Preserving and promoting Baltimore's historic buildings and neighborhoods.
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.
Our next tour is not for the faint of heart. In the 1940s, Chicago heiress Frances Glessner Lee created crime scene models on a one-inch-to-one-foot scale to be used as police training tools to help investigators learn the art and science of detailed forensics-based detection. Join us next Wednesday as Mr. Bruce Goldfarb shares the history of the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death and how they found their way to Baltimore.
Don’t forget that this Sunday, and almost every Sunday until Thanksgiving, our volunteer-led Monumental City Tours will take you on one-hour jaunts to learn more about Baltimore: Jonestown and the Shot Tower, Landmarks and Lions Downtown, Mount Vernon and the Washington Monument, and the Patterson Park Observatory.
Join us for the 2016 Historic Preservation Awards Celebration!
Finally, we are thrilled to invite you, our members and friends, to Baltimore Heritage’s 2016 Historic Preservation Awards Celebration at the newly renovated Green Street Academy. This year, we are honoring a wide range of projects from a former city garage and auto repair shop to historic theaters, a humble trolley stop to Baltimore’s Washington Monument.
The celebration will take place on Thursday, June 16, 2016 beginning at 5:30 pm. In addition to seeing the fantastic work inside the 1925 former Gwynns Falls High School, there will be plenty of good food and drink, and lots to celebrate. You can purchase tickets now and we hope you can join us!
This year marks a full century of Pompeian Olive Oil making olive oil in Baltimore, and we hope you can join us on our May 17 afternoon tour of their Pulaski Highway factory, including a peek at a 300-year-old olive press, the processing plant, and expert cooking tips along the way.
On the morning of May 17, you can join us in getting ready for Preakness with a morning tour of Pimlico Racetrack from its stables (including Preakness horses in training) to the Jockey’s locker room and famed clubhouse with its signature weather vane. And don’t forget about our tour next week of the Maryland House, our state’s contribution to the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, with our partner Preservation Maryland.
Spring also means our Monumental City Tours are up and running the first four Sunday mornings of every month from now until Thanksgiving. Bring a friend and join us on these one-hour jaunts to learn more about Baltimore: Jonestown and the Shot Tower, Landmarks and Lions Downtown, Mt. Vernon and the Washington Monument, and the Patterson Park Observatory.
Lastly, our annual Baltimore by Foot tour series starts off this weekend in Seton Hill. We are thrilled with the huge response these tours have generated—we only have spaces left on the Hunting Ridge and Harbor East to Jonestown tours, so make sure to sign up today to save your spot.
Last month, the Maryland Department of Corrections (MDC) released their preliminary plan for the demolition of the Baltimore City Detention Center. Governor Larry Hogan announced the immediate closure Baltimore jail last July following years of concerns and controversy over conditions for inmates and corrections officers. MDC is now seeking to tear down several significant historic buildings including the 157-year-old Warden’s House and the west wing of the iconic Maryland Penitentiary whose turrets have stood out in the Baltimore skyline since the early 1890s. If the Maryland General Assembly funds the project, estimated to cost $482 million, MDC hopes to start design work in July 2016 and start demolition in March 2017.
Interior of the west wing of the Maryland Penitentiary, March 2016. Photograph by Johns Hopkins.
We recognize the urgent need to fix the long-standing issues at the facility but we believe both the Warden’s House and Maryland Penitentiary building can be reused by the Maryland Department of Corrections or partner organizations. Baltimore Heritage is opposed to the current plan to tear down these significant buildings and we are committed to seeking alternatives to demolition.
Buildings proposed for demolition in 2017 in red. Courtesy Maryland Department of Corrections.
The Baltimore Jail is a complex of buildings occupying the block between Madison and Eager Streets just east of the Jones Falls Expressway. In addition to the Warden’s House on East Madison Street and the west wing of the Maryland Penitentiary on East Eager Street, the demolition proposal also includes tearing down the Men and Women’s Detention Center Buildings completed in 1967, and a historic laundry, school, and power plant all dating back to the 19th century.
Warden’s House (1855-1859)
View of the City Jail, c. 1855-1860. Courtesy Enoch Pratt Free Library, mdcp030.
Known to many simply as the “Castle”, the Warden’s House won recognition for its unique Gothic design when it was designated a Baltimore City landmark in 1986. Despite the designation, state agencies like the Maryland Department of Corrections are not bound by local protections for landmark structures. Noted as the work of local architects James and Thomas Dixon, the Warden’s House is perhaps even more important as a reminder of Baltimore’s antebellum history of slavery.
From 1859 to 1864, the Baltimore Jail was used to hold hundreds of “runaways” along with Marylanders, both white and black, who assisted enslaved people as they fled to freedom. At the time, a number of private slave jails operated around the Baltimore Harbor but none of those buildings have survived through the present. Today, the Warden’s House is a rare physical reminder of how the slave trade and resistance to slavery dominated Baltimore’s civic life.
Maryland Penitentiary (1897)
The Maryland Penitentiary on Eager Street is remarkable in other ways. Completed in 1897, as part of a prison reform building boom, the building was designed by architect Jackson C. Gott. Gott served as one of eight founding members of Baltimore’s chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1870. He designed the Masonic Temple and Eastern Pumping Station in Baltimore, as well as Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College) in Westminster. For the Penitentiary, Gott’s Romanesque Revival design and his choice of heavy Port Deposit granite created a landmark whose appearance truly reflects its somber purpose.
MDC cited structural concerns in their proposal to demolish the west wing of this structure but, based on our recent site tour, the issues only affect the interior metal structure that makes up the cells. State officials acknowledged that they have not seen any structural issues with the exterior stone walls.
View west from the roof of the Maryland Penitentiary showing the west wing, April 1914. Courtesy Maryland State Archives, SC 1477-1-5932.
What happens next?
State law requires the Maryland Department of Corrections to participate in a preservation review process administered by the Maryland Historical Trust. Baltimore Heritage, along with Preservation Maryland, is working through the review process to seek a revised proposal that preserves these important landmarks. We want to hear your comments, questions and concerns. Please get in touch or sign up below for updates as we continue work on this issue throughout the year.
Our upcoming tours give you an insider’s look at one of the most talked about projects in Baltimore, let you step into an often overlooked gem at the Maryland Zoo and tell the love stories of Mount Vernon. We are also bringing back our popular Monumental City tours on Sundays from April to November!
On April 14, our Port Covington tour offers a behind-the-scenes tour of the City Garage and a chance to talk with Sagamore Development about their vision for the future of South Baltimore. Originally developed in 1904 around the end line of the B&O Railroad, the Port Covington area is today poised to become Baltimore’s largest urban redevelopment project.
For our Maryland House tour, Tony Azola of the Azola Companies and Lori Finkelstein of the Maryland Zoo will guide you through an architectural gem located just next to the Rogers Mansion. The Maryland House was built for the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia and then rebuilt on the Zoo grounds. Special thanks to Preservation Maryland for co-hosting this tour! We also will hold our Mount Vernon Love Stories tours (rescheduled from a very cold Valentine’s Day weekend) on April 9 at 11:00 am and 1:00 pm.
Finally, our Monumental City tours return starting April. These tours are a great way to explore Baltimore on Sunday mornings. Join us for as we explore Jonestown and the Shot Tower (1st Sunday); Landmarks and Lions Downtown (2nd Sunday); Mount Vernon and the Washington Monument (3rd Sunday); and the Patterson Park Observatory (4th Sunday).
Our upcoming Baltimore Heritage tours will show you the bright future of a historic mill, and let you experience a hidden Baltimore treasure. Later this month, we’re stepping into the middle of construction on our tour of Whitehall Mill. This former textile mill is being reborn as a mixed-use complex of apartments, office space, a restaurant, and a market. Please join us and our hosts from Terra Nova Ventures on a walk through the building, showing the progress they’ve made so far and what work is still to come.
On March 19, please join us at St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church where you can experience the rare treat of standing in the middle of a room and almost everything you see is made or decorated by Tiffany. Please join our host, Reverend Dale Dusman, for a tour and a bit of Tiffany overload at this hidden Baltimore gem.
Unfortunately, due to predictions for extreme cold this weekend, we have decided to reschedule our Mount Vernon Love Stories tour from February 13 to April 9 at 11:00 am and 1:00 pm. We hope to see you on our upcoming tours!
