Category: Tours

Next Saturday walking tour at West Baltimore Farmer’s Market!

Tour group at the West Baltimore Farmer's Market, Greater Rosemont Walking Tour

Celebrate the end of the inaugural season of the West Baltimore Farmer’s Market and explore the history of the Greater Rosemont neighborhood with a free mile-and-a-half long walking tour on November 20 at 10:00 AM starting from the West Baltimore MARC Station (Southwest corner of the North Smallwood and West Franklin Street). In the early 1950s, the neighborhoods of Greater Rosemont flipped from nearly exclusively white to almost completely African American through a period of rapid “white flight.” The new residents established a stable middle-class community that successfully resisted demolition by the “Highway to Nowhere.”

This short walking tour will take you from the very beginnings of the neighborhood as a streetcar suburb up through the present day and the prospect of the new Red Line light rail route. It is also a chance to celebrate the last day of the West Baltimore Farmers Market which is brining fresh, locally produced food to residents who live in a community that is characterized as an urban “food desert.” Please RSVP for this free walking tour!

Behind the Scenes Tour of Lovely Lane


In 1784 during the “Christmas Conference” at the Lovely Lane Meeting House in Baltimore, American Methodist was born. Surprisingly, this predated the organization of the Methodist community in England where it originated. Please join us on a tour of Baltimore’s signature Methodist building today, the Lovely Lane United Methodist Church, known as the Mother Church of American Methodism and an architectural treasure to boot.

Date: Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Time: 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Place: Lovely Lane United Methodist Church (2200 St. Paul St., Baltimore 21218)
Cost: $10 for members / $20 for non-members (please join!)

Registration: Click here to register.
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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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