One of a few (possibly the only!) fully intact late-nineteenth-century urban mansions designed almost exclusively by acclaimed by New York architect, Standford White of McKim, Mead & White, the Ross Winans House at 1217 Saint Paul Street is the epitome of cosmopolitan living in Baltimore.
Commissioned by Baltimore millionaire Ross R. Winans, heir to a fortune made by his father in Saint Petersburg, Russia, the forty-six-room, brick and brownstone French Renaissance Revival style mansion was built in 1882. The house features fine oak paneling, parquet, leaded glass, Tiffany designed tile and other fine materials throughout.
The Winans Mansion has remained a dominant architectural symbol of the neighborhood and has been used as a preparatory school for girls, a funeral parlor, and a doctors’ offices. 91ĘÓƵ identified the building as a threatened landmark in 2000, after it sat unoccupied for many years. Not long after, Agora Inc. took control of the building and, in 2005, completed a multi-million dollar historic renovation that gained distinction by winning a 91ĘÓƵ preservation honor award that year. Agora continues to own the building and uses it as offices.
In December 1919, the Rainbow Theatre first opened on Pennsylvania Avenue entertaining an African American audience with vaudeville performances and films. The theatre continued in operation until 1925 and then spent a decade as a garage.
The building was then remodelled to the plans of architect David Harrison, and, on December 25, 1936, reopened as the Lenox Theatre. The theatre continued in operation up until 1964 when the property became home to Christ Temple Church.
On July 11, 2015 the Eastern Female High School on Aisquith Street caught fire—just the latest challenge for this 1869 school-house turned apartment building that has stood empty since it closed in 2001. Designed by architect R. Snowden Andrews, the Italianate-style, red-brick and white-trim structure is the city’s oldest surviving purpose-built public school building. It stands as a memorial to the post-Civil War expansion of secondary education opportunities in Baltimore. The Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation list the building as a Baltimore City Landmark in 1976 and a 2002 Baltimore Sun editorial declared one of Baltimore’s “architectural gems”. The building was renovated and converted into apartments in the 1970s and Baltimore City transferred the building to Sojourner-Douglass College in 2004. Unfortunately, Sojourner-Douglass College was unable to develop the building and after the 2015 fire Eastern Female High School continues to stand boarded up and vacant.
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R. House was built on the southwest corner of the intersection of Remington Avenue and West 29th Street in 1924 as the Eastwick Motor Company garage. Up until the 1920s, most of Baltimore’s car dealerships were located in the "automobile triangle" bounded by Mount Royal, North Avenue, and Howard Street. The 2-story rectangular brick building, constructed to expand Eastwick, reflected the growing importance of Remington to automobile sales and service in the 1920s. Directories referred to the building as the "Dodge Maintenance Building" in the late 1920s, but the design makes clear that it was always intended to work as a showroom as well.
In 1926, Harter B. Hull, a successful automobile magnate in Memphis with Baltimore ties and a rising star in the dealership world, purchased the Eastwick Motor Company. After his untimely death in 1930, Gilbert A. Jarman, an officer and director of the Hull operation, assumed ownership control. Jarman Motors, Inc. expanded over the years and occupied the property up until 1968. Anderson Motor Company bought the property in 1994.
The Seawall Development Corporation purchased the property in 2014 and began a $12 million conversion of this former 50,000-square-foot automotive building to turn it into the R. House: a “food hall” featuring ten chefs.
Crittenton Home was originally the home of David Carroll, owner of the Mount Vernon Mill Company. The building got its name after being absorbed by the Florence Crittenton Mission in 1925.
Crittenton Home was originally the home of David Carroll, owner of the Mount Vernon Mill Company. The building got its name after being absorbed by the Florence Crittenton Mission in 1925.
The Mission was started in 1882 by wealthy New Yorker and Protestant evangelist Charles Crittenton who made his fortune in pharmaceuticals. After losing his four year old daughter Florence to Scarlet Fever, Crittenton dedicated himself to philanthropy, using his wealth to open sanctuaries for unwed mothers. He traveled across the country proselytizing and offering five-hundred dollars to each town willing to open a Home. In 1898, President McKinley signed a special act of Congress which granted a national charter to the Florence Crittenton Mission, making it the first charitable organization to receive a national charter from the United States. At its peak, the Mission had over seventy-five Homes internationally.
The mansion that became the Crittenton Home was likely constructed in 1845 during the development of Stone Hill, a company housing development for workers of the Mount Vernon mills. Positioned high on a hill, the mansion provided an impressive view over Stone Hill and the mills.Carroll could comfortably oversee his industrial domain from the comfort of his grand home, while employees catching glimpses of the house from their homes and workplace below could not shake the feeling that the boss was always watching.
Carroll died in 1881. Afterward other executives of the Mount Vernon Mill Company likely inhabited the mansion. (His son, Albert Carroll, had Evergreen on the Hill, a Greek Revival Mansion now used by the SPCA). After a devastating 1923 labor strike, the mill company moved its operations south in search of cheaper labor and in 1925, the mansion was sold to the Florence Crittenton Mission. The purchase was a response to overcrowding at Baltimore's first Crittenton Home located in Little Italy.
By the 1950s and '60s many Florence Crittenton Homes had become places where embarrassed middle class families hid their pregnant daughters. Under these arrangements, children were taken from their mothers and given up for adoption. With the introduction of birth control pills, the legalization of abortion, and the lessening of stigma against unwed pregnancy, Homes across the country began closing. The Hampden Florence Crittenton Home stayed in use until 2010.
The mansion is currently being renovated and converted to apartments. The mid-century dormitories that served the Florence Crittenton House have been demolished to make way for townhouses.
“Boss” John S. (Frank) Kelly, the leader of the West Baltimore Democratic Club, controlled all things political in West Baltimore in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He moved into the house in the 1860s and lived here for the rest of his life. Kelly ran the political machine of West Baltimore that elected several mayors, senators, judges, and state representatives. He was also the inspiration of Dashiell Hammett’s character Shad O’Rory in the novel (and later movie) The Glass Key.
The Boss Kelly House at 1106 West Saratoga Street is part of a row of houses that were built between 1830 and 1845. Architecturally, the building is a prime example of the cumulative development of row house design in Baltimore, and is featured in the 1981 book, Those Old Placid Rows, by Natalie Shivers. The house and the others in the row are unusual, possibly unique in Baltimore, for their single second-story tripartite windows and gabled roofs. This row has been attributed to the work of architect Robert Cary Long, Jr., whose father designed a similar row in the unit block of Mulberry Street in Mt. Vernon.
*In 2021, Baltimore City razed this row of homes, including the Boss Kelly house.
Built around 1905 in the vernacular Beaux Arts style, the Polish Home Hall originally functioned as a town hall and home to the volunteer fire company of Curtis Bay. In 1919, when Baltimore City annexed the area from Anne Arundel County, the Wise brothers took over the building to sew sailcloth for the shipping industries emerging in the area. In 1925, the United Polish Societies of Curtis Bay purchased the building and returned it to use as a community space. Polish American children attended school and learned both English and Polish in the space, which was a few block from St. Anthanasius Catholic Church. The hall was also used for social functions, such as dances. Local residents, Casmir and Catherine Benicewicz, served as caretakers of the Polish Home Hall until the 1980s when it became too much for the pair to handle. They passed responsibility on to another Polish organization but the building soon began to suffer from neglect. The Polish Home Hall was no longer used for community events and became dilapidated.
In the early 2000s, the Baybrook Coalition, a non-profit community development corporation, sought to revive the hall as a community space. Carol Eshelman, director of the Coalition from 2002 until 2010, researched the deed of the dilapidated building and tracked down Catherine Benicewicz. A beautiful friendship and impressive rehabilitation endeavor began with Benicewicz deeding the building to the Coalition. The rehab was funded by a bond issue spearheaded by House Representative Brian McHale and State Senator George W. Della Jr. and supplemented by funds from the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation in addition to donations from local citizens and businesses. Donald Kann served as the architect for the renovation. “The Hammers,” local craftsmen volunteers, completed much of the work on the building. The Polish Home Hall was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007 when it reopened.
The Scottish Rite of Freemasons began construction of the temple building on North Charles Street in 1930, and the building was opened in 1932. The building was designed by noted architect (and Scottish Rite Mason) Clyde N. Friz and renowned architect John Russell Pope. Friz’s other works in Baltimore include Enoch Pratt Free Library and Standard Oil Building. A nationally renowned architect, Pope designed the Jefferson Memorial, National Archives, National Gallery of Art, and the Masonic Temple of the Scottish Rite in Washington, as well as the Baltimore Museum of Art here in Baltimore. The Scottish Rite Temple on Charles Street is both Italian Renaissance and Beaux Arts Classical in style, with a columned portico based on the Pantheon in Rome. Eight 34-foot columns with Corinthian capitals provide the entrance facing Charles Street, and the entry consists of two massive bronze doors. The Scottish Rite Masonic order continues to occupy the building. After considering selling the building for demolition, the Masons are reconsidering options. The building was added to the city’s list of historic landmarks in 2009 with the support of 91ĘÓƵ and any future plans for the buildings must meet the city’s strong preservation guidelines.
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In 1939, the trustees of Morgan College decided to sell the institution to the State of Maryland. The proceeds from that transaction were earmarked for the construction of a center for religious activities, the Morgan Christian Center (now Morgan State University Memorial Chapel), a parsonage, and an endowment. This effort preserved the religious roots of Morgan College (founded in 1867 as the Centenary Biblical Institute) as they transitioned from 72 years as a private college to their future as a state institution. The building was designed by Towson-born African American architect Albert Irvin Cassell, FAIA who designed a number of buildings on the Morgan State campus and other historically black colleges and universities. Beginning in 1944, the director of the Morgan Christian Center was Rev. Dr. Howard L. Cornish—a 1927 graduate of Morgan State College and math professor. Up until his retirement in 1976, Cornish lived in the parsonage and his home was known as a center of Civil Rights activities involving Morgan students, clergy and activists from throughout the Baltimore community. In 2008, the Morgan Christian Center trustees deeded the property to Morgan State University and the Center was renamed the Morgan State University Memorial Chapel, to reflect the diverse religious landscape on campus. That same year, the University named Dr. Bernard Keels director of the Chapel. Keels organized a group of volunteers, the Friends of the Chapel, who have supported an ongoing effort to restore the building and return it back into a essential part of the campus community. With additional support from Morgan State University students and faculty, the Memorial Chapel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.
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The story of the Emerson Mansion began in 1895 when Captain Isaac Emerson commissioned the building as a home for his family. Captain Emerson lived at this location up to 1911 when he and his wife divorced. Emerson remarried just two months later and started work on the Emersonian, a large apartment building built with the intent to block his ex-wife’s view of Druid Lake. The Baltimore Sun later reported on the legend in August 11, 1985 noting that Emerson, "moved into one of the uppermost apartments so he would always be looking down on her." The structure has served a wide range of uses in the century since Captain Emerson moved out. Maryland's Juvenile Services Division had offices in the building, as did The Mercantile Club, a private social club for businessmen. Since 1994, the property has been owned by James Crockett.
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The first headmaster of the Calvert School, Virgil Hillyer, built Castalia between 1928 and 1929, naming it after the spring at the foot of Mount Parnassas in Italy that is said to have been the inspiration for the muses. The prominent Baltimore architect Francis Hall Fowler was the architect of this Italian villa-inspired house. In 2006, the Calvert School acquired the building and proposed to demolish it for an outdoor amphitheater.
The Tuscany Canterbury Neighborhood Association led the effort to save the building, with 91ĘÓƵ filing a successful nomination for the building to be added to the city’s historic landmark list in 2008. The building is now on the landmark list and the Calvert School has begun plans to preserve it for a school-related use.
Designed by well-known local architect Benjamin B. Owens, the "Flour Warehouse" is a unique industrial landmark on the east side of Baltimore's downtown. When contractor S.H. and J.F. Adams erected the building for the Terminal Warehouse Company in 1894, the Northern Central Railroad maintained a line down Guilford Avenue connecting Baltimore's factories and warehouses to far-flung farms and markets across the state and country.
The company expanded in 1912 with an addition built by the Noel Construction Company and, through the 1970s, remained one of the oldest warehouses in continuous use by the same corporation. For several years, the building housed the Baltimore City Archives and the Baltimore City Department of Planning. After a new owner planned to demolish warehouse in 2007, local residents successfully fought to preserve the building for future reuse.
The former Maryland National Bank building at the southwest corner of Maryland and North Avenues is a faded but still striking example of the modern architecture that accompanied the city’s growth in the 1950s and 1960s. The Fidelity Baltimore National Bank (a predecessor of Maryland National) opened their first branch location on North Avenue since the late 1930s. In the mid-1950s, the firm built a drive-in on the eastern side of Maryland Avenue—a structure still in use today as the home of K & M Motors. The local architectural firm of Smith & Veale (Albert K. Broughton serving as the project architect) designed the modern building and the general contractor was the Lacchi Construction Company. Broughton remained a practicing architect in Maryland up through 2002, shortly before his death in 2005. Reflecting the continued importance of automobiles to retail banking, a large parking lot was located on the southern side of the building and the branch was designed so patrons could enter the bank from either North Avenue or the parking lot. As the building went up in March 1961, the Baltimore Sun touted the bank as the city’s first commercial building with a precast concrete frame. The Nitterhouse Concrete Product Company in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania cast a series of t-shaped elements that were then transported to Baltimore by truck. The Maryland National Bank sold the property in 1990 and, sometime after 1995, the Korean-American Grocers & Licensed Beverage Association of Maryland (KAGRO) moved into the building as their office. In 2015, the Contemporary occupied the building for an exhibition by artist Victoria Fu. The exhibition, Bubble Over Green, is described as multilayered audio-visual experience consisting of moving images projected onto architectural surfaces, aligning the physical site with the space and textures of digital post-production.
Built in 1921, Pool No. 2 in Druid Hill Park served the recreational and competitive swimming needs of over 100,000 Black residents Baltimore. Pool No. 2 measured just 100’ x 105’ (half the size of whites-only Pool No. 1), but proved so popular that the swimmers had to be admitted in shifts. In 1953, a young Black boy swimming with friends in the Patapsco River accidentally drowned. The tragedy revealed the difficult circumstances for many Black residents looking for a place to swim in Baltimore. The boy lived near Clifton Park but swam in a dangerous river due to his exclusion from the park’s whites-only pool. In response, the NAACP started a new push to make all of Baltimore's municipal pools open to all races. When the City Parks Board refused to desegregate, the NAACP filed a lawsuit and eventually won on appeal. On June 23, 1956, at the start of the summer season, Baltimore pools opened as desegregated facilities for the first time. Over 100 African Americans tested the waters in previously white-only Pool No. 1 but only a single white person swam in Pool. No. 2. Pool No. 2 closed the next year and remained largely abandoned up until 1999. That year, Baltimore artist Joyce J. Scott won a commission to turn Pool No. 2 into a memorial. In creating her installation, Scott asked herself, “How do we make this area useful and beautiful, and harken back to the pool era?” The results combined architectural elements and aquatic symbolism with abstract, colorful painted designs on the pavement around the pool. The designs and interpretive signage have weathered in the years since but Pool No. 2 remained an important destination to explore the Civil Rights history of Druid Hill Park and Baltimore's pools. Watch our on this site!
Since the doors opened at the former Southwestern District Police Station house on July 17, 1884, the square brick building at Pratt and Calhoun Streets has served the city in many different ways. When construction on the new building began in the fall of 1883, the Baltimore Sun claimed the new Southwestern district police station would "surpass in size, elegance and completely of arrangement any police building now in the city, and, indeed, it will have few equals in the country." Builders Philip Walsh & Son and architect Frank E. Davis completed the three-story building with room for 47 officers. The men had been reassigned from the southern and eastern districts to serve under of veteran police officer Captain Daniel Lepson who led the brand-new district. In the summer of 1944, Baltimore's first police boys' club moved into the upper floors, serving around 120 boys from 8 to 18 years old every day during the first few weeks after they opened. With donations from a local social club, the officers converted the station's third floor gymnasium into a "big clubroom," described by the Sun as, "filled with tousle-haired boys noisily pushing at billiard balls, fashioning B-17's out of wood, nailing magazine racks together and eying each other craftily over checker games." The city started four boys' clubs in the 1940s, with a segregated facility for black children at the Northwestern District Police Station on Gold Street. Both the officers and the Boys' Club departed in 1958 when the Southwestern District Police Station relocated to a modern, air-conditioned facility at Fonthill and Hurley Avenues. Following close on their tails, however, were the men and dogs of the department's K-9 Corps who moved their official headquarters from the Northern District station to Pratt Street. Unfortunately, by the late 1970s, the building fell vacant. The Maryland Department of Social Services renovated the former police station in the early 1980s. When they left, the building fell vacant again. Today, the structure is deteriorating and remains at risk until a new use for this often reinvented building can be found.
St. Vincent Cemetery opened in 1853 on a 5-acre parcel located on the country estate of philanthropist Johns Hopkins, which was then located just outside of Baltimore City in today's Clifton Park. Parishioners at St. Vincent De Paul Church had previously used the St. James Cemetery on Harford Road which closed and sold to the city that same year. The church moved all of the bodies interred at St. James to the new St. Vincent Cemetery. In 1940, St. Vincent de Paul Church stopped selling burial plots on the grounds but continued to bury anyone who already held a deed. In the 1950s and 1960s, the cemetery suffered from neglect and repeated vandalism. In 1982, the cemetery closed and many of the grave markers were destroyed or removed in an intentional effort to discourage any attempt to disturb the bodies interred. Left in disarray for thirty years, the graves nearly disappeared under thick weeds and five tons of trash and illegally dumped debris. Fortunately, since 2010, the volunteer-led Friends of St. Vincent Cemetery have been slowly restoring this historic site. Genealogist and volunteer archivist Joyce Erway began compiling research on the cemetery as she investigated her own family tree in the 1990s. Over two decades, she helped to expand the list of known burials at St. Vincent from just 450 to over 4,000 people. Among these known burials is Peter Storm, a local coppersmith who was born on January 22, 1762 and died on November 4, 1842. Storm participated in the battle of Yorktown in 1781 and in the defense of the city against the British attack in 1814. Peter Storm's funeral was held at St. Vincent de Paul Church, and he was initially buried in St. James Cemetery and reinterred at the northeast Baltimore location in 1853.
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Behind an unassuming brick wall on North Avenue near Pennsylvania Avenue is an historic cemetery that many people drive by, but few know anything about.
The Etting Family Cemetery is the oldest existing Jewish cemetery in Baltimore. Solomon Etting (1764-1847) came to Baltimore from York, Pennsylvania in 1790. Solomon was active in defending the city in the War of 1812. He made his fortune in hardware, shipping, and banking, and was one of the founders of the B&O Railroad.
The first burial in what became the family cemetery was in 1799 when Solomon’s infant daughter Rebecca died. After this, the cemetery steadily filled to 25 graves. Among them is that of Zalman Rehine (c. 1756-1842). Rehine was reputed to be the first rabbi to come to America. The last internment was that of Solomon’s daughter Richea Gratz Etting (1792-1881).
Over time, the cemetery has seen changes, including the replacement of marble tombstones (sometimes twice) as their inscriptions have been worn away. Today, the Hebrew Burial and Social Services Society remain the caretakers of the cemetery.
1805 Madison Avenue was built around 1886, when the property was first advertised in the Baltimore Sun as available to rent for $35 per month. In July 1888, Benjamin and Rosetta Rosenheim purchased the home and moved in with their two young children.  Benjamin was a lawyer with an office at 19 East Fayette Street. When Rosetta needed help at home in January 1889, the Rosenheim household placed an advertisement in the Sun seeking a “White Girl, from 15 to 17 years to nurse two children, aged 2 ½ and 4.” Similar advertisements appeared again in June 1889 and March 1890 seeking a caretaker for the two children. The family didn’t stay long, however, and on May 29, 1893, Benjamin and Rosetta Rosenheim sold the home to Julia Gusdorff. The home sold again in 1902 and 1914. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, many of the German Jewish immigrants who had occupied the Madison Avenue homes for the past couple decades began moving northwest into new neighborhoods like Park Circle northwest of Druid Hill Park. Replacing these residents were African Americans home-owners and tenants. In 1923, Keiffer Jackson, husband of the well known civil rights activist Lille Mae Carol Jackson, purchased 1805 Madison Avenue for $3200. Lillie Mae Carroll and her husband Kieffer Jackson never lived at 1805 Madison Avenue but rented the property to African American tenants from a wide range of backgrounds. In February 1928, Frank H. Berryman, the manager of William “K.O.” Smith and K.O. Martin, publicly sought to “arrange either local or out-of-town bouts for one or both of his fighters” noting managers could reach him at 1805 Madison Avenue. Mrs. Lizzie Futz lived at the house in 1931 when she was quoted in the Afro American criticizing a move by the Baltimore school superintendent to segregate white and black children on a recent field trip to Fort McHenry:
“I honestly think that the principal was unquestionably wrong in asking that the two groups be separated. There was no reason for the separation. School children of today get along better than their elders. It’s such segregation acts that breeds prejudice in the future.”Born in Baltimore on April 29, 1922, Parren James Mitchell moved around as a child. Early on, his family lived on Stockton Street near Presstman Street just south of Saint Peter Claver Church which had stood on North Fremont Avenue since September 9, 1888. He was seven years old when his family moved into a new home at 712 Carrollton Avenue. The new neighborhood had started life as an elite suburb built between the 1870s and 1880s within a short walk of Lafayette Square or Harlem Park. Prior to the 1910s and 1920s, the population of the neighborhood was largely segregated white (although many African American households lived in smaller alley dwellings on the interior of the district’s large blocks). Segregation in the  was enforced through deed restrictions, local legislation and even physical attacks on black families that attempted to move into the neighborhood. Parren Mitchell’s move to the house on Madison Avenue came at an important moment in the nation’s relationship to struggling cities in the wake of the riots in Baltimore and cities around the country in 1968. The home was a source of pride and provided Mitchell with a perspective on city life that few other representatives in Congress could match. In June 1974, during a discussion of “urban homesteading,” Parren Mitchell shared the success of the city’s new homesteading program (established in 1973) seen from his own front stoop, remarking:
“Come to my house at 1805 Madison Avenue in the heart of a ghetto in Baltimore City and look at the home across the street which was sold for $1 under the Homestead Act. If you do you will see a beautiful and decent residence for a family.”During hearings on the , Mitchell repeated the offer:
“I will take part of my 5-minute time to extend an invitation to visit my home in Baltimore, Md. I live at 1805 Madison Avenue, which is deep in the bowels of the city. It is the ghetto. Four years ago, I purchased a home in the 1800 block of Madison Avenue at 1805, using conventional financing. I have rehabilitated the home, and I think it’s attractive enough for you to come to visit me on a Saturday morning in the 1800 block of Madison Avenue.”The renovation to the house cost $32,000 and combined the first and second floor of the building with a new staircase returning the stories into a single unit. He rebuilt the third floor as a rental apartment, a configuration that remains in use at the building today.
The home may have been a source of pride and a sign of his strong commitment to Baltimore but it was also a site of conflict between Congressman Mitchell, the Baltimore City Police Department, and even the Ku Klux Klan. Between 1968 and 1974, before Mitchell’s move to 1805 Madison, the Baltimore Police Department Inspectional Services Division (ISD) kept his home under twenty-four-hour surveillance, illegally bugged his home and office telephones for eight months, and placed paid informers in his congressional campaigns. Beginning in 1971, Mitchell began calling for the resignation of Baltimore Police Commissioner . When the ISD surveillance program (and its close ties to the FBI) were revealed, Congressman Mitchell extended his criticism to the ISD.
In 1977, Parren Mitchell and his neighbors secured Madison Park designation by the Baltimore Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation as a local historic district – the first in an African American neighborhood. The lead champion of the historic district was Michael B. Lipscomb, an aide to Parren Mitchell and office manager at the Congressman’s Bloomingdale Road office. Lipscomb was a resident in Madison Park and the vice-president of the Madison Park Improvement Association. In his testimony before CHAP, Lipscomb observed that the district was the “city’s first all black historic district,” continuing:“I came here because I love the house. I love the size of the house, the rooms, the old architecture, the high ceilings, the 10-foot high solid wood doors, the marble fireplaces, the stained glass windows. To get a house built like this would be astronomically expensive.”Other residents in Madison Park were also active in the city’s civic organizations, including John R. Burleigh, II, a resident of 1829 Madison Avenue and director of Baltimore’s Equal Opportunity program and Delegate Lena K. Lee who lived at 1818 Madison Avenue. Delegate Lee also supported the historic district designation, testifying:
“We have been working in this area since 1940 to clean it up and keep the intruders out, to keep it from being overrun by bars, sweatshops and storefront churches that stay a little while and then pack up and go. We want to make it purely residential by getting out all business.”Parren Mitchell sold the property to Sarah Holley in 1986 and moved just a few blocks away to 1239 Druid Avenue. He remained at that location until 1993 when he returned to Harlem Park and lived at 828 North Carrollton Avenue where he remained until 2001. This property has been featured on 91ĘÓƵ of Lafayette Square and is now used as offices for the Upton Planning Council. Sarah Holley lived at the 1805 Madison Avenue from 1986 through 1989 and, since 1989, the property has been maintained as a rental property.
Founded in 1871, the Baltimore Chapter of The American Institute of Architects is the third oldest in the country. AIABaltimore serves as the voice of the architecture profession in the Baltimore metropolitan area. The chapter consists of nearly 1,300 architects, emerging professionals, and allied industrial members united to demonstrate the value of architecture and design.
As a professional organization, the most important service the AIA provides is unifying the efforts of individuals and firms to improve the profession and the built environment. This is done at local, state and national levels through proactive legislation and public awareness campaigns. The AIA also provides timely and relevant continuing education to give the AIA Architect a competitive advantage in the market place. Finally, the AIA offers individuals the opportunity to network with other architects, elected officials, community leaders and allied professionals.
Dickey Memorial Presbyterian Church (DMPC) is a small congregation located in Dickeyville, an urban enclave of historic homes that was founded in 1772.
The church, built in 1885, continues to serve as a focal point for the village's holiday celebrations such as Christmas caroling, a Fourth of July parade, and community potlucks.
William J. Dickey, who lived in the village, was a devout Presbyterian and eager to have a Presbyterian Sunday school available for his friends and employees. The Sunday School first met in 1873 in Public School #6 on Wetheredville Road, with Charles W. Dorsey as its head — Dorsey’s portrait hangs in the present day Parish Hall. Four years later, in 1877, responding to a petition from many residents of the village, the Presbytery of Maryland organized a church. Known as the Wetheredville Presbyterian Church, the congregation had as its head the Reverend David Jamison, a nephew of William J. Dickey who had studied at Princeton Theological Seminary. For several years the congregation met in the Ashland Manufacturing Company Hall.
In December 1885, the cornerstone of the current church was laid, situating the building near the village’s western edge, but still within easy walking distance of most of its homes. The building was completed in 1889, at which point the Ashland Manufacturing Company deeded the property to the Trustees of the Wetheredville Presbyterian Church. In 1896, the church’s name was changed to Dickey Memorial Presbyterian Church.
1239 Druid Hill Avenue served as law offices for Juanita Jackson Mitchell, Clarence Mitchell, Jr. and other members of the Mitchell family.
An accomplished lawyer and activist, Juanita Jackson Mitchell organized the Citywide Young People's Forum in the 1930s to push for more opportunity for black youth during the Great Depression. Clarence Mitchell, Jr. served as the long-time lobbyist for the NACCP and played a key role in the passage of major Civil Rights legislation. The roof of 1239 Druid Hill Avenue collapsed during the winter of 2014 and the building is severely threatened by neglect.
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Juanita Jackson and Clarence Mitchell moved to 1324 Druid Hill Avenue in 1942, the same year Clarence started working at the Fair Employment Practices Commission set up by President Roosevelt to fight workplace discrimination during WWII. Visitors at the home included Paul Robeson, Duke Ellington, and Marian Anderson. The couple raised five sons at the house and continued to live there until the end of their lives. Baltimore City stabilized the roof and rear wall of the building in 2013 but it remains vacant and in poor condition.
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639 N. Carey Street is the former residence of Dr. J.E.T. Camper. In 1942, Baltimore NAACP official Dr. J. E. T. Camper and Juanita Mitchell worked with the Citizens Committee for Justice (CCJ), to lead 2,000 people from 150 groups on a march on Annapolis pressuring the Governor to address the issue of police brutality in Baltimore. The protest followed the death of Thomas Broadus, a black enlisted soldier from Pittsburgh, after he was shot and killed by Baltimore police officer, Edward R. Bender.
Warner T. McGuinn was a lawyer and Civil Rights activist who served two terms as on the Baltimore City Council. McGuinn lived on Division Street with his wife Anna L. Wallace and daughter Alma.
A native of Goochland County, near Richmond, Virginia, Warner T. McGuinn was born less than two years before the Civil War in November 1859. His parents, Jared and Fannie McGuinn, sent him to public school in Richmond and then he went on to graduate from Lincoln University in 1884. Warner McGuinn studied law at Howard University for two years but finished his degree at Yale, where he served as the president of the Law Club and made friends with Mark Twain before graduating in 1887. Twain even supported McGuinn's education after finding out that the young man was working his way through school. McGuinn moved to Baltimore in 1890 and was admitted as a lawyer to the Maryland Bar in 1891. The next year he married Anna L. Wallace, a fellow Virginian, and started a family with the birth of their daughter Alma in September 1895. McGuinn started working with Harry S. Cummings, Baltimore's first African American City Councilman in 1893, and moved to 1911 Division Street, just six blocks north of Cummings' house on Druid Hill Avenue. McGuinn participated in Civil Rights struggles and Republican politics throughout his life in Baltimore. In 1910, McGuinn and W. Ashbie Hawkins worked together to overturn the West segregation ordinance and McGuinn argued against a similar ordinance in court in 1917. In 1911, he voiced his support for women's suffrage by reading an "exhaustive" paper on the issue to an assembly gathered at Bethel A.M.E. Church to inaugurate the Baltimore Historical and Literary Association. The Afro-American Ledger reported that McGuinn reminded his audience of the principle of the consent of the governed found in the Declaration of Independence—making it evident that all adults had a right to participate in electing their own representatives regardless of their color or gender. Warner T. McGuinn served two terms as a Republican on the Baltimore City Council, from 1919 to 1923 and 1927 to 1931. In May 1919, after his first election, the Afro-American quoted the new Councilman who said:
"I shall do my best in the City Council to fulfill every pledge that has been made during the campaign, especially as regards the health and school conditions of the race."In 1927, the Sun praised his service as a Councilman, writing:
"No member has been more efficient or more earnest in endeavoring to promote public welfare than Warner T. McGuinn... He set an example of nonpartisanship in consideration of measures before the Council, and when he spoke upon them showed that he had taken pains to inform himself. His record deserves commendation."While visiting his daughter Alma in Philadelphia, Warner McGuinn died on July 10, 1937. His home on Division Street still stands.
The Fire Museum of Maryland is one of the largest fire museums in America. Located in Lutherville, just north of Baltimore City, the Museum is a leading institution in preserving, restoring, and interpreting the history of the urban fire service in the United States.
The Fire Museum of Maryland is one of the largest fire museums in America. Located in Lutherville, just north of Baltimore City, the Museum is a leading institution in preserving, restoring, and interpreting the history of the urban fire service in the United States.
The Fire Museum of Maryland grew from a private collection of fire engines, apparatus and fire related materials that had been amassed over more than forty years by the Stephen G. Heaver family.
Founded in 1971, the museum houses a world-class collection with more than forty pieces of fire fighting apparatus dating from 1806 to 1957. The collection also includes over 1,700 smaller artifacts, an extensive working telegraph system, and a large archive and library with over 13,000 documents, catalogues, photographs, negatives and books.
The Roger Brooke Taney Monument is not explicitly a Confederate monument. However, Taney is most famous for his decision in the Dred Scott case, which advanced slavery in America and is tied to the Confederate cause. Taney served as the chief justice of the Supreme Court for nearly 30 years beginning in 1836. During that time Taney oversaw the ruling of the Dred Scott decision that stated that African Americans could not be considered as citizens, and by extension could still be considered as property even if they were in a free state.
This sculpture is an 1887 copy of an 1872 original that was made by William Henry Rinehart. Rinehart was one of the first well-renown sculptors in Baltimore, and the Rinehart School of Sculpture was established after his death.
The original sculpture was commissioned by William T. Walters for the Maryland State House in Annapolis, where it is still located. Fifteen years later, Walters had this copy made and gave it to the City of Baltimore. Baltimore's Taney Monument resides in Mount Vernon Place because of Taney’s close relationship to Francis Scott Key, who frequently visited and eventually died there.
In 2016, the Special Commission to Review Baltimore's Public Confederate Monuments recommended removing the Taney Monument along with the Lee-Jackson Statue at Wyman Park Dell. After the murder of a counter-protestor during a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12, 2017, Baltimore City responded to renewed calls to take down Confederate monuments by removing the Taney Monument, the Lee-Jackson Monument, the Confederate Soldiers & Sailors Monument, and the Confederate Women's Monument and placing all four statues in storage. By January 2018, the city had not yet announced any plans for the permanent disposition of the statues.
Completed in 1872 as a “Cathedral of Methodism,” the Norman-Gothic Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church was a signature achievement for the noted Baltimore architects Thomas Dixon and Charles L. Carson. It was also at first an immense source of aggravation to its neighbors. By the 1870s, Mount Vernon had become the place to live for Baltimore’s elite, and Mount Vernon Place with the Washington Monument was the central jewel of the community. The church’s heavy presence off the north park, green serpentine stone amidst the Baltimore brick and more subdued color palate, and steeple that reached nearly to the top of President Washington’s head sparked a great deal of angst. The fact that the church replaced the house where Francis Scott Key passed away did not help sooth the neighbors. The house was the home of Key’s daughter and her husband, Elizabeth Phoebe Key and Charles Howard. After its early days, however, the church has become a central and admired part of Mount Vernon Place. Architecturally, it was built of striking green serpentine stone, as well as buff, olive and red sandstone. Architects Dixon and Carson embellished it with polished granite columns and carved designs taken from nature. Its many gothic details of flying buttresses, a tower, and arches are purely esthetic in function, as the building is constructed over an iron framework. There are even grotesque stone faces above the windows on the west front (three full cut, two in profile) said to be likenesses of prominent persons living at the time the church was built. On the inside, the church is notable for its iron supporting columns, carved wooden beams, and stained glass cross window over the pulpit. In addition to its architecture, the church’s congregation has made its mark on Baltimore as well. The group began in a building on Lovely Lane (intersecting today’s Redwood Street downtown) and is credited with launching the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States in 1784. The current church on Mount Vernon Place is the congregation’s fourth home. In addition to its spiritual work, the congregation has provided innumerable secular services to Baltimore. In World War II, the church provided beds, food and entertainment to servicemen returning from the front. Beginning in the 1970s, they led efforts to help runaway teenagers and victims of drug abuse, and began a service organization to engage young Baltimoreans in helping their city. The congregation today continues its service to Baltimore in many ways, including opening to 91ĘÓƵ and the curious public.
The Eubie Blake Blake Cultural Center has owned and operated from a historic building at 847 N. Howard Street since 2000, but the history of the organization dates back to to the 1960s.
In the late 1960s, a group of Baltimoreans organized the Neighborhood Parents Club (NPC) to call attention to the importance of cultural arts and formed an after school arts program at Dunbar High School. The group won the support of the Baltimore City Model Cities Agency for their program as a demonstration project and soon expanded their initial grassroots effort into six cultural arts centers located around the city. Model Cities merged with Baltimore’s Community Action Agency in mid-1970s to become the Urban Services Agency, which continued the city’s support of the program that included centers for performing arts (dance, theater, band, voice, and instrument) and for visual arts (painting, drawing, photography, and sculpture).
In 1978, a seventh center was opened, establishing Gallery 409 (at 409 N Charles Street) as the Urban Services Agency’s premier cultural arts center. Around the same time, a group of people in Baltimore began working with musician Eubie Blake’s family in an attempt to bring significant pieces of Eubie Blake’s personal collections back to his home in Baltimore.
Born in Baltimore in 1883, Eubie Blake grew up to become one of the most important figures in early twentieth century African American music, and one whose longevity made him a storehouse of the history of ragtime and early jazz music and culture. Blake began playing piano professionally when he was 16; he wrote his first composition, "Sounds of Africa," (later retitled "Charleston Rag") around the same time. His career did not really take off until he met Noble Sissle in 1915. Together, Blake and Sissle wrote many hits. Blake also collaborated with Andy Razaf (on "Memories of You"), Henry Creamer, and other writers, composing more than 350 songs. In the early 1980s, Marion Blake agreed to donate their collection to the Maryland Historical Society with plans to house a portion of the collection at Gallery 409. In honor of the donation, the Urban Services gallery was renamed as the Eubie Blake Cultural Arts Center in 1983.
In 1993, a tragic fire destroyed the Gallery 409 facility, but a group of supporters organized to establish the new Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center, Inc., and moved into a building at 34 Market Place at the Brokerage (now the Power Plant Live!). Finally, in 2000, Baltimore City donated the building on Howard Street to the Eubie Blake Cultural Center enabling the Center to take back a portion of the Blake collection from the Maryland Historical Society and resume their role as an important center for cultural arts in Baltimore.
The classically styled Old Town National Bank building at 221 N. Gay Street was constructed in 1924 as a bank headquarters. The first floor still retain an array of historic details, including a two-story lobby, cornice and parapet wall, grand marble stairway, and even vault spaces.
In 2010, 91ĘÓƵ celebrated the renovation of the building and the conversion of the bank into a Holiday Inn Express Hotel. The work by owner Old Town Properties LLC and local architecture firm Kann Partners included refurbishing and repairing a host of historic features ensuring the building is preserved for future generations to appreciate.
School 33 Art Center was established in 1979 as a center for contemporary art in South Baltimore. Formerly known as Public School 33, Baltimore City erected the brick and brownstone building in 1890. It operated as an elementary school up until 1975 when a new school opened just a few blocks away. The South Baltimore Community Committee sought help from then Mayor William Donald Schaefer in revitalizing the vacant and vandalized building. Based on the success of Long Island City's P.S. 1 in New York and the strong national presence of alternative space programs in the late 1970s, Mayor Schaefer proposed a similar program for Baltimore, thus creating School 33 Art Center.
As this building represented a significant component of Baltimore's architectural heritage, the renovation exemplified the City's belief in the revitalization of unused urban resources. The renovations were made possible with federal funds from the United States Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration and through the City's Public Works Improvement Program.
After an extensive two-year restoration to allow for the creation of adequate gallery, studio and classroom spaces, School 33 opened its doors in July 1979, becoming Baltimore's original alternative space for contemporary art. The program offerings included one gallery exhibition space (today expanded to three), studio facilities for professional artists, and classrooms for ceramics and printmaking workshops.
For thirty-eight years, School 33 Art Center has been a bridge between contemporary artists and the public. Through exhibitions, studios for artists, classes for adults and children, as well as special events and workshops, the center works to insure a vibrant future for contemporary art and artists in Baltimore. The three gallery spaces, multi-use classrooms, permanent, on-site collaborative installations, and an environmentally-friendly outdoor garden fed by a rainwater collection system are examples of School 33's commitment to maintaining and expanding the potential of our historic building.
Today, as a program of the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, the center's goal is to remain an engaging and relevant center for the arts, by showcasing and sustaining emerging and established contemporary artists, and training budding artists from Baltimore and beyond, well into the future.