The little-known history of Baltimore's Interstate 395 (I-395) and Martin Luther King Boulevard, Jr. Boulevard offers a reminder of the years of contentious planning efforts that ended with the construction of these roadways in the early 1980s.…

The Munsey Building was erected by and named after the publisher, Frank Munsey, who had purchased the Baltimore News to add to his publishing empire. Though he wanted the paper, he did not like the five-year old building that housed it. So, he had a…

One of the last buildings to be erected around Hopkins Plaza, Pavilion Building on Liberty Street was constructed in 1970. Built by the Manekin Corporation, the structure was planned as a bank for the Mercantile-Safe Deposit & Trust Company. The…

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…

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 from the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904. The…

Built in 1928, the Lord Baltimore Hotel is a beautiful example of an early twentieth-century high-rise hotel. Designed by prolific hotel architect William Lee Stoddart, it is reminiscent of such famous American hotels as New York's Vanderbilt Hotel…

The Maryland Art Place is a local cultural institution occupying a five-story Richardsonian Romanesque industrial building on the west side of Baltimore’s Downtown. The building on Saratoga Street was erected in 1907 as a factory for the Erlanger…

Old St. Paul’s Church is known as the mother church of all Episcopal congregations in Baltimore. As one of the thirty original Anglican parishes that the General Assembly created under the Establishment Act of 1692, St. Paul’s (also known as…

The highly ornamented Mercantile Trust Building was constructed in 1885 by architectural firm Wyatt and Sperry. The architecture conveys a sense of impenetrability, characterized by its massive, heavy stonework and deep set windows and entrance. Ads…

A slice of English architecture, the Furness House was built in 1917 by architect Edward H. Glidden. Glidden also designed the Washington Place Apartments in Mount Vernon and the Marlboro Apartments on Eutaw Place (home to the famed art-collecting…

Built in the aftermath of the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, the Gayety Theatre opened on February 5, 1906—making this building the oldest remaining burlesque theater in Baltimore. While the theatre interior was subdivided into three separate spaces…

The Zion Lutheran Church is a piece of German-American history that dates back to 1755. Originally known as the German Lutheran Reformed Church, it served Lutheran immigrants coming from Germany. The congregation held services in private residences…

Robert Garrett was the original owner of the thirteen-story Garrett Building. Among other things, Garrett was a banker, Olympian, collector of medieval manuscripts, and a leader in the development of recreational facilities in Baltimore. He was a…

The Vickers Building represents a shift in downtown Baltimore architectural design that occurred directly after the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 and is one of the largest buildings to utilize brick as a primary material in the Central Business…

As opposed to the Baltimore Sun, Baltimore News-American was an afternoon newspaper targeted to working class and blue-collar districts. One of the newspaper’s many editors was John L. Carey. He was deeply interested in the question of slavery in…

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, 1900, the Baltimore Sun reported that the City…

In 1919, the Governor of Maryland and the Mayor of Baltimore appointed a War Memorial Commission that initiated a nationwide architectural competition to design a memorial building dedicated to the 1,752 Marylanders who died in military service…

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 fishing gear to bikes and saddles. In…

"There is hardly a building in Baltimore that doesn't contain something we made, even if it is only a nail," boasts Theodore Krug, heir to the oldest continuously working iron shop in the country. G. Krug & Son is one of the oldest companies in…

In 1961, the cornerstone of the Baltimore Civic Center (as it was then called) was laid, enclosing a time capsule with notes from President John F. Kennedy, Maryland Governor Millard Tawes, and Baltimore Mayor Harold Grady. Located on the site of…

In 1985, WJZ-TV local news cameras captured the view of the Inner Harbor from above as they documented the quickly changing landscape from the back seat of a helicopter. An aerial vantage point was nearly a necessity to take in the wide range of…

Doors opened at the Baltimore General Dispensary on Fayette Street in February 1912 and is the only surviving building designed for Baltimore's oldest charity, The Baltimore General Dispensary was formed in 1801 on West Lexington Street to…

Spinning wheel manufacturers, cigar makers, tailors, hat makers, multiple banks, and a music school all occupied this site—often at the same time—going back to the early nineteenth century. During the decade after the Civil War, the upper stories…

When Samuel Posner moved his successful dry goods business to the corner of Lexington and Howard, architect Charles E. Cassell's gorgeous and ornate white Renaissance Revival building—complete with roaring lions and majestic wreaths and fluted…

One of the largest businesses on the West Side in the early twentieth century the Baltimore Bargain House—a mail-order wholesale business that employed over a thousand people and earned profits in the millions that grew to become the fourth largest…

"If you wanted the good stuff, you went to Hutzler's," said Governor William Donald Schaefer and for generations of Baltimoreans, Hutzler's represented the height of downtown shopping, simply the place to shop. Many Marylanders…

In contrast to the high-end shopping at Stewart's or Hochschild-Kohn's on Howard Street, West Lexington Street offered goods of all kinds at affordable prices thanks to a row of five-and-tens from Read's Drug Store down to…

While few remember the slogan of the Emerson Bromo-Seltzer Company—"If you keep late hours for Society's sake Bromo-Seltzer will cure that headache"—the iconic Bromo-Seltzer Tower has been a Baltimore landmark since its construction in 1911. At…