Author: Johns

Johns Hopkins has been the executive director of Baltimore Heritage since 2003. Before that, Johns worked for the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development developing and implementing smart growth and neighborhood revitalization programs. Johns holds degrees from Yale University, George Washington University Law School, and the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment.

Celebrating the National Park Service Centennial at our Fall Lecture

America’s national parks have been called the best idea our country has ever had. The National Park System includes hundreds of parks and millions of acres—everything from small urban parks to great expanses of wilderness. This year their chief steward, the National Park Service, turns 100 years old. Please join us for a discussion of how the Park Service grew from a small office in 1916 into today’s force for preserving natural and cultural heritage. Our speaker, Ms. Joy Beasley, is the National Park Service’s Deputy Associate Director for Cultural Resources, Partnerships, and Science, the agency’s designated Federal Preservation Officer, and luckily for us is also a Baltimorean.

The talk is on Wednesday, November 2 at 7:00 pm with a wine and cheese reception following. Our host is the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore, a historic treasure of its own.

Doors Open Bus Tour on October 22

Doors Open Baltimore

We enjoy getting a chance to peek inside dozens of great buildings during the annual Doors Open Baltimore event so much that this year we’re teaming up with event sponsors the Baltimore Architecture Foundation and AIA Baltimore to host a guided bus tour to explore five of the featured places in depth. Join preservation architect Tom Liebel, who also chairs the city’s historic preservation commission, as we hop from site to site on a journey down Charles Street and learn what makes these places fantastic.

Free parking is available at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen. The member rate for this tour is available for members of Baltimore Heritage, Baltimore Architecture Foundation, and AIA Baltimore.

Don’t forget that you can learn more about Doors Open Baltimore sites with our Explore Baltimore Heritage tour. You can also download the recently updated Explore Baltimore Heritage app for iOS or Android.

Portrait of Babe Ruth standing with a bat

Discover the history of bakeries, Babe Ruth, beer, and more

As we head into the fall, we hope you can join us on some of the bike tours, bus tours and walking tours that we’ve line up to explore Baltimore from Edgar Allan Poe to Babe Ruth, from German sticky buns to Baltimore beer, with loads of new and historic inventors and artisans in between.

Our bike tours start on September 17 with our ride-and-sample East Baltimore Bakeries by Bike Tour. It is perhaps the only bike tour where you must be careful to watch your calories. On October 29, we are pedaling again on our “3 B’s Tour”: Baltimore, Bikes, and Beer. We’ll learn about malt and hops from the Barnitz Brewery (Baltimore’s first in 1748) to Union Craft Brewery (a relative new-comer) where we’ll end, of course, with a beer.

If you prefer four wheels over two, our Babe Ruth in Baltimore Bus Tour on September 24 offers two hours of insight into one of Baseball’s greatest stars, from the hardscrabble streets of Baltimore’s longshoreman district, through the formative years of his life and development as professional baseball player. As a treat, we’ll get a peek inside the former Cardinal Gibbons High School to see the mural honoring Ruth at the place where he got his start in the National Pastime.

And if plain old walking shoes are your go-to mode of transportation, join us on October 8 for Poe and Beyond at Westminster Hall to learn about Poe’s death and to tour the church, graveyard and more than a little eerie catacombs. The following day on October 9, we are exploring 150 years of Industry and Artistry in Station North and Open Works on a walking tour of Station North and a look inside Open Works, a just opened maker-space for Baltimore’s newest artisans working in metal, wood, fabric and more. Come on our morning tour and then head back out into Station North to visit dozens of artists who will have their studios open as part of the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts 28th Annual Open Studio Tour.

Storefront Improvement Grant Program Kicks Off

In July, we joined our nonprofit partners the Neighborhood Design Center and AIA Baltimore to kick off a new program through the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development to rehab and improve commercial storefronts that were damaged during the civil unrest in Baltimore last April. The program, called the Storefront Improvement Grant Program, is providing $650,000 to fix storefronts along main streets from Pennsylvania Avenue in Sandtown Winchester to Eastern Avenue in Highlandtown.

From a pool of 145 applications, 26 projects were selected to receive funds. Each business will get up to $10,000 for improvements, as well as an architect volunteering through the American Institute of Architects Baltimore Chapter. After working out a design with the owner and architect, youth training teams from Civic Works and Living Classrooms will do the actual construction. We at Baltimore Heritage are helping by providing assistance on meeting historic preservation standards to ensure the redesigned storefront helps the owner and the surrounding neighborhood.

In addition to Sandtown Winchester and Highlandtown, the following other neighborhoods are slated to have storefront improvement projects: Pigtown, Waverly, Park Heights, Hollins Market/Union Square, and Market Center/Downtown. With project design work beginning this month, construction for the first set of storefronts is expected in the early fall.

Baltimore Heritage featured in Best of Baltimore

In its recent August issue, Baltimore Magazine released its annual Best of Baltimore Awards, and we are proud and happy that Baltimore Heritage was included as “Best Preservationists.” Beyond the excitement of the recognition of our work, we are thrilled that the magazine’s editors agree that the preservation of “Baltimore’s rich architectural heritage” is an integral part of what makes our city thrive.

Accomplishing all of the work mentioned in the article would not be possible without our dedicated team of volunteers and supporters. We are indebted to our Board of Directors for their guidance and support on issues ranging from our advocacy to education to public outreach. Our heritage tours, mentioned in the article as “musts for anyone interested in learning about Charm City,” rely on a host of volunteers who set-up and lead these explorations of our city’s past. And, of course, we could not do any of this without our members and supporters, who contribute over half of our core operating budget each year. We are thankful for the recognition from Baltimore Magazine and ever thankful for all of you who make it possible!

So when you go looking for Baltimore’s best new cocktail or best podcast, check us out under in the News and Media section!

Summer in Baltimore? It’s hot and we’re lining up heritage tours!

Join us next week for some wine, cheese, and a tour through the Housewerks Architectural Salvage showroom. Housewerks occupies a former valve house with a long history tracing back to 1885 when it was built for an immense gas production facility on the site. Another building, still standing on the site, manufactured Oriole Stoves, the anchor of many Baltimore kitchens. The valve house retains much of its architectural glory and industrial past, making it a perfect setting for a showroom of salvaged items from historic Baltimore.

While the beaches beckon on these hot summer weekends, we are offering our Sunday Monumental City tours for anyone staying in the city. Each tour gives you the chance to look up from the city pavement and see Baltimore’s landmarks from a new perspective.

Summer may be in full swing, but we are already lining up tours for the fall. Mark your calendars for two Baltimore bike tours sure to satisfy your taste buds. On September 17, we will bring back our Baltimore Bakeries by Bike tour and on October 15, we will introduce our new Baltimore Beer by Bike tour. In addition, you can get yourself in the Halloween mood on October 8, with a tour of Westminster Hall and Burial Grounds, the burial site of Edgar Allan Poe and many other Baltimore notables.