Tag: Behind the Scenes Tours

A blue-tinted historic map below the words "Keeping History Above Water"

2017 Heritage Lecture: Climate Change and Protecting Historic Places

We’re continuing to add tours this fall with fun programs this weekend and over the next few weeks. We just lined up a new bike tour on October 28: All in the Family, a Bike Tour and Lunch with Baltimore’s Business Legacies. We’ll stop and talk with the owners at three, century-old Baltimore businesses: Budeke’s Paint and Decorating, Meyer Seed, and Tochterman’s Fishing Tackle, and then enjoy a picnic lunch from a fourth legacy business, DiPasquale’s Italian Market and Deli.

We still have room for you to join any or all of our three tours this weekend. On Saturday, come down to Lexington Market for a tour (and consider staying for lunch!). On Sunday morning, we are walking around Mount Vernon Place and climbing the steps at the Washington Monument. That afternoon, you can take a tour of the historic War Memorial Building followed by a concert by the Hopkins Symphony Orchestra.

Finally, we are excited to welcome Ms. Lisa Craig, Chief of Historic Preservation in Annapolis, to Baltimore on Thursday, November 9 for a free talk, Keeping History Above Water: Cultural Heritage in an Age of Climate Change. Ms. Craig will discuss her work planning for protecting historic places and cultural heritage in the face of rising waters and bigger storms. From hazard mitigation planning and flooding adaptation strategies to 3D modeling and hurricane case studies, Ms. Craig will share with us the leading edge of how Maryland can protect historic neighborhoods and communities from a future of rising tides.

There is a lot happening, and we hope you can join us!

Tours on the move this summer!

We’re enjoying a hot start to summer but before it gets really hot we’re squeezing in a few tours that combine Baltimore’s great heritage with a little outdoor activity. Tomorrow, June 24, we’re taking a walk through Baltimore’s LGBT heritage with our Charles Village Pride tour. On Sunday, June 25, we’re pedaling and talking our way from Cylburn Arboretum to Druid Hill Park and back again on The Enduring Value of Baltimore’s Parks: A Tour by Bike. And on Thursday, June 29 you can check out moving images with a screening of the 1981 16mm film “Memories” organized by the Greater Hampden Heritage Alliance.

Finally, on Friday, June 30, we’re partnering with Goucher College’s Historic Preservation Program to offer a truly unusual tour: a visit with project engineers as they move three one-thousand ton mid-century modern dormitories across campus. How in the world can they do that? We’ll get up close on this hard hat tour to find out! We hope you can join us.

P.S. You can also check out our photos from last week’s 2017 Preservation Awards Celebration at Lexington Market. Congratulations again to all of our award winners!

Join us on June 15 at Lexington Market for Preservation Awards, market tours, and great food!

If you haven’t already bought your tickets, you still have time to join us on the evening of Thursday, June 15 for our 2017 Awards Celebration. Lexington Market is kindly hosting us for an evening that includes tours of the “catacombs” under the west market, delicious food from Faidley’s, Mary Mervis and more market favorites, and a celebration of the best historic preservation work of the year. We are especially excited to congratulate this year’s award winners. The array of diverse and exceptional award-winning projects includes the rehabilitation of alley houses in East Baltimore, the Herring Run Archaeology project, and the meticulous restoration of grand rowhouses in Bolton Hill. We’ll have parking available in the surface lot next to the market, and with Light Rail and Metro Subway stops close by, there is every reason to get yourself to Lexington Market on June 15!

As we round out the month of June, we also hope you can join us on an upcoming tour. We have three Monumental City Tours on Sundays: June 11 is Downtown Landmarks and Lions; June 18 is Mount Vernon Place and the Washington Monument; and June 25 is Patterson Park Observatory and the Battle of Baltimore. On Saturday, June 24, we are exploring LGBTQ heritage with Charles Village Pride: LGBT Heritage Walking Tour. And finally, on June 25, we have our final bike tour of the spring: The Enduring Value of Baltimore’s Historic Parks: A Tour by Bike. We’ll see you outdoors in June!

Works of Art in the Past and the Artists Who Make Them Today

On two new tours this spring we are celebrating great art from Baltimore’s past and meeting the people who are making and teaching art in Baltimore’s present. On April 27, please join us on a visit to one of the grandest art collections in the city on our tour: Travel to the Gilded Age at Evergreen House. Evergreen House, once the home of Ambassador T. Harrison Garrett and his artist wife Alice Garrett, is a splendid building filled with the Garrett family’s art collection (including paintings by Degas and Picasso and one of the world’s largest collections of Tiffany glass).

On May 11, our tour of the Schuler School of Fine Arts is a chance to learn about a school that carries on the work of master Baltimore sculptor Hans Schuler. From Samuel Smith at the top of Federal Hill to Martin Luther near Lake Montebello, Schuler’s figurative monuments and sculptures adorn the city. Today, students learn the techniques of the Old World masters in the house and studio that has been part the Schuler family story for over a century. On our tour with the Schuler relatives and art instructors, we’ll see finished work by Schuler and works-in-progress by current students at the school.

Finally, we hope you can join us and our partners with the Herring Run Archaeology Project at our 2017 open house this Saturday, April 29. Project archaeologists Jason Shellenhamer and Lisa Kraus along with a great group of local volunteers are looking forward to sharing the story of the Eutaw manor house and the archaeology of the park with visitors from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm.

Get outside this spring with our Monumental City tours and more

Spring is here and I know you are all eager to get outside! The arrival of spring is a sign that we’re kicking off our 2017 Monumental City Tours with a climb up to the top the Patterson Park Observatory on April 23. In May, we return to the Baltimore Farmers’ Market & Bazaar where we offer tours of Jonestown and downtown landmarks on the first and second Sunday of the month through November.

This month, you can also join our Mount Vernon Pride tour of LGBTQ heritage from the original building of the Chase Brexton Health Center to the locations where early twentieth-century lesbian women helped shape some of Baltimore’s premier educational institutions. We’ll continue to explore downtown with Theatrical Baltimore: a walking tour with theater historian Bob Headley. Spend a morning learning about our city’s rich performing arts history, from vaudeville venues to historic movie houses.

If two wheels are your thing, we’re hosting our first spring bike tour on May 21: Florence Meets Baltimore By Bike: Gelato and Ice Cream. If you promised your sweetheart a trip to Florence but just can’t make it work, do the next best thing by joining our tour. You’ll learn why Baltimore is way more important than Florence in the history of frozen desserts.

Finally, don’t miss two upcoming events from our partners: tomorrow’s Opening Day for Trails and next weekend’s Everyday Utopias public art installation at Pool No. 2 in Druid Hill Park. Pool No. 2 (1921-1956) operated as a segregated pool in the historically black section of Baltimore’s Druid Hill Park. Everyday Utopias invites viewers to consider the promise of both real and imagined aspects of civic participation as they navigate their way through physical structures and spiritual spaces of the pool’s remains. Sheena M. Morrison, MFA Candidate in MICA’s Curatorial Practice Program, brings together eleven contemporary artists who respond to the palpable history of Pool No. 2 with imaginative wit, humor, and compassion. Please join Ms. Morrison on for the opening reception on Saturday, April 15, 4:00 pm to 8:30 pm.