Category: Tours

Behind the Scenes Tour of the Mount Vernon Mill

Image courtesy Baltimore County Public Library

In the 19th century, Baltimore was the world’s leading supplier of cotton duck, a material that was used in items from uniforms and tents to sailcloth and parachutes. Much of it was made at a sprawling complex of mill buildings collectively called the Mount Vernon Mill. Our host, Terra Nova Ventures, has cleaned out the Mount Vernon Mill No. 1 building and is about to embark on a massive historic restoration and reuse project. Please join us on a “before rehab” tour of this great historic industrial space.

Tour Information

Date:   Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Time:   5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Place:  Mount Vernon Mill (2980 – 3000 Falls Road, Baltimore 21211)
The building is on Falls Road just north of Wyman Park Drive and the Stieff Silver Building
Cost:   $15 (includes wine and cheese reception)
Registration: Click Here to Register.

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Join us this Thursday for Rethinking Urban History from the Margins!

Please join us this Thursday, October 21 is our annual Fall Baltimore Heritage Lecture called “Rethinking Urban History from the Margins” by Dr. Rhonda Y. Williams, a Baltimore native and associate professor at Case Western Reserve University. Note that the location has moved from Ebenzer AME Church to Saints Stephen & James Evangelical Lutheran Church (938 S. Hanover Street, 21230).

Date:                     Thursday, October 21, 2010
Time:                     7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Location:              Saints Stephen & James Evangelical Lutheran Church (938 S. Hanover Street, Baltimore 21230)
(This is in the historic Sharp-Leadenhall neighborhood)
Cost:                      Free!
RSVP:                    Click here to RSVP

The intersection of race and place is a central issue in the histories of Baltimore neighborhoods and is clearly present in the city’s tumultuous relationship with public housing.  Baltimore native Dr. Rhonda Williams will draw on extensive oral histories and archival research for to share the stories of the African American women as community activists who fought for “rights, respect, and representation” for their families and neighbors living in Baltimore public housing. Author of The Politics of Public Housing: Black Women’s Struggles Against Urban Inequality, Dr. Williams will challenge us to reconsider the role of public housing in Baltimore neighborhoods and its broader significance in Baltimore’s history of race and place.

This event series is supported by the Maryland Humanities Council and Free Fall Baltimore. Find out more information about the over 300 events in Free Fall Baltimore 2010 here or learn more about the many other events of the 2010 Baltimore Architecture Month sponsored by AIABaltimore between September 9 and October 25.

This talk is part of our October Race and Place in Baltimore series.  Thank you to all who are participating!

Celebrate 150 years of Druid Hill Park on foot and by bike

This year marks the 150th anniversary Baltimore City’s Druid Hill Park, established on October 19, 1860. This major urban park of 745 acres is one of the oldest urban parks in the country and a direct result of the early American Public Parks Movement. Only Central Park in New York City, 1858, and Fairmont Park in Philadelphia, 1859, pre-date Druid Hill Park. To commemorate the occasion, the Friends of Druid Hill Park, in partnership with Baltimore Heritage, AIA Baltimore, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture, and sponsored by Tour dem Parks, Hon, is leading a selection of walking and bicycle tours on Saturday, October 16 including:

  • 11:00 am to 1:00 pm – Historic Park by Foot
  • 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm – Streetcars in the Park
  • 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm – Peddle through the Park Bike Tour

All tours leave from the “Druid 150 Celebration Welcome Center” at the Howard P. Rawlings Conservatory located near the Gywnns Fall’s Parkway entrance to the park, there is only one requirement, all car riders have to have knowledge about the traders policy in order to participate. Water and snacks will be available. Tours are $5/person and pre-registration is strongly encouraged. Click here to register or continue on for more details.

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Join us in October for Race and Place in Baltimore Neighborhoods

In addition to our regular tours this fall, in October we are pleased to host a special series called “Race and Place in Baltimore Neighborhoods.”  The series includes three Saturday morning walking tours in Upton, Greater Rosemont, and Sharp-Leadenhall and a lecture by distinguished scholar and Baltimore native Dr. Rhonda Williams.  We would love to have you join us for one or all of these!  And, thanks to the Maryland Humanities Council and Free Fall Baltimore, they are all free.

Together with scholars from the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, UMBC, and Towson University, as well as neighborhood leaders from the Upton Planning Committee, the Evergreen Protective Association, and the Sharp-Leadenhall Planning Committee, we will walk through neighborhoods that have served witness to Baltimore’s challenging histories of segregation, civil rights, racial transition, displacement, urban renewal, and even historic preservation. You’re encouraged to stay for a light lunch after each tour to continue the discussion with our tour leaders as we delve into the complicated relationships between race and place and what this history means for the future of these and many other Baltimore neighborhoods.

Click here to register for one or more of the tours and the lecture or read on for more details.

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Historic Baltimore By Bus Tour: Celebrating 50 Years of Saving Historic Places

Step back into 1960 Baltimore:  Charles Center was just underway (with Mies van der Rohe’s One Charles Center two years from completion); Baltimore’s population had dropped by 10,000 people, down to 940,000; city planners had begun crafting highway plans to run through Fell’s Point, Mount Vernon, and West Baltimore; and Baltimore Heritage was founded to preserve historic places in Baltimore City.  To help celebrate our 50th anniversary, we are recreating a bus tour of historic sites in central Baltimore that launched our organization and the historic preservation movement in Baltimore City.  Please join us on this two-hour bus trip with our tour guides, local historians Wayne Schaumburg and Marsha Wise, as we connect the dots of historic preservation and city development between the Baltimore of 1960 and the Baltimore of today.

Tour Information

Date:     Sunday, October 3, 2010
Time:     Two tours (sign up for only one)
10:00 a.m. to noon
1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Cost:      $25
Place:    Meet at the Peale Museum (225 North Holliday Street, Baltimore 21202)
Free parking on the street

Note: The tour is by bus (school bus, to be exact) and will last two hours.  We will get off the bus a few times to examine historic places up close and stretch our legs.

Click Here to Register.
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