Author: Eli

Eli Pousson started as a Field Officer at Baltimore Heritage in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation in October 2009. Prior to moving to Baltimore, Eli worked for the DC Office of Historic Preservation and completed graduate work in anthropology and historic preservation at the University of Maryland College Park. Eli continues to work with the Lakeland Community Heritage Project and other heritage organizations in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

Fires damage historic buildings in Downtown & Mount Vernon

Two major fires last night in Downtown Baltimore and in Mount Vernon displaced many businesses & workers and have severely damaged several historic buildings. Thanks to the hard work of the Baltimore City Fire Department and other firefighters from across the region, the fires were contained and there have been no serious injuries reported. The buildings affected by the fires include a small row of theaters built following the 1904 Fire and an 1850s former residence that served as the final home of Baltimore Sun founder, A.S. Abell.

400 block of E. Baltimore Street in 1905, courtesy MHS

See also a 1987 photo & a 2001 photo of the 400 block of East Baltimore Street.

The four damaged buildings from the Downtown fire are located on the north side of the 400 block of East Baltimore Street, including several contributing buildings within the National Register designated Business and Government Historic District. In the late 19th century, these included the German Bank of Baltimore and several commercial buildings which remained up until their destruction by the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904. The building at the corner of Baltimore and Holiday Streets was rebuilt in 1908 by Pearce & Schenck as The Grand Theater. Next door, Philadelphia film producer Sidney Lubin established the Lubins Theater which later became the Plaza and, more recently, Gayety Show World.

Mount Vernon looking west down Monument Street, courtesy LOC/Detroit Publishing Co.

The two damaged buildings in Mount Vernon on the west side of the 800 block of North Charles Street are contributing buildings within the Mount Vernon local and National Register designated historic district and date from the early 1850s. The four-story building located at the northwest corner of Charles and Madison Streets is particularly significant as the former residence of A.S. Abell, the founder of the Baltimore Sun. Abell purchased the building from the Kremelberg estate in 1883 and remained in the home  up until his death on April 19, 1888. A 1912 description of the home noted, “The house is a four-story marble and brick building, which included about twenty-five rooms, and a magnificent winding staircase in the center of the dwelling, which towers to the roof, and in itself gives an idea of the elaborateness of the structure.” (More.)

For us at Baltimore Heritage, we are particularly saddened by the damage to the offices of noted preservation architects Murphy & Dittenhafer, located at the top floor of the former A.S. Abell residence, and specifically for our board member Matthew Compton who is an architect with this firm.  As Downtown and Mount Vernon work to recover from these fires, we plan to support efforts to preserve and restore the damaged buildings.

Baltimore Building of the Week: Baltimore Trust Company

This week’s Baltimore Building of the Week could go by many different names. It began as the Baltimore Trust Company but was later known as the Maryland National Bank, Nations Bank and at the present the Bank of America Building–

Image courtesy Jack Breihan

Besides college campuses, the Beaux-Arts combination of the historical Gothic style and modern technology was very popular for skyscrapers. Some, like the Woolworth Building in New York or the Chicago Tribune tower, were directly modeled on medieval precedent – just enormously taller. Other early 20th-century skyscrapers combined Gothic verticality with streamlined decorations derived from the new airplane and automobile industries. New York’s Chrysler Building is a prime example. Its contemporary in Baltimore, originally the Baltimore Trust Co., leans more to Gothic than to Art Deco, especially in its cavernous banking floor. At 34 stories and 509 feet, it was Baltimore’s tallest building for a generation before being edged out by I.M. Pei’s USF&G tower, 529 feet. Baltimore Trust went bankrupt in the Great Depression, but a succession of banks have maintained this crowning spire of the Baltimore skyline.

Baltimore Building of the Week: Loyola University Quadrangle

This week’s edition of our Baltimore Building of the Week highlights the history of Loyola University–where Dr. John Breihan teaches–with a feature on the Loyola University Quadrangle,

Image courtesy Jack Breihan

Another historical style taken up under the impulse of the Beaux-Arts movement was Gothic. Unlike the “gingerbread” Gothic revival of the early 19th century or the robust Victorian Gothic, the Gothic revival of the Beaux-Arts period adhered closely to actual medieval models, except that now these were steel framed buildings. Plumbing and heating were included; buttresses were entirely ornamental. The “Collegiate Gothic (so called on account of its popularity on college campuses) had tracery, moldings, and sculptural executed in white or tan limestone that contrasted with the natural colors of local fieldstone walls.

American colleges were restless in the early 20th century; many abandoned constricted urban sites for new locations in the suburbs. In Baltimore, Johns Hopkins moved to Homewood, Loyola to Evergreen, and Goucher to Towson (the latter move delayed by World War II). Hopkins’ new campus is neo-federal in style; Goucher took up the International Style. Loyola’s Collegiate Gothic period began in 1922 with Beatty Hall, pictured here along with neighboring Jenkins Hall, both from 1922-23. Unlike Hopkins and Towson, which face the outside world across a green lawn or “campus,” Loyola’s academic buildings and chapel face inwards a central court that derives from medieval college quads at universities like Cambridge and Oxford.

Baltimore Building of the Week: Hansa Haus

This week’s Baltimore Building of the Week from Dr. John Breihan, the Hansa Haus at Redwood and Charles Streets, is right next door to last week’s building– the Savings Bank of Baltimore. The Hansa Haus reflects both Baltimore’s rich German heritage and the history of immigration into Locust Point as the former Baltimore office of the North German Lloyd Steamship Company–

Image courtesy Jack Breihan

A favorite Beaux-Arts era historical-revival building housed the Baltimore offices of the North German Lloyd Steamship Company, a decidedly up-to-date modern enterprise when this building was erected in 1912. Its site, adjacent to the Baltimore Savings Bank (see last week) testified to the importance of German immigration to Baltimore in the early 20th century. To prevent said immigrants from being too homesick, Hansa Haus resembled a half-timbered 16th-century German Rathaus, perhaps the Zwicken in Halberstadt. Originally coats of arms of the cities in the Hanseatic League decorated the upper floor. Since the departure of the steamship line, Hansa Haus has had a variety of uses; it remains a challenge to sympathetic re-use.

Baltimore Building of the Week: Savings Bank of Baltimore

This week’s Baltimore Building of the Week is unfortunately really last week’s Baltimore Building of the Week as we play a bit of catch up. The Savings Bank of Baltimore is a classic bank building at the very heart of downtown–

Image courtesy Jack Breihan

The Beaux-Arts movement of cloaking modern steel-framed buildings with historical architectural styles appears again. This time the style is drawn from ancient Greece. Built in 1907, this elaborate white marble Ionic temple sits atop three underground of parking and vaults. It was built for the Savings Bank of Baltimore, the city’s oldest bank.

Appropriately, the site is the corner of Charles and Baltimore Streets (from which all Baltimore street numbers are calculated). Catty-corner to it is the headquarters of the B&O Railroad, a more conventional Beaux-Arts skyscraper. Both were built in the aftermath of the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904. It currently houses offices.