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Maryland Penitentiary
The Maryland Penitentiary on Eager Street was completed in 1897, as part of a national prison building boom prompted by reform efforts. The building was designed by architect Jackson C. Gott.
Gott…
Former Fells Point Branch, Enoch Pratt Free Library: Branch No. 19 and the Education-Based Latino Outreach (EBLO) Center
Built in 1922, the former Enoch Pratt Free Library Branch No. 19 at 606 South Ann Street was one of a large number of branch libraries that opened in the early twentieth century. Between 1908 and…
Severn Teackle Wallis Statue: The Municipal Art Society's Memorial to a Maryland Lawyer
The Severn Teackle Wallis Statue by French sculptor Laurent-Honoré Marqueste was dedicated on January 9, 1906 in the south square of Mount Vernon Place in front of the new building of the Walters Art…
Arena Playhouse: A Historic Showcase for Black Playwrights and Performers
The Arena Playhouse at 801 McCulloh Street has been occupied by the Arena Players, an African American theater troupe, since December 1961. Established in 1953 as an outgrowth of the “The Negro Little…
Trinity Baptist Church: A Center of Civil Rights Activism in the Early 20th Century
Trinity Baptist Church at the corner of Druid Hill Avenue and McMechen Street tells the story of Baltimore's connections to the national civil rights movement and radical Black activism in the early…
Warden’s House, Baltimore City Jail
The Warden's House on Monument Street is a remarkable work of architecture and a unique reminder of the history of justice and injustice in Baltimore. The Warden's House was erected between 1855 and…
Sphinx Club
Light and music onced poured out the windows and door of the Sphinx Club on Pennsylvania Avenue but only club members (and musicians) could get inside to enjoy the drinks and entertainment. Today, the…
Baltimore Musicians' Union 543
The Baltimore Black Musicians Union opened a meeting hall and boarding house at 620-622 Dolphin Street around the 1940s. Due to the discrimination of Baltimore's downtown hotels at that time,…
Zell Motor Car Company Showroom: A Stylish Dealership and Showroom on Mount Royal Avenue
The Zell Motor Car Company Showroom on East Mount Royal Avenue was built in 1909 and expanded in 1915. The design, by local architect Edward H. Glidden, remains a unique reminder of Baltimore’s early…
Freedom House: A Hub for Civil Rights Lost to Demolition
1234 Druid Hill Avenue had a story unlike any other. When builders erected the house in the nineteenth century it was one of many handsome Italianate rowhouses in the northwestern suburbs of the city.…
Harry Sythe Cummings House: The Final Home of Baltimore's First Black City Councilman
A neglected brick rowhouse at 1318 Druid Hill Avenue was once the residence of Baltimore’s first black City Councilman Harry S. Cummings.
Harry S. Cummings, his wife Blanche Teresa Conklin and their…
Pavilion Building at Hopkins Plaza
Built in 1970, the Pavilion Building is a companion to the adjacent Mercantile Bank & Trust building – both designed by architects Peterson and Brickbauer. Once home to the stylish Schrafft's…
Catholic Center: A Modern Office for the Baltimore Archdiocese
The stylish Catholic Center building at the southwest corner of Mulberry and Cathedral Streets has been an important administrative office for the Baltimore Archdiocese for fifty years. The…
North Point Branch, Baltimore County Public Library
Dedicated in March 1965, the North Point branch of the Baltimore County Public Library is a sharp example of modernism in the southeastern suburbs. The building was designed by the local firm of Smith…
Royer's Hill Methodist Episcopal Church
The former Royer's Hill Methodist Episcopal Church at 400 West 24th Street is a small stone building with a gable roof used in 2010 as a garage. Despite several modern additions and changes, the…
St. Vincent's Infant Asylum
The former St. Vincent’s Infant Asylum/Carver Hall Apartments buildings was a complex of structures built between 1860 and the 1910s to provide housing and medical services to dependent children and…
U.S. Marine Hospital: From Sick Sailors to the Hopkins Homewood Campus
The former U.S. Marine Hospital on Wyman Park Drive near the Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus was built in 1934—but the Marine Hospital Service itself dated back over a century earlier.
In…
Fleet-McGinley Company Building: "The Best Equipped Printing Office in Baltimore"
The former Fleet-McGinley Company building at the northwest corner of Water and South Streets was built in 1908—one of scores of new warehouses and factories built around downtown as the city rebuilt…
Ma & Pa Roundhouse on Falls Road
The former Ma & Pa Railroad Roundhouse is an often overlooked landmark located on Falls Road just north of the Baltimore Streetcar Museum.
Alma Manufacturing Company: Factory for the “Superior Pantaloon Button” and the “Perfect Trousers’ Hook”
Founded in 1887 by twenty-eight-year-old German immigrant Herman Kerngood, the Alma Manufacturing Company manufactured a wide variety of metal clothing trimmings including buckles, clasps, fasteners…
Eutaw Chapel at Herring Run Park
The Eutaw Chapel is a largely forgotten landmark hidden in the woods above Hall's Springs in Herring Run Park. The former church dates to 1861 when the small stone building was built on a property…
Old Hamilton Library
The Old Hamilton Branch Library at 3006 Hamilton Avenue is a historic branch library building constructed in 1920 to serve the community of Hamilton in the developing Harford Road corridor of…
Strawbridge United Methodist Church
The Strawbridge United Methodist Church has a rich history. First established in 1843 as the Howard Street Station, the church moved to a grand sanctuary on Park Avenue under the leadership of Rev.…
Bell Foundry: Former Factory and Former Art Space
For years, the Bell Foundry operated as a cooperatively run arts space that took its name and its building from the historic McShane Bell Foundry. But, since December 2016, the building has stood…
New Cathedral Cemetery: Burial Ground at Old "Bonnie Brae"
The Archdiocese of Baltimore established New Cathedral Cemetery on forty acres of the old "Bonnie Brae" country estate in 1869. The church spent seventeen years moving bodies and headstones from the…
Edmondson Avenue Branch, Enoch Pratt Free Library: Colonial Revival Architecture and a Community Institution
Since 1951, the Edmondson Village Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library at the corner of Edmondson Avenue and Woodridge Road has served as a treasured community institution for nearby residents and…
Hilton Parkway
More than just a road, Hilton Parkway was inspired by the advice of renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and is a testament to the transformative investment of the New Deal in…
Western Cemetery: A "finely located place for the dead" on Edmondson Avenue
“This is a new and finely located ‘place for the dead,’” The Iris reported in 1846. Early plans included a chapel and a residence for a cemetery superintendent. Lots were priced at the “extremely…
Helen Mackall Park
Helen Mackall Park was dedicated by the Rosemont Community on Saturday, December 4, 1971 to honor Mrs. Helen Mackall—a crossing guard for James Mosher Elementary School who lost her leg while saving…
Ward Baking Company Building
Built in 1925 over the loud protests of local residents who opposed a new factory in their residential neighborhood, the Ward Baking Company is a handsome brick box, designed by C.B. Comstock, a New…