Category: Tours

Get inspired with the best of Baltimore’s preservation projects

From the restoration of Roland Park’s historic trolley stop to the conversion of City Garage into 60,000 square feet of funky makerspace, our 2016 historic preservation awards showcase the best historic preservation projects of the year and the people behind them. Please join us on June 16 at Baltimore’s Green Street Academy to mix, mingle, and be inspired by the great work happening in the city!

Over the next two months, we’ve also lined up a number of fantastic tours. On June 22, our tour of St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church tells the story of the evolution of this 175-year-old institution and its deep commitment to charitable work. On June 26, our  Florence Meets Baltimore by Bike tour will transport you to the Piazza della Signoria, the Ponte Vecchio, the Tempio Maggiore, the Ospedalia Deli Innocenti, the Carrara quarries, and take in frozen deserts along the way… all without leaving Baltimore.

In July, we have a special treat: the chance to climb to the top of the scaffolding now filling the interior of the Parkway Theater for an up-close view of the ceiling and a great opportunity to learn what’s going on as the Maryland Film Festival restores this 1915 movie house.

Finally, don’t forget that this Sunday, and almost every Sunday until Thanksgiving, our volunteer-led Monumental City Tours will take you on one-hour jaunts to learn more about Baltimore: Jonestown and the Shot Tower, Landmarks and Lions Downtown, Mount Vernon and the Washington Monument, and the Patterson Park Observatory.

Step into a detective’s shoes with us next week

Our next tour is not for the faint of heart. In the 1940s, Chicago heiress Frances Glessner Lee created crime scene models on a one-inch-to-one-foot scale to be used as police training tools to help investigators learn the art and science of detailed forensics-based detection. Join us next Wednesday as Mr. Bruce Goldfarb shares the history of the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death and how they found their way to Baltimore.

Don’t forget that this Sunday, and almost every Sunday until Thanksgiving, our volunteer-led Monumental City Tours will take you on one-hour jaunts to learn more about Baltimore: Jonestown and the Shot Tower, Landmarks and Lions Downtown, Mount Vernon and the Washington Monument, and the Patterson Park Observatory.

Join us for the 2016 Historic Preservation Awards Celebration!

Finally, we are thrilled to invite you, our members and friends, to Baltimore Heritage’s 2016 Historic Preservation Awards Celebration at the newly renovated Green Street Academy. This year, we are honoring a wide range of projects from a former city garage and auto repair shop to historic theaters, a humble trolley stop to Baltimore’s Washington Monument.

The celebration will take place on Thursday, June 16, 2016 beginning at 5:30 pm. In addition to seeing the fantastic work inside the 1925 former Gwynns Falls High School, there will be plenty of good food and drink, and lots to celebrate. You can purchase tickets now and we hope you can join us!

Meet Maryland horses and Mediterranean olives on our upcoming tours

This year marks a full century of Pompeian Olive Oil making olive oil in Baltimore, and we hope you can join us on our May 17 afternoon tour of their Pulaski Highway factory, including a peek at a 300-year-old olive press, the processing plant, and expert cooking tips along the way.

On the morning of May 17, you can join us in getting ready for Preakness with a morning tour of Pimlico Racetrack from its stables (including Preakness horses in training) to the Jockey’s locker room and famed clubhouse with its signature weather vane. And don’t forget about our tour next week of the Maryland House, our state’s contribution to the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, with our partner Preservation Maryland.

Spring also means our Monumental City Tours are up and running the first four Sunday mornings of every month from now until Thanksgiving. Bring a friend and join us on these one-hour jaunts to learn more about Baltimore: Jonestown and the Shot Tower, Landmarks and Lions Downtown, Mt. Vernon and the Washington Monument, and the Patterson Park Observatory.

Lastly, our annual Baltimore by Foot tour series starts off this weekend in Seton Hill. We are thrilled with the huge response these tours have generated—we only have spaces left on the Hunting Ridge and Harbor East to Jonestown tours, so make sure to sign up today to save your spot.

Behind the Scenes at City Garage and the Maryland House

Our upcoming tours give you an insider’s look at one of the most talked about projects in Baltimore, let you step into an often overlooked gem at the Maryland Zoo and tell the love stories of Mount Vernon. We are also bringing back our popular Monumental City tours on Sundays from April to November!

On April 14, our Port Covington tour offers a behind-the-scenes tour of the City Garage and a chance to talk with Sagamore Development about their vision for the future of South Baltimore. Originally developed in 1904 around the end line of the B&O Railroad, the Port Covington area is today poised to become Baltimore’s largest urban redevelopment project.

For our Maryland House tour, Tony Azola of the Azola Companies and Lori Finkelstein of the Maryland Zoo will guide you through an architectural gem located just next to the Rogers Mansion. The Maryland House was built for the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia and then rebuilt on the Zoo grounds. Special thanks to Preservation Maryland for co-hosting this tour! We also will hold our Mount Vernon Love Stories tours (rescheduled from a very cold Valentine’s Day weekend) on April 9 at 11:00 am and 1:00 pm.

Finally, our Monumental City tours return starting April. These tours are a great way to explore Baltimore on Sunday mornings. Join us for as we explore Jonestown and the Shot Tower (1st Sunday); Landmarks and Lions Downtown (2nd Sunday); Mount Vernon and the Washington Monument (3rd Sunday); and the Patterson Park Observatory (4th Sunday).

See the Whitehall Mill and a church full of Tiffany on our upcoming heritage tours

Our upcoming Baltimore Heritage tours will show you the bright future of a historic mill, and let you experience a hidden Baltimore treasure. Later this month, we’re stepping into the middle of construction on our tour of Whitehall Mill. This former textile mill is being reborn as a mixed-use complex of apartments, office space, a restaurant, and a market. Please join us and our hosts from Terra Nova Ventures on a walk through the building, showing the progress they’ve made so far and what work is still to come.

On March 19, please join us at St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church where you can experience the rare treat of standing in the middle of a room and almost everything you see is made or decorated by Tiffany. Please join our host, Reverend Dale Dusman, for a tour and a bit of Tiffany overload at this hidden Baltimore gem.

Unfortunately, due to predictions for extreme cold this weekend, we have decided to reschedule our Mount Vernon Love Stories tour from February 13 to April 9 at 11:00 am and 1:00 pm. We hope to see you on our upcoming tours!