Category: Tours

B&O Railroad Museum

Stories of railroading, Roundhouses and recovering from a roof collapse at the B&O Railroad Museum on June 24

The birthplace of American railroading. The site of the first telegraph message in history. The largest collection of 19th-century locomotives in the United States. A National Historic Landmark treasured by every parent of a train-loving child in Baltimore. With this long list of superlatives you don’t need to be a kid to love the B&O Railroad Museum! The nearly 60-year-old museum opened on July 4, 1953 as the Baltimore & Ohio Transportation Museum in the B&O Roundhouse. The Roundhouse, designed by E. Francis Baldwin,was the largest circular industrial building in the world when completed covering more than an acre of ground and rising 125 feet into the air. Regrettably, on an early winter morning just over 10 years ago, disaster struck when the roof of the Roundhouse collapsed under a record-breaking snowfall devastating both the building and the collection.

In the decade since, the B&O has come back stronger than ever and remains a must-see historic site for all Baltimoreans. The museum’s collection includes 250 pieces of railroad rolling stock, 15,000 artifacts, 5000 cubic feet of archival material, four significant 19th-century buildings, including the historic roundhouse, and a mile of track, considered the most historic mile of railroad track in the United States. Join Baltimore Heritage for some wine and cheese and the fascinating history of the B&O Railroad Museum on our latest Behind the Scenes Tour.

Art, architecture and invention and more! Station North by Foot returns to Artscape this July

Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts
Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts

Baltimore Heritage is back at Artscape—America’s largest free arts festival—with free walking tours of historic Station North on every day of the festival! Innovation in art, design, movies and music has always had a place on North Avenue. In the 1910s, Parkway’s vaudeville stage screened some of the nation’s earliest “talking pictures.” In the 1960s, the Left Bank Jazz Society hosted jazz greats like Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock and John Coltrane at Charles Street’s Famous Ballroom.

Our one-hour Station North by Foot tours explore the history of buildings from the North Avenue Market (now home to the Wind-Up Space and Liam’s Ale House) to the former Guilford Avenue factory complex of the Crown Cork & Seal Company (today used as Copycat Building and the new Baltimore Design School). Walk along with us and discover stories from the vibrant past and bright future of Station North landmarks.

Station North by Foot – Free historic walking tours at Artscape

Sign up today! Tours go rain or shine and start at the Station North Arts & Entertainment District offices, 1 West North Avenue.

  • Friday, July 19 – 6:00pm
  • Saturday, July 20 – 3:00pm and 6:00pm
  • Sunday, July 21 – 3:00 pm

Find more programs at the festival on the Artscape website or download the new Artscape app on your smartphone. You can also use your smartphone to learn more about Station North with our tour of Arts and Industry in Station North on Explore Baltimore Heritage.

Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts
Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts

Charles Village Pride! Talk and tour on the early history of Baltimore’s LGBT Community

Together with the Baltimore City Historical Society, we are excited to present two upcoming programs on Baltimore’s LGBT history with a talk by historian John Wood on Thursday, June 20 and a walking tour of Charles Village with Richard Oloizia, Louis Hughes and many more special guests on Saturday, June 22.

The Baltimore Gay Community: The Early Years

Thursday, June 20, 2013, Reception at 7:00 PM, lecture at 7:30 PM
2521 St. Paul Street, Baltimore, MD 21218

Mayor Kurt Schmoke at Gay Pride after Gay Rights Bill passed, 1988
Mayor Kurt Schmoke at Gay Pride after Gay Rights Bill passed, 1988

The Baltimore City Historical Society & Village Learning Place are hosting the final spring Baltimore History Evening with a presentation by John Wood, a local historian and teacher at the McDonogh School on the early history of Baltimore’s gay community. Wood will share how members of the city’s LGBT community organized and fought for civil rights from 1975 up through the passage of the city’s landmark gay and lesbian civil-rights bill in 1988. The period was shaped by the growth of pride in gay and lesbian identity, tensions between gay men and lesbians, the impact of AIDS, and the professionalization of the equal rights campaign during the 1980s. The program will include special guest Jody Landers, a City Council member at the time the bill passed, talking about the impact that negative opposition testimony during the bill’s hearing had upon his vote.

Charles Village Pride! LGBT Heritage Walking Tour

Saturday, June 22, 2013, 10:00 AM through 12:00 PM
Meet at Normal’s Books & Records, 425 East 31st Street, Baltimore, MD 21218
Sign up online today! Tickets are $10 for Baltimore Heritage members, $15 for non-members

Gay Pride in Wyman Park, June 1988
Gay Pride in Wyman Park, June 1988

Although Charles Village is better known for its colorful “painted ladies,” the neighborhood was home to many of the activists and institutions at the heart of the city’s LGBT community in the 1970s and 1980s. Historian Richard Oloizia and activists Shirley Parry and Louis Hughes will take us on a walk past local landmarks from the original home of the Gay Community Center of Baltimore, now the GLCCB, to the St. Paul Street church that supported the growth of the Metropolitan Community Church, Baltimore’s oldest LGBT religious organization, and the radical feminist publishers, writers and activists that gave a voice to lesbian authors who might not otherwise have been read. Whether you lived this history or are learning it for the first time, this tour is a unique opportunity to explore the places that shaped the growth of Baltimore’s LGBT community and civil rights movement.

Looking Up Downtown tours are free for Blue Star Families now through Labor Day

blue-star-museum-logo

As a participant in the Blue Star Museums program, first launched in the summer of 2010, we are proud to offer free admission to all active duty military personnel and their families for Looking Up Downtown walking tours from now through Labor Day, Monday, September 3. On this 75-minute guided walking tour, everyone from first-time visitors to Baltimore to born-and-raised locals can learn something new and surprising about the architecture and history of downtown Baltimore.

The route – less then one mile and stroller friendly for families with small children – winds through the grounds of the Zion Lutheran Church, continues past a few enduring local landmarks like the Alex Brown & Co. building that still bears the scorch marks from the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904. the and ends right back where it started at the Baltimore Farmer’s Market. All Looking Up Downtown! Gargoyles & More walking tours start at 9:30am on the first and third Sunday from April through November. Meet at the Baltimore Farmers’ Market in front of the Hollywood Diner at North Holiday and South Saratoga Streets. RSVP to join us this weekend or stay tuned to check out another tour later this year!

Don’t forget to check out other local history museums participating in the Blue Star Museums program this summer! In Baltimore, along local museums and historicsites include:

Blue Star Museums is a collaboration among the National Endowment for the Arts, Blue Star Families, the Department of Defense, and more than 2,000 museums across America. Leadership support has been provided by MetLife Foundation through Blue Star Families.

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