A raked mast of a Baltimore Clipper ship stands tall on land in Rash Field on the south end of the Inner Harbor. Accompanied by a block of pink granite inscribed with four names of lost crewmembers, the installation serves as a memorial to the Pride of Baltimore I.
The Pride was modelled after the Chausseur, a clipper ship launched from Fells Point in 1812 and captained by Thomas Boyle, a privateer, known for his highly successful acquisition of goods captured from British ships. In 1814, Boyle undertook a journey across the Atlantic, past the blockade of British ships on the Chesapeake. When he reached England, he boldly issued a proclamation stating:
I do therefore, by virtue of the power and authority in me vested (possessing sufficient force) declare all the ports, harbors, bays, creeks, rivers, inlets, outlets, islands and seacoast of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in a state of strict and rigorous blockade. And I do further declare that I consider the force under my command adequate to maintain strictly, rigorously, and effectually, the said blockade.
Boyle was incredibly successful in maintaining his blockade and returned home to Baltimore in March 1815, continuing to collect goods and evade capture. His ship was renamed “the Pride of Baltimore.”
The twentieth-century version of the Pride of Baltimore was launched in 1977 as an ambassador ship as part of the project to revitalize the inner harbor and to represent the city and state during its travels around the world. The clipper ship logged 150,000 miles before a sudden squall in the Atlantic, near Puerto Rico, capsized the ship in 1986. There was no time to send a distress signal. Eight crewmembers survived four days in a lifeboat. The captain, Armin Elsaesser, 42, and three crewmembers, Vincent Lazarro, 27, engineer; Barry Duckworth, 29, carpenter; and Nina Schack, 23, deckhand, were lost.
In 1988, a second Pride of Baltimore was launched as a memorial to Pride I and its lost crewmembers. The Pride of Baltimore II has sailed 250,000 miles and visited 40 different countries.
Of the many repurposed industrial buildings in Baltimore’s urban landscape, perhaps none is as extraordinary as Silo Point. Looming high above the brick rowhomes of Locust Point, Silo Point luxury condominiums began life as a mammoth grain elevator built by the B&O Railroad in 1924. At that time, it was both the largest and the fastest grain elevator in the world and reflected Baltimore’s important position in the grain export industry in the early to mid-twentieth century.
Designed by the engineering firm of John S. Metcalf Co. of Chicago and Montreal, the building is made up of two interconnected structures: a concrete workhouse which stands 220 feet tall and a concrete grain bin structure that rises to 105 feet. Additional structures were added later. During the grain elevator’s heyday, ten miles of conveyor belts carried 3.8 billion bushels of grain from train cars onto cargo ships annually.
The grain elevator ceased operations in 2002 and sat vacant until its conversion to Silo Point by Turner Development Group in 2009. The residential tower is now home to 24 floors of 228 condominiums. The Baltimore Sun described the new building as having “brutalist concrete walls,” in addition to a fitness center where basement catacombs used to be, outdoor sculptures constructed out of grain extracting machines, recycled circular gears given new life as lobby coffee tables. It also has commanding views of the harbor.
The B&O grain elevator was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
Among a sea of church steeples that dot East Baltimore, the five domes of St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Church stand apart with their burnished glow. Since 1992, the Cossack Baroque style church, modeled after Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, has been home to Baltimore’s Ukrainian Catholic community, though the founding congregation pre-dates the current building.
Since the 19th century, Baltimore has witnessed three waves of Ukrainian immigration. The first began in the 1880’s and continued through World War I, with most Ukrainians arriving in the United States at that time hailing from West Ukraine. These immigrants were Catholic and established the first St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Church in 1893 meeting mostly in private homes or at other local Catholic churches.
The second wave of Ukrainian immigration occurred in the 1930s, when Ukrainians left their homeland to escape Soviet persecution and the threat of being sentenced to Soviet labor camps or sent to Siberia. The Holodomor famine, which resulted in millions of deaths of Ukrainians between 1932 and 1933, was another factor that motivated immigration. The famine was man-made, the result of programs implemented by Josef Stalin that took farms away from peasants and forced them to live on collective farms. As a result, agricultural productivity plummeted, causing severe food shortages. When Ukrainians rebelled against the Soviet agricultural collectivization policies, Stalin put towns in Ukraine on a blacklist and prevented them from getting food.
In the 1980’s, Jewish Ukrainians again immigrated to the United States to escape the rising antisemitism present in the Soviet Union. During this time, 70% of Baltimore’s Soviet Jewish population were Ukrainians, with one-third of them hailing from Odessa.
Although St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church moved locations several times, it was important to the congregation that they remain in East Baltimore where a Ukrainian community had planted roots and grown. By 1912, the congregation moved from meeting in homes to having services in a building at 524 block of S. Wolfe Street. The current church, located on the corner of Eastern and Montford avenues, across from Patterson Park, was consecrated in 1992.
From the beginning, the new church stood out from other East Baltimore houses of worship. Modeled after the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, St. Michael the Archangel boasts five teapot-shaped onion domes covered in gold leaf and 45 tons of copper. The outer surface of the church is covered in stucco. The bell from the church on S. Wolfe Street was moved to the current church’s bell tower.
Overall, the estimated cost of St. Michael the Archangel totaled $1.25 million, including the lot on Eastern Avenue, purchased from the city for $10,000. A 2022 article in The Sun reported that some funds for the church came from parish pierogi sales.
In the 1660s, David Jones, a Quaker farmer, selected a location for his farm in the relatively new area of Baltimore County (founded in 1659), just north of what was known as Coles Harbor, and along the banks of a river that he called Pacific Brook. Today, that location is part of Baltimore City; Coles Harbor has become the Inner Harbor; and Pacific Brook we know as the Jones Falls. The settlement that grew up around Jones’ farm is the neighborhood now called Jonestown.
The Jones Falls runs 17.9 miles, starting as a stream in northwest Baltimore County, near Garrison. It becomes a small river after reaching Lake Roland and ends in the Baltimore Harbor. It was once considered bucolic. One historical account reported that “for many years, it [Pacific Brook] was a source of pride for Baltimore City and the envy of other cities. It was famous then as a fragrant and beautiful stream. At one time, the stream was pure and undefiled, a scene of many baptisms.”
Change came rapidly.
By 1711, Jonathan Hanson built a stone mill near the current day Fallsway, where the Baltimore City Impound Lot is located. By 1726, the area was filled with tobacco houses, a store, and many residences. By middle of 1850’s, twelve mills stood on the banks of the Jones Falls, along with soap makers, tanners, and even more residences. All used the waterway to carry away their waste.
By the late 1800’s, the Jones Falls had become a source of public health concern. City leaders considered different ways of solving this problem. B&O Railroad engineer Ross Winans suggested building a series of reservoirs upstream and flushing them out occasionally to clear the Falls of detritus. Another proposal imagined diverting the river over the Back River into what is now Essex and Middle River. The third solution essentially proposed putting the Jones Falls into big pipes and running it under the city. This is what the city of Baltimore decided to do.
In 1915, Mayor Preston kicked off the campaign just north of Penn Station. Henry Barton Jacobs, the head of city’s public safety commission spoke at the event, announcing theatrically: “I have come to bury the Jones Falls, not to praise it.”
Diverting the Jones Falls into 7,000 feet of underground tunnels solved some—but not all—of its problems. In 1926, the river caught fire and exploded dramatically because it was full of hazardous materials. Glass shattered in downtown buildings. Manhole covers were propelled through the air. Near the of the entrance to the harbor, a 40-foot wall of noxious flames rushed out of the pipe and down the river.
Today, the buried stream is visible downtown near Jonestown, close to the Port Discovery Children’s Museum where a small canal-like structure runs parallel to President Street before emptying into the harbor at Aliceanna Street.
In 2014, a new species appeared in the Baltimore Harbor. With 5 feet tall googly eyes, a playful persona, and a steady diet of harbor detritus, Mr. Trash Wheel is cleaning up the harbor one swallow at a time.
The brainchild of local inventor John Kellet who founded Pasadena, Maryland-based company Clearwater Mills LLC, Mr. Trash Wheel is officially known as a “waterwheel powered trash inceptor.” He was given his name and persona by the Waterfront Partnership for Baltimore as part of their Healthy Harbor initiative. Mr. Trash Wheel hit the harbor in 2014 and has picked up over 16 tons of trash and litter since then.
Mr. Trash Wheel uses the stream current and solar power to turn its giant wheels making him the world’s first sustainably powered trash interceptor. He waits for trash moving downstream to come to him, carried by the wind and rain during storms when trash flows unfiltered into our streams and into the Baltimore Harbor. The trash is then funneled by a containment boom to the front of the device where a series of rakes scoop it up and load it on to a conveyor belt. The belt moves the trash into a dumpster that sits on a floating barge in the back of the device. When the barge is filled with trash, it is removed and replaced with an empty barge so the process can continue.
Today, there is a Trash Wheel family comprised of working trash wheels in other city communities. Professor Trash Wheel works at Harris Creek in Canton. Captain Trash Wheel patrols Masonville Cove in South Baltimore. Gwynnda, the Good Wheel of West keeps the mouth of the Gywnns Falls near I-95 clean. And Mr. Trash Wheel makes his home at the mouth of the Jones Falls. The trash wheels collect over one million pounds of trash per year, including a guitar, a full-sized beer keg, and even a ball python!
Tudor Arms Apartments on University Parkway is one of the few cooperative housing apartments in Baltimore. It is composed of two buildings, which sit within the Roland Park Historic District. The first of the two apartment buildings, which is five-stories tall, replaced a popular tavern at the site known as Biddy Rice’s Saloon. After purchasing the site from the Roland Park Company in January 1911, the Wentworth Apartment Company would begin constructing the first building, at a cost of $100,000 at the time. The company’s secretary, J.G. Valiant, would be the building’s renting agent.
Two renowned architects, Clyde Nelson Friz and Edward Hughes Glidden, worked together on the building’s architecture, with brick and stone in the style of Tudor Revival, and terra cotta trimmings. The building opened to residents in 1912 with the name Tudor Hall. This “high-class apartment,” as it was described at the time, had a working elevator (which remains in operation), steam heat, hardwood floors, and other amenities. The nearby concrete bridge over Stony Run had only been built four years earlier, which is still intact. A train, part of the Maryland and Pennsylvania railroad, would run underneath the bridge until January 1958 when it stopped operating there.
Friz and Glidden partnered again for the second building, named Essex Arms, which had the same architectural style as the first building. It opened to residents in 1922. The building’s landlord, Guilford Realty Company, later purchased the building from the Wentworth Apartment Company. The apartments were available to rent on a month-to-month basis. On February 25, 1929, the Baltimore City Council unanimously voted to rename the dirt road to the south of the apartment building from “Tudor Hall Avenue” to “Tudor Arms Avenue.” The name is still used to this day.
In May 1947, three residents, Marie Codd, Nora Quillen, and Ralph Quillen purchased the buildings from the landlord, planning to make Essex Arms and Tudor Hall into a cooperative housing corporation, naming it Tudor Arms Apartments. This came to pass in October 1947.
Some residents challenged this and sued the newly-established cooperative. However, the highest court in Maryland, the Court of Appeals, ruled in favor of the cooperative, and against the tenant challengers, in the case of Tudor Arms Apartments v. Shaffer. The ruling, which reversed a circuit court decision, held that those who bought cooperative apartment units were the owners indefinitely, as long as they exercised “good behavior.” Their decision would later be cited by courts in Maryland, Illinois and Massachusetts in cases involving other housing cooperatives, such as Greenbelt Homes and Village Green Mutual Homes.
Sometime after the founding of the Tudor Arms housing cooperative, likely in either the late 1940s or 1950s, a bridge connecting Essex Arms and Tudor Hall would be constructed, signifying that both buildings were one community. Specific building names would later be dropped. The terms “North Building” and “South Building” would be used in their place. Over the years, Tudor Arms has been the home to many prominent residents. This has included epidemiologist Wade Hampton Frost, historical scholar Kent Roberts Greenfield, sculptor Ephraim Keyser (and his wife Fannie), music educators Grace Harriet Spofford and Elizabeth Coulson, Theo Lippman (father of Baltimore writer Laura Lippman), and former Maryland State Senator Jill P. Carter.
In the late 1960s, the Tudor Arms Board opposed plans by the Baltimore Department of Recreation and Parks to change neighboring Wyman Park into a recreation space, wanting it to be “natural,” instead. To justify their decision, they cited their support for Johns Hopkins University’s purchase of 31 acres of the park for university development in 1961, which included the creation of San Martin Drive.
In recent years, residents have honored the apartment community’s history with “Tudor Arms Day” in August 2024 and “Tudor Arms Day 2” in April of this year. This included a guided tour to historical spots of note, multiple tri-fold historic display boards, a self-guided scavenger hunt, an unveiling of a painting commissioned by residents of the North Building, and other activities.
Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church is Maryland’s mother church of the AME Church. It is one of the foundational churches in the AME Connection. After meeting on Saratoga Street for almost 100 years, Bethel AME moved to 1300 Druid Hill Avenue in 1911.
In April 1815, preachers Daniel Coker, Henry Harden, and Richard Williams led about two hundred members of the Lovely Lane and Strawberry Alley Meeting Houses and the African Church on Sharp Street to separate from the Methodist Episcopal Church. Calling themselves “The African Methodist Bethel Society,” the group arranged to occupy the former German Lutheran Church on Fish Street (now Saratoga), and created a rent-to-own agreement with its owner. The brick church was built in 1762 and enlarged in 1785. It had three stories in front and two in the rear, with a pulpit, pews and galleries inside. Bethel Church was founded there on April 23 or June 3, 1815. The African Bethel School operated in the church basement to educate Black children. The school hosted exhibitions to celebrate Bethel’s milestones, such as its founding anniversary, and demonstrate its students’ talents.
Coker and the church trustees registered incorporation papers for the “African Methodist Bethel Church or Society in the City of Baltimore” at the Baltimore court house on April 8, 1816. The next day, six delegates traveled from Baltimore to Philadelphia. The assembled delegations established the African Methodist Episcopal Church and ordained Richard Allen to be its first bishop.
Bethel became the owner of its church building on March 7, 1838. The building, however, required work. The church and its land flooded when Jones Falls did – hence “Fish Street” – which caused damage and inconvenience. A flood in June 1838 destroyed Bethel’s school library, which held a thousand books. In addition, the congregation outgrew the building by the early 1840s. Construction on a new church began in August 1847. The Romanesque style church was consecrated on July 9, 1848.
In 1909, the Baltimore City Council condemned the church in order to widen Saratoga Street. The Bethel congregation had to find a new home and purchased the church formerly used by St. Peter’s Protestant Episcopal Church at Druid Hill Avenue and Lanvale Street. Built in 1868, the church was in the middle of thriving West Baltimore. The move placed Bethel closer to its congregants – half of the city’s Black population lived in the neighborhood by 1904 – and among two other relocated Black churches, Sharp Street Memorial and Union Baptist. The opening services took place on January 8, 1911.
Over its history, Bethel has led action to address causes affecting Black Baltimoreans through mutual support, education, benevolent societies, and organizing. Bethel’s members assisted people escaping slavery, an effort that took place within a larger network of African Methodists. During the Civil War, Bethel hosted special lectures for the US Colored Troops and held fundraisers to support soldiers and their families. At the start of World War I, the congregation expanded to 1,500 members as a result of Black migration from rural areas into the city. Members were active in the Civil Rights Movement and other political causes, including the denouncement of the Vietnam War. In the 1970s, church members established a women’s counseling center and supported Black liberation in South Africa. Contemporary lay ministries using Bethel Church as a base have addressed the needs of women, the homeless, senior citizens, pregnant teenagers, and drug and alcohol addicts.
Today, Bethel A.M.E remains a bastion in Baltimore’s African American community dedicated to community enrichment and spiritual guidance.
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. Â
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.