Category: Advocacy

Fire at the Sellers Mansion

Yesterday the Sellers Mansion in Lafayette Square had a fire inside. Built in 1868 just after Lafayette Square turned from a Civil War Union Army hospital base into a residential community, the mansion is listed as a Baltimore City historic landmark. It has anchored the Lafayette Square neighborhood for nearly 150 years as a private residence and as offices for community nonprofit organizations. And it has been vacant for over 20 years. See our Five Minute Histories video on the Sellers Mansion for more of its history!

 

We checked things out at the mansion this morning, and it appears the damage was contained to the interior and the roof. That’s the good news. The challenge is that the building is in severely poor shape and needed attention before the fire, and even more so now. As the Baltimore Sun reported this morning, it is owned by developer Ernst Valery and although the city approved redevelopment plans about two years ago, work has yet to begin.

 

We at Baltimore Heritage have been working to try to save the Sellers Mansion for nearly 25 years and remain committed to do everything we can to see this grand Second Empire building return to being an asset for the Lafayette Square neighborhood in West Baltimore. Scroll down to see photos taken this morning by Baltimore Heritage’s Executive Director Johns Hopkins.

 

 

 

 

 

Micro-Grants Fund Six Baltimore Projects!

Thank you to everyone who came to our virtual micro-grant party last night and helped select grants for six Baltimore projects! It was a fun and participatory event. Here are the six projects that received funding:

$500 Micro-Grants: 

  • Thomas Johnson Elementary Middle School field trip to the Baltimore Museum of Industry
  • Community murals in Irvington by Cooperative Community Development, Inc.

$250 Micro-Grants: 

  • Website costs for the Friends of St. Vincent Cemetery
  • Shutter restoration at the Irish Railroad Workers Museum Visitors Center

$50 Micro-Grants:

  • Brochures for the Baltimore Immigration Memorial and Museum
  • Research equipment and other costs for the Baltimore Crime Museum

 

We will keep you posted as these projects move along and, again, thank you!!

2021 Fall Lecture: Mapping Baltimore Apartheid (Virtual Talk!)

Our 2021 Fall Lecture is virtual this year! On Friday, join us and the Baltimore Architecture Foundation to kick off Doors Open Baltimore with Dr. Lawrence Brown, author of The Black Butterfly: The Harmful Politics of Race and Space in America! Register here!

Dr. Brown will put Baltimore under a microscope, looking at the causes of segregation and drawing on extensive research of data and policy. Brown will demonstrate how data visualization can be a tool to distribute resources to communities in need, and speak to the roles of design, planning, and preservation in healing and restoring redlined Black neighborhoods.

Dr. Brown’s presentation will be followed by a discussion and Q&A moderated by author and journalist Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson.

Participating discussants include:

Seema Iyer, Ph.D, Associate Director of the Jacob France Institute, University of Baltimore

Tom Liebel, FAIA, Vice-President of Moseley Architects and CHAP Commission Chair

Nakita Reed, AIA, Associate, Quinn Evans Architects

A limited number of signed copies of The Black Butterfly: The Harmful Politics of Race and Space in America are available through the Baltimore Architecture Foundation bookstore at the Baltimore Center for Architecture and Design. Books can be purchased using one of the Eventbrite ticket options, either “Delivery” or Pick Up.” Further details on getting your book will be included in the confirmation email. Questions? Reach out to Nathan Dennies at ndennies@aiabalt.com.

Doors Open Baltimore 2021 includes a month’s worth of virtual and in-person programming. Visit www.doorsopenbaltimore.org for more information. We are pleased to be sponsoring this event in partnership with the Baltimore Architecture Foundation, which is handling registration.

 

About this event

This program is hosted on Zoom and Facebook Live. Upon registering you will receive an email confirmation and a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact ndennies@aiabalt.com. If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.

Tickets are donation based. We encourage you to give what you can to support BAF and Baltimore Heritage. Your support helps us make up for lost tour and program revenue from COVID-19 and create more virtual programs like this.

This talk is part of Free Fall Baltimore which is presented by BGE, and is a program of the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, an independent non-profit 501(c)(3) organization.

Remembering Julian “Jack” Lapides

Today, July 14, long-time Baltimore Heritage board member Julian “Jack” Lapides passed away. His death has saddened us in too many ways to count. And his legacy and impact on Baltimore, Maryland, and indeed the country, is also too expansive to properly capture. Nonetheless, we would humbly like to offer a tribute to Jack for his dedication to making our lives, our neighborhoods, and the world a better place by sharing a few highlights of his life’s work in his own words. Below are audio excerpts from an oral interview that fellow board members Susan Talbott and Barbara Weeks conducted with him several years ago. We hope you appreciate these short recordings for what they are: Jack sharing stories of fighting to save our heritage, fighting for civil rights, fighting always for the right path forward even against overwhelming odds, and always told with a smile and a joke in a way that only Jack could do.

Facing Urban Renewal & the Highway Fight

Beginning in the 1960s, Jack was one of the very first people to oppose a highway that would have paved over Fell’s Point and Federal Hill in East Baltimore and through Poppleton and Harlem Park in West Baltimore. He was instrumental in saving Baltimore’s waterfront and although part of the highway was built in West Baltimore, he helped block it half-way through construction and prevented even greater destruction in West Baltimore.

Saving Stirling Street (Plus Jack’s Favorite Preservation Story)

With his wife Linda, Jack convinced city officials not only to save historic Stirling Street in the Oldtown neighborhood, but to sell the houses for $1 to new owners, thus launching Baltimore’s famous Dollar House Program. 

Preserving the Phipps Building On Hopkins’ Campus

While in the Maryland Senate, Jack threatened to withhold funds that Johns Hopkins Hospital sought for a new oncology center until they agreed to save the historic Phipps building. The result: a saved and restored Phipps building and a new oncology center (with state funds) built nearby.

Passing the Public Accommodations Bill, 1963

In his first year in the state legislature, Jack supported legislation that would make it illegal for owners of places like restaurants and theaters to bar African Americans entry. Jack had won his seat by beating out an incumbent who opposed this civil rights legislation, and was one of two new votes that swung the state legislature into passing the Public Accommodations law of 1963. 

Starting the Maryland State Arts Council

Recognizing the importance of the arts in creating vibrant communities, Jack was one of the founding members of the Maryland State Arts Council in 1967.

Members Make It Happen: Thank You from Baltimore Heritage

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We at Baltimore Heritage cannot say it enough. This year has been challenging for everyone and we could not have navigated it without your support. Our new Five Minute Histories video series and our ongoing Legacy Business and Centennial Homes programs, to name a few, are possible only with your help. If you haven’t yet done so, please consider joining or renewing your membership today.

Here are just a few of this past year’s projects made possible with your support:

We produced over 100 Five Minute Histories videos. Beginning the first day of Maryland’s Covid lock-down, we have traveled all over our city covering topics such as the Civil Rights Movement, mercantile history, immigration, religious development, Native American history, LGBTQ heritage, transportation, landscape design, women’s rights, and even some geology.

We expanded our Friday afternoon history lecture series and went virtual. In partnership with the Baltimore Architecture Foundation, we held engaging talks by Charlie Duff, Nancy Proctor, Jackson Gilman-Forlini, Aaron Henkin, Anne Bruder, Meg Fairfax-Fielding, and more.

We handed out 5 micro-grants and 18 preservation awards virtually. We pivoted to a Zoom pitch party to continue to make preservation a participatory sport with micro grants. Thank you to member Brigid Goody for making this yearly event possible. And we have been featuring our 2020 preservation awards winners on our website and on our YouTube channel.

We continued to fight to preserve Baltimore’s heritage. Restoration has begun at the Bruce Street Arabber Stable. Construction continues at the Lafayette Square bathhouses. And the Center for Health Care and Healthy Living at the Baltimore Hebrew Orphan Asylum will soon be 100% occupied by the Baltimore City Health Department and Behavioral Health System Baltimore.

For all of you who volunteer, log-on to our programs, email us kind words (and correct our mistakes), and support our advocacy work in Baltimore, please accept a sincere thank you from all of us at Baltimore Heritage. Your time, talents and financial support make a difference. Please consider joining or renewing your membership.

We wish you a safe holiday season and thank you again for doing so much for Baltimore.

P.S. Need a holiday present idea? Get in touch about how you can get a gift membership for a friend or family-member!