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Lake Clifton High: The Story of Baltimore’s Most Ambitious Modernist School

Lake Clifton was Baltimore’s crown jewel of a massive school building effort. What happened?

This presentation will outline the history of Baltimore’s Lake Clifton High School. Completed in 1971 as the crown jewel of a massive school-building effort, the sprawling and state-of-the-art campus was expected to stimulate racial integration and ease school overcrowding. However, white students immediately rejected the school and the campus’ huge capacity was never filled. Lake Clifton developed a poor reputation around the city, and recently closed for good after years of restructuring and physical dilapidation. The campus is likely to soon be acquired and demolished by Morgan State University; thus, now is an ideal time to examine and commemorate Lake Clifton’s role in a tumultuous period of Baltimore’s history.

Julian Frost, grew up in Baltimore and graduated from Baltimore City College in 2019 and is currently a sophomore at Haverford College. He is majoring in the Growth and Structure of Cities program at Haverford’s sister school, Bryn Mawr. Over the past year Julian has developed a great interest in the history of Baltimore’s built environment, and is currently thinking about how to direct this interest into productive, creative, and potentially professional avenues. Julian started an Instagram page (@baltimorebuilthistory) as a repository for his casual research and findings.

This program is hosted on Zoom. Upon registering you will receive an email confirmation and a Zoom link. If you do not receive a link, please contact ndennies@aiabalt.com. If you do not contact us at least 1 hour prior to the start of the program, we cannot guarantee admittance.

Virtual Histories are back in 2021! The Baltimore Architecture Foundation (BAF) and Baltimore Heritage present a series of 30 minute live virtual tours and presentations focusing on Baltimore architecture, preservation and history.

Tickets are donation based. We encourage you to give what you can to support BAF and Baltimore Heritage. Your support helps us make up for lost tour and program revenue from COVID-19 and create more virtual programs like this.

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