Category: Behind the Scenes Tours

Behind the Scenes Tour of the McDonogh School

Image courtesy the McDonogh School.

Join us for a tour of the 139-year-old McDonogh School.  We will be venturing into Baltimore County to see a campus that has its roots in Baltimore City and was originally intended to be located there.  The school’s archivist, Ms. MaryLu Greenwood, and Vice Principal, Mr. Larry Johnston, will lead us on a tour of the school and its classical architecture and share the story of how this one time farm school for indigent “boys of good character” became the venerable private co-ed school it is today.

Tour Details
8600 McDonogh Road, Owings Mills, MD 21117
Thursday, May 10, 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
$15 members | $25 non-members (wine & cheese will be served)

RSVP for the tour today!

Image courtesy Wikipedia.

John McDonogh, a Baltimore-born merchant and philanthropist, was born in 1779 and died in 1850, bequeathing half of his estate to the City of Baltimore to educate children. However, since the public school system already existed in Baltimore, the mayor and city council used the funds to endow a “school farm” for poor boys of good character. Mr. McDonogh had envisioned such a school in his handwritten will dated 1838. In 1872, a tract of 835 acres—essentially the same land that comprises the campus today—was purchased for $85,000 for the school’s establishment.  McDonogh School was founded on November 21, 1873 with the arrival of twenty-one poor boys from Baltimore City. From the beginning, the boys followed a semi-military system, which provided leadership opportunities and ensured order.  Major milestones in McDonogh’s history signaled change. The first paying students arrived in 1922 and day students in 1927. The semi-military program was dropped in 1971, and the first female students enrolled in 1975.  Today, McDonogh is a non-denominational, college preparatory, co-educational day and boarding school. The school calls many accomplished athletes alumni.  They include tennis-pro and sports commentator Pam Shriver, Orioles pitcher Brian Erbe, and equestrian Olympic gold medalist Bruce Davidson.

Behind the Scenes Tour: Animal House

Many of us have seen the 1978 movie “Animal House.”  Have you wondered what happened to the chapter house after the mischievous frat boys graduated?  Homeowners Ron Tanner and Jill Eicher can pick-up where the story leaves off.  They call Charles Village’s version of the infamous Animal House home.  Please join us for a tour of this beautifully restored house and hear Mr. Tanner and Ms. Eicher offer tips on managing large projects, including how to stay together even when your house is torn apart.

Tour Details

2746 St. Paul Street, Baltimore, MD 21218
Tuesday, April 3rd | 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
$15 members | $25 non-members (please join!)

RSVP for the tour today!

Ron Tanner and Jill Eicher have spent 12 years renovating an 1897 Queen Anne rowhouse that was condemned property when they bought it.  A notorious fraternity had all but destroyed the 4,500 square foot Charles Village house. The run-down rowhouse even found itself as the perfect setting for a horror film starring then unknown actresses Dana Delaney and Keri Russell.  Undaunted, Mr. Tanner and Ms. Eicher took on a whole-house restoration, beginning with emptying out multiple roll-off dumpsters of trash.  They found themselves learning how to re-plaster walls, finish floors, restore windows, and much more.  Their work was featured in This Old House magazine in 2008, in Baltimore Magazine in 2012 in an article called “Trashed to Treasured,” and just a few months ago by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  Mr. Tanner, a writer by trade, created a blog about their adventures.  The blog was very popular and led to the recently published book, From Animal House to Our House: a Love Story, a must-read for anybody who has struggled through a home renovation project.  Mr. Tanner is a wonderful storyteller and the evening is sure to be entertaining as well as informative.

Behind the Scenes Tour: Maryland Women’s Heritage Center

Linda Shevitz

Did you know that March is Women’s History Month? What better way to celebrate than by visiting the Maryland Women’s Heritage Center located in the historic 1916 Baltimore Gas and Electric Company building on Lexington Street? We hope you can join us.

Tour Details
Maryland Women’s Heritage Center | 39 W. Lexington Street (corner of Lexington & Liberty Sts.), Baltimore, MD 21201
Saturday, March 31st | 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
$10 members | $20 non-members

RSVP for the tour today!

Edith Houghton Hooker

The Maryland Women’s History Center is the first comprehensive state-based women’s history center and museum of its kind in the nation. For our tour, a docent from the Center will guide us through exhibits on Maryland women “firsts,” unsung heroines, and the suffrage movement in Maryland. The Center’s location at the BG&E building is more than fitting. In the early 1900s, a suffrage pioneer named Edith Houghton Hooker staged a major rally for giving women the vote outside the building at Lexington and Liberty Streets. Ms. Hooker had come from Buffalo to Baltimore as one of the first women accepted into the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. In 1909, she established the Just Government League of Maryland, a local affiliate of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and edited and published Maryland Suffrage News from 1912 through the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. In addition to the history of the suffrage movement, we will be among the first to see the Center’s newest exhibit on Maryland women in science and technology.

Behind the Scenes Tour: Tiffany, Tiffany, Tiffany: St. Mark’s Church

There are few places where you can stand in the middle of a room and almost everything you see is made or decorated by Tiffany:  glass, paint, finishes, etc.  St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church on St. Paul Street, with its entire interior designed by the Tiffany Company of New York, is one of them.  Please join our host, Reverend Dale Dusman, for a tour and a bit of Tiffany overload at this hidden Baltimore gem and us.

Tour Information

St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church | 1900 St. Paul Street, Baltimore MD 21218 (corner of St. Paul St. & North Ave.)
Saturday, January 28, 2012 | 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.
$10 for members | $20 for non-members
RSVP for the tour today!

In the 1890’s, the St. Mark’s congregation engaged architect Joseph Evans Sperry (who would later go on to design Baltimore’s Bromo Seltzer Tower, among other buildings) to help them build a new church.  Sperry came up with a Romanesque design that is known for its heavy stones, arched doors and windows, and short columns.  Romanesque design comes from central and western Europe, where many of St. Mark’s congregants also traced their lineages.  (An Estonian congregation called EELK Baltimore Markuse Kogudus continues to use St. Mark’s for worship each month.)  In 1898 the church was completed, and since then has been one of Baltimore’s outstanding examples of Romanesque architecture.  On the inside, St. Mark’s engaged the Tiffany Glass Decorating Company, under the direction of artist Rene de Quelen (Tiffany’s head artist), to come up with a plan that was equally fitting to the grand architecture.  De Quelen used a Byzantine approach, with deep colors, lots of jewels, and many mosaics.  Louis Comfort Tiffany, son of Tiffany’s founder and then head of the company, had studied art in Paris and had spent time in Spain and North Africa where he learned about this approach to decorating.  The interior boasts Tiffany windows and Rubio marble inlaid with mother of pearl for the altar, pulpit, and lectern.  Our host for the tour is Reverend Dale Dusman of St. Mark’s.  Although Reverend Dusman’s calling is the church, he has steeped himself in the history of St. Mark’s and its architecture.  Please join us on this All-Things-Tiffany tour.  We are sure you will never drive or walk past the 1900 block of St. Paul Street the same way again.

Behind the Scenes Tour: 1st Mariner Arena – January 18

A heritage tour of the 1st Mariner Arena? Yes! Built in 1962, the 1st Mariner Arena is celebrating its 50th year and has a marvelous history. Please join us as we wander backstage and peek into the building’s nooks and crannies with arena manager Frank Remesch to see where the Beatles played, Martin Luther King orated, and Elvis threw up.

Tour Information

1st Mariner Arena | 201 West Baltimore Street, 21201 (specific directions for where to enter and where to park will be forthcoming)
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 | 6:00 to 7:00 p.m.
$10 for Baltimore Heritage Members | $20 for non members (please join today!)

RSVP for the tour today!

In 1961, the cornerstone of the Baltimore Civic Center (as it was then called) was laid, enclosing a time capsule with notes from President John F. Kennedy, Maryland Governor Millard Tawes, and Baltimore Mayor Harold Grady. Located on the site of the former Old Congress Hall where the Continental Congress met in 1776, the arena opened a year later to great acclaim as part of a concerted effort to revitalize downtown Baltimore. Through ups and downs and a number of renovations, the arena has become woven into the fabric of the city. In its early years, Baltimore’s professional hockey team (the Baltimore Clippers) played here, as did the Baltimore Bullets, the city’s former basketball team. In 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King delivered a speech called “Race and the Church” at the arena as part of a gathering of Methodist clergy, and in 1989 the arena hosted the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships. And then there are the concerts. On Sunday, September 13, 1964 the Beatles played back-to-back shows at the arena to throbbing young Baltimoreans, and the arena is reportedly one of the only indoor venues in the U.S. still standing where the Fab Four played. In the 1970s, Led Zeppelin played the arena and shot a few scenes for their movie “The Song Remains the Same” backstage. Also in the 1970s, the Grateful Dead performed many shows here, including a performance where they played the song “The Other One” for a reportedly record forty minutes.

Finally in 1977, Elvis Presley performed at the arena just weeks before he died. The tickets for the show sold out in 2 ½ hours, and although there were no untoward incidents reported while The King was onstage, he did apparently lose his lunch in a corridor in the back. Please join us and First Mariner Arena manager Frank Remesch on a tour of the building, onstage and backstage, to see the inner workings of a 14,000 seat arena and hear some of the stories that it has collected over its half a century in Baltimore. Please also join us after the tour for a drink at Alewife, a bar/restaurant just a block and a half away, to share your stories of the arena.