Category: Preservation

Thank You for Attending Our Preservation Celebration 2024!

Last Thursday, October 10, Baltimore Heritage had its annual Preservation Celebration at Hollins Market! We handed out 12 awards to groups and individuals doing fabulous work celebrating and preserving our city’s history and buildings. We gave out 6 micro-grants to 6 very worthy community projects. We conducted our organization’s annual meeting and welcomed a few new board members. And we said a big thank you to our wonderful volunteers. They make historic preservation possible in Baltimore. All the while, we ate delicious food from Hollins Market and drank wine from Spirits of Mt. Vernon! Thank you to everyone attended.

 

Award Winners

The Thurgood Marshall Amenity Center (Photo courtesy of Dr. Al Hathaway)

Volunteer of the Year: Linda Snyder

For leading countless public and private tours

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Beloved Community Services Corporation

For the restoration of the Thurgood Marshall Amenity Center (PS 103)

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Dr. Ashley Minner Jones, the Native American Senior Citizens,

and the Baltimore Reservation Project

For promoting Lumbee American Indian heritage in East Baltimore

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Bruce Willen

For the Ghost Rivers public art and history project

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Dr. Raynetta Wiggins-Jackson, curator of Ethel’s Place: Celebrating Ethel Ennis, Baltimore’s First Lady of Jazz

Dr. Raynetta Wiggins-Jackson

For the exhibit, Ethel’s Place: Celebrating Ethel Ennis, Baltimore’s First Lady of Jazz

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Upton Planning Council and Pennsylvania Avenue Main Street

For the renovation of 1829 Pennsylvania Avenue for the Pennsylvania Avenue Welcome Center

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Shelley Halstead & Black Women Build

For work to rehab houses and build community in West Baltimore

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Christina Delgado

For establishing Tola’s Room, a Puerto Rican home museum

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Betty Bland Thomas

For decades of work to preserve heritage in Sharp Leadenhall

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Baltimore Museum of Industry

For the exhibit, Collective Action: Labor Activism in 21st Century Baltimore

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James Ruttley and Kathleen Lechleighter

For the restoration of 1209 Calvert Street

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Douglas Gordon Award: Charlie Duff

For a lifetime of work in historic preservation

 

Pitch Party Winners

Sara Artes presenting for the Corner Team Boxing Club

$2000: Corner Team Boxing Club

Funds will support Phase 1 of the Joe Gans Monument project, which will pay the sculptor to design and fabricate a maquette of the statue 

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$1000: Evolving Young Girls Mentoring Organization

Funds will support the Baltimore’s Hidden Treasures: Youth Preservation Workshop

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$1000: Friends of St. Peter’s Cemetery

Funds will support the restoration of St. Peter’s Cemetery in partnership with the PRINCE Program, which trains incarcerated citizens in cemetery preservation 

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$500: Friends of Patterson Park’

Funds will support a videographer to create a video of the interior of the Observatory for virtual access

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Jessica Williams presenting for Westminster Hall & Burying Ground

$500: Westminster Hall and Burying Ground

Funds will support the restoration of the brick pathway

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$500: Pride of Baltimore

Funds will support replacement of the ship’s planks

Restoring the Perkins Square Gazebo

Photo by Diamyn Wilson

Baltimore Heritage is collaborating with the Heritage Crossing Residents Association to restore the Perkins Square gazebo!

The neighborhood of Heritage Crossing turned 25 years old last year, and in preparing for that milestone, the Residents Association developed a list of priorities that would help them improve their public spaces. Improving the landscaping in the central park and restoring the gazebo were at the top of the priority list. The Perkins Square gazebo is a vital public space for the predominantly Black West Baltimore community. The community was created to bring new vibrancy to this part of Baltimore as high rise public housing apartments that were here were demolished.

The gazebo, c. 1905

The gazebo has been at the heart of the Heritage Crossing community since it was erected in the 1850s to provide shade for people getting water from a natural spring, and today is in the center of the park. This year, the Residents Association is partnering with Baltimore Heritage to help secure qualified contractors who are experience with historic structures and help raise the funds needed to undertake the work.

Baltimore Heritage completed a new strategic plan in 2023 that calls for us to directly assist communities in preservation projects. Heritage Crossing is the first community partnership that Baltimore Heritage has entered into under its new strategic plan, a recognition of the importance of the historic gazebo and the impact that its restoration will have on the Heritage Crossing community.

 

 

The restored gazebo is a key component to the Heritage Crossing community’s ongoing effort to improve the park and build community. Baltimore Heritage is honored to be part of such an important project! Stay tuned for more details about a ribbon cutting ceremony when the restoration is complete.

–Enzi Evergreen

Join Us at the Doors Open Baltimore 2024 Kick Off Event!

Baltimore Architecture Foundation and Baltimore Heritage are shaking up the Doors Open kick-off event. Join us for a casual evening of storytelling showcasing a variety of voices, perspectives, and special places in Baltimore as we take our letter writing campaign to the stage in the inaugural Love Letters Live!

Hosted by the Hotel Ulysses in their new event space, Swann House, the event will include light fare and wine.

RSVPs appreciated but not required! RSVP here.

Speakers will be listed soon!

One Month Away: Join Us at Our Preservation Celebration 2024

We are one month away from our Preservation Celebration 2024 at the newly refurbished Hollins Market and we hope you’ll join us! On October 10, we’ll honor our 2024 Preservation Award winners and, with your help, give out five microgrants to people working on the front lines in our historic neighborhoods. We’ll say thank you to our volunteers and honor all of their hard work this year. This gathering also acts as Baltimore Heritage’s annual meeting where we elect new board members. With food and drink from Baltimore vendors, we hope you will join us for what promises to be a wonderful evening. We hope you’ll join us on October 10!

Register here! Tickets are free with a suggested donation of $25.

–Johns Hopkins, Executive Director

Our Newest Centennial Home: The Parago-Culbreath Family

On July 30, 2024, Baltimore Heritage, in partnership with the Bolton Hill Community Association (BHA), awarded the Parago-Culbreath family with a Centennial Homes certificate. The Parago-Culbreath family has lived in their home on Dolphin St. for over 116 years. This is the longest occupancy by a family in Bolton Hill, and for a few generations they held strong here through segregationist housing policies. We are grateful to this family’s endurance, strength and continued stewardship of the property.

The Baltimore Centennial Homes project, developed in collaboration between Baltimore Heritage and City Councilman James Kraft, recognizes families that have been in the same house for 100 years or more. These families have anchored Baltimore’s historic blocks and neighborhoods through good times and bad. Their stories show the changes that our communities and our city have experienced as well as the critical roles that neighborhoods and their families have played in keeping historic neighborhoods thriving.

Members of the Parago-Culbreath family with the Centennial Home certificate.