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.

Baltimore Building of the Week: Cemetery Gates

This week is a bit darker than usual with a set of three historic cemetery gates in Baltimore, including the Westminster Burying Ground, Greenmount Cemetery, and the Baltimore Cemetery on North Avenue.

Greenmount Cemetery, courtesy Jack Breihan

Baltimore’s explosive growth in the late 18th and early 19th century soon created a demand for burial sites. The Presbyterian burial ground on West Fayette Street was established in 1786 and is the final resting place of many eminent early Baltimoreans, including Edgar Allen Poe. The Egyptian-style gate was probably added during the eclectic period in American architecture in the 1840s. Later, still larger cemeteries turned to the Gothic Revival style. Robert Cary Long, Jr., designed the elaborate gatehouse for Green Mount Cemetery in the mid 1840s; the less well known gatehouse for Baltimore Cemetery seems to be from about the same era. It stands at the eastern end of North Avenue.

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Partnering to Preserve the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in West Baltimore

Hebrew Orphan Asylum, 2009

When the recent Urbanite article on the Hebrew Orphan Asylum asked the question, “Can National Register status save Baltimore’s coolest abandoned building?” we must respond, “Yes but not alone.” Preserving the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, better known to West Baltimore residents as the former Lutheran Hospital of Maryland, depends on the continued success of partnerships between Baltimore Heritage, Coppin State University, the Coppin Heights Community Development Corporation, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and stakeholders throughout Baltimore and the nation. The Hebrew Orphan Asylum building is important, not only for its significance as the oldest Jewish orphanage building in the United States, but also to the neighborhoods of Greater Rosemont with its great potential to anchor transit-oriented development around the future Rosemont Red Line station. We are working in partnership to bring this historic 1876 building into the future, as a renewed asset to historic West Baltimore.

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Baltimore Building of the Week: Upton Mansion

The two Greek Revival mansions featured in this Baltimore Building of the Week feature both have rich histories. Upton was home to the WCAO radio station from 1929 through 1947 and then served as the Baltimore Institute of Musical Arts, an accredited music school open to African American students, through 1955. However, while the Dumbarton House is now occupied by the Baltimore Actors’ Theatre, Upton remains on the Baltimore Heritage Watchlist threatened by vacancy and neglect.

Upton, courtesy Jack Breihan

The environs of Baltimore also boast Greek Revival country houses. Dunbarton, just over the county line in Rodgers Forge, is a grand example. Upton is a particularly fine medium-sized Greek Revival mansion which has given its name to the Baltimore neighborhood that grew up around it (Upton). Long used by the City school administration, Upton is now vacant and in constant threat of “demolition by neglect.”

Baltimore Building of the Week: Family and Children’s Services

This week’s Baltimore Building of the Week from Dr. John Breihan is a Gothic cottage used by Family and Children’s Services of Central Maryland.

Image courtesy Jack Breihan

The early Gothic Revival style did not lend itself to rowhouse design, but steep-gabled cottages, sometimes with bargeboarding or “gingerbread” moldings often appear along older road and turnpike routes out of Baltimore. A particularly pretty example, on Lanvale Street in Bolton Hill, has long been used and maintained by the Family and Children’s Services of Central Maryland. Originally designed by Robert Cary Long, Jr., in 1848, it also features bay windows added by Edmund G. Lind in 1862 and a side porch by Lawrence Hall Fowler in 1915.