Built in 1914 for Eastwick Motors, Baltimore’s first Ford dealership, 120 West North Avenue has been home to a surprising array of owners and occupants. After its days with Eastwick (a proud supporter of Amoco gasoline and its American Oil Company…

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…

The Hour Haus formerly served as a cornerstone for Baltimore's Station North Arts & Entertainment District. Inside you found rehearsal rooms for musicians, a recording studio, a large stage and a revolving cast of colorful characters. For…

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 vacant. After the "Ghost Ship" warehouse…

405 East Oliver Street has served as a brewery, a factory, and an upholstery shop. Today, the former factory is home to AREA 405—an arts organization dedicated to showcasing and strengthening the vitality of Baltimore's arts community. This…

In 1936, Sidney Friedman was riding a train to Baltimore and carrying a charcoal grill. Earlier that week, Friedman had dined at Ray's Steak House in Chicago and ate his very first charcoal-grilled steak. He'd never had anything like it. He…

Officially dedicated on July 13, 1839 and born out of the garden cemetery movement, Green Mount Cemetery is one of the first garden cemeteries created in the United States. After seeing the beautiful Mount Auburn Cemetery in Connecticut in 1834,…

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 history of creativity in this local landmark has…

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 national acts such as Tommy Dorsey and the Glenn…

Touted as "modern market in the country," and now considered an early prototype for suburban shopping centers, the North Avenue Market opened in 1928 with twelve retail stores and twenty-two lane bowling alley on the second floor at a cost…

A survivor that has endured decades of abandonment, the 1914 Lebow Building is an impressive example of early twentieth century industrial architecture that is just starting a new future as the Baltimore Design School. While it takes its popular…

The story of this landmark begins in 1907, when Charles J. Bonaparte—a great-nephew to Emperor Napoleon I of France, a prominent local lawyer and, at the time, attorney general under President Theodore Roosevelt—first announced plans for the…

There are few places where you can stand in the middle of a room and almost everything you see is made or decorated by Tiffany: glass, paint, finishes, etc. St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church on St. Paul Street, with its entire interior…

The $400,000 building (a transformation of an earlier auto dealership) was not just a theatre but included a whole complex with the WFBR radio station and studios, a branch bank office for the Equitable Trust Company, and a garage. Owner Morris A.…

Occupying a busy corner at Charles and North, the magnificent Parkway Theater entertained audiences in Central Baltimore for decades with everything from vaudeville and silent movies to nightly live radio productions. Although abandoned for over a…

Like most school buildings at the time, Public School 32 was designed by the Baltimore Inspector of Buildings J. Theodore Oster, who served in the position from 1884 through 1896. The building shares a number of features that can still be found on…