west. However, a mob of Southern sympathizers started to attack the train cars and forced the Union troops to get out and start marching through the city streets.

The mob continued their attack with bricks, paving stones, and pistols, leading the Union troops to respond by firing into the crowd, starting a violent skirmish that left four soldiers and twelve civilians dead, 36 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians wounded, along with the loss of much of the regiment’s equipment. One of the soldiers killed, Corporal Sumner Needham of Company I, is often considered to be the first Union casualty of the war.

President Street Station, where the infamous Pratt Street Riot began, was built in 1850 as the Baltimore terminus of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad. Largely replaced in 1873 by Union Station (now known as Penn Station) which connected the Pennsylvania Railroad and Western Maryland Railway, President Street Station continued to serve a limited number of passenger trains through 1911, later serving as a freight station and then warehouse. By 1970, a fire had destroyed the train shed leaving only the head house. In the 1990s, President Street Station started a new life as the 91��ɫ��Ƶ Civil War Museum.

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

Railroad relic with a Civil War history

Story

Official Website

Street Address

601 President Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

Five and Dimes on Lexington Street

2018-11-27T10:33:49-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Five and Dimes on Lexington Street

Subject

Commerce

Creator

Theresa Donnelly

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

McCrory's, Kirby-Woolworth, and Schulte United

Story

In contrast to the high-end shopping at Stewart's or Hochschild-Kohn's on Howard Street, West Lexington Street offered goods of all kinds at affordable prices thanks to a row of five-and-tens from Read's Drug Store down to Kresge's on the other side of Park Avenue.

McCrory's at 227-229 West Lexington stands out with a colorful early twentieth century tile facade built over a structure that likely dates back to late nineteenth century. John Graham McCrorey started the chain in Scottsdale, Pennsylvania in 1882 and soon expanded with locations across the country. Noting McCrorey's reputation as a smart and thrifty businessman, in 1887 The New York Times reported that he had legally changed his name, dropping the e, because he did not want to pay the cost of the extra gilt letter on his many store signs. McCrory's on Lexington Street opened in the late 1920s and was one of over 1,300 McCrory's outlets operating around the country by the 1950s.

The more modest Kirby-Woolworth Building east of McCrory's began as two buildings put up by two close competitiors - Frederick M. Kirby and the H.G. Woolworth & Co. In retrospect, the reunion of the two buildings feels inevitable as Kirby and Woolworth pioneered the five-and-ten cent store business together in the 1870s and early 1880s, opening a store together in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in 1884 before parting ways in 1887. The two buildings came up side by side on Lexington Street in 1907 and likely combined into a single structure after the merger of H.G. Woolworth & Company and F. M. Kirby & Company in 1912.

Schulte United Five and Dime offers a unique façade with shining gold eagles and incised lettering along the top of the building. The building began as the Eisenberg Underselling Store, later known as the Eisenberg Company, with the determined motto that they offered "prices that are irreproachable everywhere." By 1928, 600 employees worked for the Eisenberg Company at several locations throughout the city. Within a few years, however, Schulte United – established by David A. Schulte, a "tobacco store potentate," who decided to enter the five-and-dime business in 1928 with the ambitious goal of investing $35,000,000 in 1,000 stores around the country – purchased the store on Lexington Street.

Street Address

200 W. Lexington Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Bromo Seltzer Tower

2020-10-16T11:23:18-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Bromo Seltzer Tower

Subject

Architecture

Industry

Description

While few remember the slogan of the Emerson Bromo-Seltzer Company - "If you keep late hours for Society's sake Bromo-Seltzer will cure that headache" - the iconic Bromo-Seltzer Tower has been a Baltimore landmark since its construction in 1911. At 15 stories, the tower made the Bromo-Sltzer factory the tallest building in the city boasting a four-dial gravity clock that was the largest in the world (bigger, even, than London's Big Ben) and an illuminated, rotating 51-foot blue steel bottle that immediately secured the tower's spot as a favorite of city residents and visitors alike. Ship captains traveling up the bay reportedly used the bottle as a beacon to guide them toward the Light Street docks and the removal of the blue bottle in 1936 is still a sore point with many Baltimoreans.

The tower was built by Captain Isaac Emerson, a chemist and inventor of the headache remedy and alleged hangover cure, Bromo Seltzer, as part of the company's factory. Emerson was a wealthy and well regarded Baltimorean, known as a generous philanthropist and world traveler. He had been a lieutenant in the Navy during the Spanish-American war and a post-war visit to Florence's tower on the Palazzo Vecchio provided the inspiration for the design of this tower created by local architect Joseph Evans Sperry.

Though the factory was torn down in 1969, the 289 foot tower survived several threats of demolition and in 2007 philanthropists Eddie and Sylvia Brown worked with Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts to transform the structure into 33 artists' studios. The tower is open once a month for public tours and while much has changed visitors can still ride the 1911 Otis elevator to the clock room on the 15th floor and view the still-functioning clock works.

Creator

Theresa Donnelly

Relation

, Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Lede

Story

While few remember the slogan of the Emerson Bromo-Seltzer Company—"If you keep late hours for Society's sake Bromo-Seltzer will cure that headache"—the iconic Bromo-Seltzer Tower has been a Baltimore landmark since its construction in 1911. At fifteen stories, the tower made the Bromo-Seltzer factory the tallest building in the city. The tower boasted a four-dial gravity clock that was the largest in the world (bigger, even, than London's Big Ben) and an illuminated, rotating 51-foot blue steel bottle. The iconic design immediately secured the tower's spot as a favorite of city residents and visitors alike. Ship captains traveling up the bay reportedly used the bottle as a beacon to guide them toward the Light Street docks and the removal of the blue bottle in 1936 is still a sore point with many Baltimoreans. The tower was built by Captain Isaac Emerson, a chemist, and inventor of the headache remedy and alleged hangover cure, Bromo-Seltzer. Emerson was a wealthy and well-regarded Baltimorean, known as a generous philanthropist and world traveler. He had been a lieutenant in the Navy during the Spanish-American war and a post-war visit to Florence's tower on the Palazzo Vecchio provided the inspiration for the design of this tower created by local architect Joseph Evans Sperry. Though the factory was torn down in 1969, the 289-foot tower survived several threats of demolition and in 2007 philanthropists Eddie and Sylvia Brown worked with Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts to transform the structure into 33 artists' studios. The tower is open once a month for public tours and while much has changed visitors can still ride the 1911 Otis elevator to the clock room on the 15th floor and view the still-functioning clock works.

Watch our on this building!

Official Website

Street Address

21 S. Eutaw Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Green Mount Cemetery

2018-11-27T10:33:49-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Green Mount Cemetery

Subject

Architecture

Parks and Landscapes

Creator

Nathan Dennies

Relation

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Officially dedicated on July 13, 1839 and born out of the garden cemetery movement, Green Mount Cemetery is one of the first garden cemeteries created in the United States. After seeing the beautiful Mount Auburn Cemetery in Connecticut in 1834, Samuel Walker, a tobacco merchant, led a campaign to establish a similar site in Baltimore. During a time in which overcrowded church cemeteries created health risks in urban areas, Walker's successfully garnered support and commissioned plans from architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, II to establish the Green Mount Cemetery on sixty acres of the late merchant Robert Oliver's estate.

During his life, Walker spared no expense tailoring the beauty of the estate, and left the grounds highly ornamented upon his death. Latrobe's design incorporated all the beautiful features associated with garden cemeteries including dells, majestic trees, and numerous monuments and statues. Amongst the towering hardwood trees in the cemetery is a rare, small-flowered red rose known as the Green Mount Red. Created by Green Mount Cemetery's first gardener, James Pentland, the Green Mount Red can only be found here at Green Mount and on George F. Harison's grave at Trinity Church Cemetery in New York.

Walking into Green Mount Cemetery, the first thing visitors notice is the imposing Entrance Gateway designed by Robert Cary Long, Jr. An example of the Gothic style, the gateway features two towers reaching forty feet and beautiful stained glass windows. The haunting chapel, designed by John Rudolph Niernsee and James Crawford Neilson, is made of Connecticut sandstone and features flying buttresses and an impressive 102 foot spire.

Green Mount Cemetery is famously known as the resting place of a large number of prominent historical figures ranging from John Wilkes Booth, to local philanthropists Johns Hopkins and Enoch Pratt. The graves and sculptures that scatter the cemetery make Green Mount Cemetery a treasury of nineteenth century art.

William Henry Rinehart, considered the last important American sculptor to work in the classical style, had many commissions at Green Mount, and is credited with some of the cemeteries most awe-inspiring pieces. Commissioned by Henry Walters for the grave of his wife, Ellen Walters, Rinehart's "Love Reconciled as Death" depicts a classical Grecian woman cast in bronze strewing flowers. Poetically resting on Rinehart's own grave is his bronze statue of Endymion: the beautiful young shepherd boy who Zeus granted both eternal youth and eternal sleep.

Perhaps the most striking sculpture in the Green Mount Cemetery is the Riggs Memorial, created by Hans Schuler. Schuler was the first American sculptor to win the Salon Gold Medal in Paris, and his mastery shows in the Riggs Monument depicting a grieving woman slouched over a loved one's grave, holding a wreath in one hand and a drooping flower in the other.

Official Website

Street Address

1501 Greenmount Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21202

Copycat Building

2018-11-27T10:33:49-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Copycat Building

Subject

Architecture

Industry

Description

For over twenty years, the Copycat - named for the roof top billboard of the Copycat printing company - has offered studio space and living space for countless artists, musicians, and performers. The history of creativity in this local landmark has a long history extending back to the construction of the Copycat Building in the 1890s as a factory complex for Baltimore's Crown Cork & Seal Company.

Maryland native William Painter invented the "crown cork" bottle cap - a predecessor of the bottle cap still common today - at Murrill & Keizer's machine shop on Holliday Street in 1891. A prolific inventor with over 85 patents, Painter established the Crown Cork & Seal Company in 1892 and started producing both bottle caps and bottling machines. The business quickly outgrew their factory on East Monument Street and moved north to Guilford Avenue in September 1897 into a grand six-floor factory with handsome Victorian details.

As with all industrial enterprises in Baltimore, their growth was driven by the labor of thousands of men, women and children who worked at the factory and frequently organized to seek improved conditions and wages. In 1899, for example, 65 boys between the ages of 13 and 18 employed feeding the machines that placed the cork seals into the caps went on strike. Company officials remained unconcerned, remarking that the "places of any who may not come back will be easily filled by other boys." The firm continued to expand, adding a machine shop (now known as the Lebow Building) next door on Oliver Street in 1914, and building new factory buildings in Highlandtown where they moved in the 1930s.

The building on Guilford Avenue remained in use by a wide range of tenants from the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s through a whole host of over twenty industrial enterprises occupying the building in the 1960s. In 1983, Charles Lankford purchased the building and converted the industrial space to art studios. Soon artists began illegally converting their studio spaces into apartments and by the mid-1980s, the Copycat began to host a vital community of local artists and musicians. The building remains an anchor in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District - rezoned as "mixed-used" to accommodate the diverse tenants - and offers a unique perspective on the history of industry in central Baltimore.

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Official Website

Street Address

1501 Guilford Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21202

Peale Museum

2020-10-16T12:58:29-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Peale Museum

Subject

Museums

Architecture

Description

On August 14, 1814, almost exactly one month before the Battle of Baltimore and the bombing of Ft. McHenry in the War of 1812, Rembrandt Peale opened "Peale's Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Paintings" on Holliday Street in downtown Baltimore. Designed by noted Baltimore architect Robert Carey Long, the building is the first purpose-built museum in the western hemisphere. Taking after a natural history museum that his father, Charles Wilson Peale, started in Philadelphia in 1786, Rembrandt Peale displayed collections of fossils and other specimens, as well as portraits of many of the country's founding fathers that his family had painted. As the British made plans to attack and the War of 1812 was on the city's threshold, portraits of the Revolutionary War heroes were highly popular, and Peale was able to charge 25 cents for admission.

In September of 1814, Baltimore turned back the British invasion on land and sea, providing a critical turning point in the war and likely sparing the city from destruction. The British, after all, had burned the nation's capital just a few miles south after Washington fell the month before. The Peale Museum capitalized on patriotic fervor, and put a number of bombs and shells that were collected from the failed British bombardment on display. In doing this, Peale became the first person to display samples of Britain's firepower, which of course Francis Scott Key immortalized as the bombs bursting in air in the Star Spangled Banner. Some years later, in 1830, Peale's museum was still capitalizing on the War of 1812 when they displayed the original flag that flew over Ft. McHenry, borrowed from a willing Mrs. Louisa Armistead, the widow of Lt. Colonel George Armistead. Lt. Colonel Armistead commanded Ft. McHenry during the war and reportedly ordered an extra large flag to fly at the Fort as a pointed challenge to the British.

From its earliest days embracing Baltimore's war effort, the Peale Museum has been intertwined with the city's history. The building served as a museum from 1814 until 1830. It then became the 91��ɫ��Ƶ City Hall until 1875 when the current city hall building was erected. After 1875, the museum had various uses, including as the Colored School Number 1 for African American children, and then in 1931, it returned to its origins as a museum, becoming the "Municipal Museum of Baltimore." Fittingly, the Municipal Museum focused on 91��ɫ��Ƶ City history.

In 1985, the museum underwent a physical renovation and was reborn as the center of the "City Life Museums." With exhibits on Baltimore's historic gems, such as the H.L. Mencken House and Phoenix Shot Tower, to the rowhouses and front steps that help define working class life in Baltimore, the City Life Museums lasted until 1997 when the enterprise closed. Today, the Peale Museum is empty and awaiting the next chapter in its long and storied service to Baltimore.

Creator

Johns Hopkins

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

On August 15, 1814, almost exactly one month before the Battle of Baltimore and the bombing of Ft. McHenry in the War of 1812, Rembrandt Peale opened "Peale's Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Paintings" on Holliday Street in downtown Baltimore. Designed by noted Baltimore architect Robert Carey Long, the building is the first purpose-built museum in the western hemisphere. Taking after a natural history museum that his father, Charles Wilson Peale, started in Philadelphia in 1786, Rembrandt Peale displayed collections of fossils and other specimens, as well as portraits of many of the country's founding fathers that his family had painted. As the British made plans to attack and the War of 1812 was on the city's threshold, portraits of the Revolutionary War heroes were highly popular, and Peale was able to charge 25 cents for admission. In September of 1814, Baltimore turned back the British invasion on land and sea, providing a critical turning point in the war and likely sparing the city from destruction. The British, after all, had burned the nation's capital just a few miles south after Washington fell the month before. The Peale Museum capitalized on patriotic fervor, and put a number of bombs and shells that were collected from the failed British bombardment on display. In doing this, Peale became the first person to display samples of Britain's firepower, which of course Francis Scott Key immortalized as the bombs bursting in air in the Star Spangled Banner. Some years later, in 1830, Peale's museum was still capitalizing on the War of 1812 when they displayed the original flag that flew over Ft. McHenry, borrowed from a willing Mrs. Louisa Armistead, the widow of Lt. Colonel George Armistead. Lt. Colonel Armistead commanded Ft. McHenry during the war and reportedly ordered an extra large flag to fly at the Fort as a pointed challenge to the British. From its earliest days embracing Baltimore's war effort, the Peale Museum has been intertwined with the city's history. The building served as a museum from 1814 until 1830. It then became the 91��ɫ��Ƶ City Hall until 1875 when the current city hall building was erected. After 1875, the museum had various uses, including as the Colored School Number 1 for African American children, and then in 1931, it returned to its origins as a museum, becoming the "Municipal Museum of Baltimore." Fittingly, the Municipal Museum focused on 91��ɫ��Ƶ City history. In 1985, the museum underwent a physical renovation and was reborn as the center of the "City Life Museums." With exhibits on Baltimore's historic gems, such as the H.L. Mencken House and Phoenix Shot Tower, to the rowhouses and front steps that help define working class life in Baltimore, the City Life Museums lasted until 1997 when the enterprise closed. Today, the Peale Museum is empty and awaiting the next chapter in its long and storied service to Baltimore.

Watch our on the museum!

Official Website

Street Address

225 N. Holliday Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

Edgar Allan Poe House

2021-02-15T16:43:07-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Edgar Allan Poe House

Subject

Literature

Museums

Creator

Ryan Artes

Relation

, Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore

, Maryland Historical Society

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Edgar Allan Poe, writer, poet, inventor of detective fiction, is probably most famous for his poem “The Raven.” He spent time in Baltimore off and on through his entire life. Though born in Boston, he first arrived in Baltimore on a family visit to his paternal grandparents when he was just five weeks old in 1809.

Poe's association with this house began around the beginning of 1833, when Maria Clemm moved her family to this modest 2 ½ story rowhouse on Amity Street (originally number 3, now 203 North Amity Street). The household consisted of Maria, her daughter Virginia Clemm, her mother Elizabeth Poe, her nephew Edgar Allan Poe, and perhaps her son Henry. The small, five-room house was situated quite differently than today, surrounded by a few scattered houses and mostly open fields. Poe likely slept on the top floor, under low, slanted ceilings, accessed by a narrow, winding staircase.

Over the next two years, Poe continued to unsuccessfully explore various careers, and wrote for various publications. Notably, he was awarded first and second place for a fiction and poetry contest, respectively, sponsored by the Baltimore Saturday Visiter. He also established contact with the Southern Literary Messenger, and submitted both fiction and editorial pieces for publication, as well as providing technical advice to the editor.

In addition to the numerous poems and short stories, he wrote for the Visiter and Messenger at 203 Amity Street. It is also presumed that he penned a poem titled “To Elizabeth,” dedicated to a cousin, and "Latin Hymn," which is a comment on the Egyptian-Ottoman War (1831-1833). The war was called for by Mohammad Ali, who demanded control of Syria from the Ottoman Empire as a reward for his assistance with other battles.

The family was forced to move from Amity Street in 1835 after the death of the grandmother, Elizabeth Poe, and the loss of her pension.

The house was scheduled for demolition in 1938 to make way for a public housing project, but was saved by the Edgar Allan Poe Society, which was established in 1923 to promote Poe’s works through readings and lectures. The Society provided tours of the house from 1950 to 1977 when operation of the museum was taken over by 91��ɫ��Ƶ City’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation (CHAP). It is operated today by Poe Baltimore, a non-profit organization.

Official Website

Street Address

203 N. Amity Street, Baltimore, MD 21223

Carrollton Viaduct

2021-02-15T16:57:01-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Carrollton Viaduct

Subject

Transportation

Creator

Gwynns Falls Trail Council

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Subtitle

1829 Railroad Bridge Named for Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Story

On July 4, 1828, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence and a director of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, laid the cornerstone for the Carrollton Viaduct and remarked, "I consider this among the most important acts of my life, second only to my signing the Declaration of Independence."

Completed in 1829, the railroad named the 300-foot stone structure for Charles Carroll of Carrollton. This bridge over the Gwynns Falls was the first major stream crossing as the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad headed west from its Pratt Street terminus. Worried about competition from canals, Baltimore's business leaders cast their lot with a new untested technology, railroads. Horses initially pulled the loads, but the B&O successfully introduced steam-powered locomotives and became known as "the Railroad University of the United States"

By 1880, the railroad helped make Baltimore a major livestock and coal terminal and the second largest port for grain in the nation. Carrollton Viaduct has endured and is now the world's oldest active railroad bridge.

Street Address

2100 Washington Boulevard, Baltimore, MD 21230

Access Information

Street address is the location of Gwynns Falls Trail South trailhead at Carroll Park. The viaduct is located a short walk north along the trail from Washington Boulevard.

Public School No. 103

2019-03-19T16:27:43-04:00

Dublin Core

Title

Public School No. 103

Subject

Education

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Built in 1877, this historic school on Division Street originally served only white students until 1910 when the building was first used for black students from Public School No. 112. In March 1911, the school was officially designated Public School 103 and later named in honor of abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet. The building contained twelve classrooms; the spaces separated by sliding doors that could open and combine two or three classrooms into an auditorium.

While the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson had held that racial segregation, such as in Baltimore's public school system, was legal when the public facilities were "separate but equal", schools for black students in Baltimore were anything but. The academic year for black children was one month shorter than the school year for white students, with the expectation that children would leave school to find agricultural work. The prejudice and racist beliefs that undlie this approach is evident in a 1913 remark by Baltimore school commissioner Richard Biggs: “Stop at once the so-called high education that unfits Negroes for the lives that they are to lead and which makes them desire things they will never be able to reach.”

Public School 103 is best known for its' most famous student, Thurgood Marshall (1908- 1993), who attended the school from 1914 to 1920. It was at this school that Thurgood shortened his name from the original Thoroughgood. Thurgood sat in the first row, as his classmate Agnes Peterson later recalled, “he was always playing, and so they had to keep right on top of him.”

When he began attending PS 103 at age six, Thurgood's family lived with his Uncle Fearless Mentor (or Uncle Fee) at 1632 Division Street. Mentor worked as the personal attendant to the president of the B&O Railroad, wearing a suit and a bowtie to work daily, and was home nearly every afternoon to talk with Thurgood and his brother Aubrey. Marshall later attended the Colored High School which opened in January 1901 at the northeast corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Dolphin Street occupying a building erected in 1891 for the English-German School No. 1 previously located on Druid Hill Avenue.

Official Website

Street Address

1315 Division Street, Baltimore, MD 21217

Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church

2018-11-27T10:33:49-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church

Subject

Religion

Architecture

Description

Dedicated on December 4, 1870, Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church stands as a monument both to George Brown, whose wife Isabella McLanahan Brown supported the construction of the church in his memory, and the generations of Baltimoreans who have worshipped, performed music, and more in this treasured architectural landmark. While many early congregations left Bolton Hill, Brown Memorial has endured and invested in the preservation of the historic church with a $1.8 million restoration from 2001 to 2003.

George Brown was the son of investment firm founder Alexander Brown, a businessman and civic leader who according to an 1873 account by local historian George Washington Howard, "regarded religion as preeminent above all other things and loved his church with all the ardor of his noble nature." After his death in 1859, his wife Isabella McLanahan Brown made a gift of $150,000 to construct and furnish the Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church.

The architects were Nathaniel Henry Hutton and John Murdoch, who were among the 18 charter members of the 91��ɫ��Ƶ Chapter of the AIA. They created a Gothic Revival masterpiece with numerous stained glass windows by artist Louis Comfort Tiffany. Murdoch was both a neighbor to the church, living at 1527 Bolton Street, and his funeral was held at the church after his death in 1923.

Creator

Eli Pousson

Relation

, Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Official Website

Street Address

1316 Park Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217

Roland Park Apartments

2018-11-27T10:33:49-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Roland Park Apartments

Subject

Architecture

Description

Designed by architect Edward L. Palmer, Jr. in 1925, the handsome Roland Park Apartments, now known as the Roland Park Condominium, is a significant example of Beaux Arts architecture in North Baltimore. The building was erected by the M.A. Long Company, owned by the same M.A. Long who served as President of the Roland Park Apartments Company. The garage, originally known as the "Roland Park Stables," was designed by architects Wyatt & Nolting in 1903.

Baltimore native Edward Livingston Palmer, Jr. was born in 1877, graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a Bachelor of Arts in 1899 and went on to receive a degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania in 1903. Palmer returned to Baltimore and by June 1907, he had become an architect for The Roland Park Company. In this position he contributed to the design and development of Homeland, Roland Park, and Guilford. Roland Park Apartments was converted to condominiums in 1980.

Creator

Eli Pousson

Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata

Story

Street Address

6 Upland Road, Baltimore, MD 21210

Maryland Club

2018-11-27T10:33:49-05:00

Dublin Core

Title

Maryland Club

Subject

Architecture

Description

First established in 1857, the Maryland Club started in a residence designed by Robert Mills on the northeast corner of Franklin and Cathedral streets and many of the Club's members lived in the area around Mount Vernon Place. At the start of the Civil War in 1861, many members of the Club sympathized with the Confederacy and Unionist members resigned, including Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, the President of the group. Eventually shut down by Union military officials in Baltimore, the building re-opened in 1864 as "Freedman's Rest," offices for the new Freedmen's Bureau and a place to offer support to any "sick, helpless and needy" former enslaved people.

The Club re-opened following the Civil War and prospered along with the economic success of Baltimore merchants and industrialists. The group purchased a vacant lot at Charles and Eager Streets, and hired architect, Josias Pennington of the firm Baldwin and Pennington, to design a new building. The new club house features heavy blocks of white marble from 91��ɫ��Ƶ County in a Romanesque style. The new Maryland Club opened on New Year's Day, 1892 and has a center of activity through the present.