Canterbury Hall Apartments, also known as Canterbury Hall, sits at 100 W. 39th Street, and is part of the Tuscany-Canterbury Historic District. It was the first apartment building in Tuscany-Canterbury. Its architecture is in the late Tudor Gothic style. George Morris, a well-known real estate developer who sold racially-restricted houses in the 1910s and 1920s, and later was criticized for his anti-Jewish business policies, built the apartment house. Canterbury Hall is not to be confused with a building of the same name in Washington, D.C.
Canterbury Hall was first conceived of as “Haddon Hall.” The landwas sold by the University Parkway Company to a developer, the Fireproof Apartment Company, prior to its construction. The outside consists of brick with accents of stucco, and a half-timbered English style with oak beams. With fifteen apartments spread across three stories, each apartment has gas fireplaces, hardwood floors, glass doorknobs, and other amenities like porches. Each apartment is separated by fireproof walls that are eighteen-inches thick. At the time that the apartment house was built, Canterbury Hall only rented to white people.
Canterbury Hall was designed by renowned architects, Clyde Nelson Friz and Edward Hughes Glidden, as part of their Glidden & Friz partnership. The apartment building opened in 1912, the same year that Tudor Arms Apartments (under the name of Tudor Hall) opened on University Parkway. Unlike Tudor Arms, Canterbury Hall has no elevator.
Over the years, the apartment house became the home of professional chemists, history and English teachers, Goucher College alumni, U.S. military captains (like Henry C. Evans), medical researchers (Paul Galpin Shipley), naval commanders (Frederick J. Bell), engineers, inventors, school commissioners, tutors, and bank executives. Even members of the Glidden family, such as Glidden himself, lived there. It was also a place for cocktail parties, informal luncheons, and weddings.
Although there have been renovations and changes over the years, Canterbury Hall remains intact to this day, serving as a residence for some, and a beautiful, grand, and historic landmark for others.
The West University Parkway concrete bridge arcs over Stony Run to connect the neighborhoods of Roland Park and Tuscany-Canterbury. Hikers can follow a pedestrian pathway from Wyman Park, and walk under the bridge, which serves as a viaduct since it carries University Parkway in an arc over Stony Run, before entering the Tuscany-Canterbury neighborhood. This bridge not only connects these neighborhoods but those living in nearby residential apartments, whether the Carlyle to the Northwest, the historic Tudor Arms Apartments to the Southwest, and various apartment complexes to the Southeast, such as Hopkins House, the Carolina, and University West apartments. The viaduct also ensures easy access to John Hopkins University’s Homewood campus which sits less than a half of a mile southeast of the bridge.
Etchings on the bridge's four corners indicate that it was constructed in 1908. Although a map released in 1906 seems to show that the bridge was present, this is referring to a previous steel trestle bridge, which the Olmsted Brothers saw when surveying the land a year before. The new bridge was wide enough to accommodate vehicles, trolleys, and pedestrians at the same time.
One early design for the bridge was proposed by city engineer Benjamin T. Fendell. He was influenced by the ideas from the Olmsted Brothers, who recommended improvements to enhance the bridge's "architectural beauty," so that the design did not appear "weak." Ultimately, Wyatt & Nolting Architects, a partnership between architects William G. Nolting and James B.N. Wyatt, known for the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. Courthouse, and later for the Physics Building on the Homewood campus and the Garrett Building in downtown Baltimore, were chosen to complete the final design. The bridge itself was constructed by the city’s engineering department for a cost of $25,000.
At the time of its construction, the Maryland and Pennsylvania (Ma & Pa) railroad had been running alongside Stony Run for four years, through the newly-created Wyman Park. The Olmsted Brothers described the latter, in their comprehensive 1904 report on development of public grounds in greater Baltimore, as a "beautiful piece of sylvan Scenery" and noted its beach trees and topography. The trustees of Johns Hopkins University, including William Wyman (which Wyman Park is named after), had deeded these lands to the city.
The Ma & Pa railroad would continue to run under the viaduct until June 1958. University Parkway, which replaced Merryman Lane, a narrow country road, allowed for the construction of many buildings in the area. This included Tudor Hall in 1911, which opened for residents in 1912. It would later become the North Building of a housing cooperative named Tudor Arms. A few years after the bridge's construction, the Homewood campus of Johns Hopkins University came into existence. There were plans to incorporate the campus into the city grid. Although the campus opened for students in 1914, the full relocation of the university to that location would not be finished until two years later.
Spanning almost 87 feet, this concrete arch viaduct is considered one of the most notable, and historic, bridges in the U.S., possibly for its wide span, its design, the fact it has remained intact for over 117 years, or because it connects two neighborhoods together. The bridge, according to a report prepared for the State Highway Administration in October 1995, showed the city's commitment to arch design. This is because the same year the city began construction of two other reinforced concrete bridges, one at Hollins Street, over Gwynns Run, and another at Edmondson Avenue, over Gwynns Falls.
The viaduct encouraged additional residential development. The Topographical Survey Commission of Baltimore noted, in a 1912 report to city leaders, that the land required for building University Parkway was deeded without cost to the city by Johns Hopkins University and the Roland Park Company, and praised this land grant to the city for its advantages. The viaduct also helped connect the city's parks. A few years later, the city installed street lamps along the bridge. Some years after that, in 1919, curbs and sidewalks along the bridge were raised and improved.
The University Parkway viaduct remains intact to this day, continuing to serve as a vital route used by residents, delivery services, emergency vehicles, and others alike.