All Stories: 549
Stories
Sort by:
Copycat Building
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…
Public School No. 103
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,…
Preston Gardens
Built between 1914 and 1919, Preston Gardens is a linear park along Saint Paul Street. Few people know that Preston Gardens was once the site of a thriving black community up through the early…
Penn Station: A Beaux-Arts Landmark by Architect Kenneth Mackenzie Murchison
Penn Station is a unique combination of a classic Beaux-Arts architectural design from architect Kenneth Mackenzie Murchison and a functional, adaptable train station that serves as the eighth busiest…
Charles Theatre
The Charles Theatre began not as a movie house but as a street car barn and powerhouse designed by architect Jackson C. Gott and built in 1892. The building then became a popular dance club hosting…
Peabody Institute
Established in 1857, the Peabody Institute is the second-oldest conservatory in the United States and a landmark at the southeast corner of the Washington Monument. Born in 1795 in Massachusetts,…
Saint Mary's Seminary on Roland Avenue
Founded in 1791, St. Mary's Seminary and University was the first Catholic seminary in the United States. It was granted a civil charter by the State of Maryland in 1805 and in 1822, Pope Pius VII…
Central Library, Enoch Pratt Free Library: Enoch Pratt's Library for "Rich and Poor"
"My library shall be for all, rich and poor without distinction of race or color, who, when properly accredited, can take out the books if they will handle them carefully and return them."
These were…
Lloyd Street Synagogue
Built in 1845 at the center of what was a thriving Jewish community in East Baltimore, the Lloyd Street Synagogue was the first synagogue erected in Maryland and today is the third-oldest standing…
Baltimore City College
Founded in 1839, City College is the third oldest public high school in the United States. Through an act of the Baltimore City Council in 1866, the school became known as "The Baltimore City…
Druid Hill Park
Druid Hill Park was established on the eve of the Civil War by Baltimore Mayor Thomas Swann on October 19, 1860. Much of the park started as part of "Auchentorlie," the estate of George Buchanan, one…
H.L. Mencken House
"As much a part of me as my own two hands," is how Henry Louis Mencken described his house at 1524 Hollins Street and his personality can be seen in everything from the parquet floors to the garden…
Union Square: The Willowbrook estate becomes an urban oasis
Union Square began as part of Willowbrook, the John Donnell Federal-period estate, which he purchased in 1802 from Baltimore merchant and later Mayor Thorowgood Smith. In 1847, the Donnell family…
Franklin Square
Franklin Square Park is one of the oldest parks in the city, with its origins in the estate of Dr. James McHenry, who lived at a home known as Fayetteville located near Baltimore and Fremont Streets…
Lafayette Square
Since 1857, Lafayette Square has been Baltimore’s height of fashion. Situated atop a ridge in an area once noted for its fine country villas and breadth-taking panoramic views of the waterways,…
Waverly Terrace
Named after Sir Walter Scott's 1814 novel Waverly, Waverly Terrace reflects the wealth of Franklin Square’s residents in the 1850s. The Baltimore Sun praised architect Thomas Dixon’s four-story row as…
Sellers Mansion
Built in 1868, the Sellers Mansion (801 North Arlington Street) is a three-story Second Empire brick house with a mansard roof that rivaled its outer suburban contemporaries in size, quality of…
Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. Courthouse
In 1885, Baltimore City set out to build the most beautiful Courthouse in the country. Fifteen years, and $2.2 million later ($56 million adjusted for inflation), that goal was realized. On January 6,…
Druid Health Center/Home of the Friendless: From Orphanage to Public Health Center
The Home of the Friendless at 1313 Druid Hill Ave opened as a refuge for orphaned boys in 1870. An earlier institution, the Home of Friendless Vagrant Girls was established in 1854 on Pearl Steet. By…
Home of Augusta T. Chissell
Augusta T. Chissell was one of the most influential activists in the women’s suffrage movement in Maryland. She lived in the red painted row house at the corner of Druid Hill Ave and McMechen St.…
The Violet Hill Whyte House
The white two-story house at 2702 Elsinore Ave was once the home of Violet Hill Whyte, the first African-American police officer in the Baltimore City Police Force. It was through her service as an…
Site of the Clay Tennis Courts in Druid Hill Park
On Beechwood Drive, leading up to the Rawlings Conservatory in Druid Hill Park stands a small historical marker. Erected in 1992, it sits where the main clay tennis courts in Druid Hill Park once…
The Grand United Order of Odd Fellows Lodge
In the middle of East Lexington Street stands a building that sticks out from the rest. Carved into its brick wall is the face of a horned figure looking out over the street. Today, this building…
Sparrows Point
Just outside the limits of Baltimore City, on a piece of land jutting out into the Patapsco River, Maryland’s first steel plants were built. In 1887, the Maryland Steel Company purchased an area of…
Guilford and the A.S. Abell Estate
Guilford began in 1780 when the property was confiscated from British land-owners and given to Revolutionary War veteran Lieutenant-Colonel William McDonald. McDonald gave Guilford its name to…
Little Joe's
Long before places like Sports Authority or Dick's Sporting Goods opened their doors, Little Joe's on the northwest corner of Howard and Baltimore was selling everything from camping equipment and…
Mayfair Theatre
Built in the late 1800s, the Mayfair Theatre, originally known as the Auditorium, was once considered one of the finest showhouses in Baltimore, if not the country. Though the building's ornate white…
Hippodrome Theatre
Designed by noted Scottish American theatre architect Thomas Lamb, the Hippodrome Theatre opened in 1914 as one of the first theatres in the United States to operate both as a movie house and a…
Davidge Hall: The Maryland School of Medicine
Davidge Hall, on the University of Maryland Medical School Campus, is the oldest medical facility building in the nation. The red brick structure is named after the school's founder and first dean,…
The Baltimore General Dispensary
Up near the top of this handsome Neoclassical brick building at the corner of Fayette and Paca Streets is a stone entablature reading "1801 Baltimore General Dispensary 1911"—a visible reminder of…