Tag: Doors Open Baltimore

A stone sculpture of a horse sitting on an abstract wave with columns in the background.

Enjoy the fall weather on a unique tour this October

Fall weather is perfect for going new places and exploring the city by bike and bus. We have three new tours lined up over the next few weeks including a beer history themed bike tour, a classical concert at a classical landmark, and a bus tour with local architect Tom Liebel for Doors Open Baltimore.

Baltimore Beer Week 2017 is coming up and Dr. Ralph Brown has volunteered to lead a morning ride on Saturday, October 14 covering breweries and beer-drinkers from the past. The bike tour ends with a sampler flight of beers at the Heavy Seas Alehouse (price included with registration), where we’ll hear from some of the folks making beer in Baltimore today.

The next day, October 15, we’ll be at the War Memorial Building for a tour where we can check out the recent window restoration of this historic landmark and then sit down to enjoy a performance by the Hopkins Symphony Orchestra. We’re excited to partner on this program with the orchestra and to offer a second performance on December 3 with new selections and soloists from the JHU Choral Society and Baltimore School for the Arts chorus.

Finally, you can close out the month with a Doors Open bus tour of local architecture and history from downtown to West Baltimore and back again led by Tom Liebel, architect and chair of Baltimore’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation. Our ride will include stops at six wonderful historic places: the 1814 Peale Museum, Union Baptist Church on Druid Hill Avenue, the Arabber Center off of Pennsylvania Avenue, the 1806 St. Mary’s Seminary Chapel in Seton Hill, the Le Mondo art and performance space on Howard Street, and the War Memorial Building near City Hall by architect Laurence Hall Fowler.

Doors Open Baltimore now includes a full weekend with free open houses and self-guided tours of over fifty sites on Saturday, October 28 and dozens of special events and guided tours on Sunday, October 29. We hope you can be part of this fun annual event!

10 Light Street Detail

Doors Open Baltimore bus tour and Baltimore’s beer brewing history by bike

We still have a few seats open on our Doors Open Baltimore Bus Tour this Saturday, October 22 and we’d love to have you come along. From 9:30 am to noon, we’ll visit four fantastic historic buildings with architect and preservation commission chair Tom Liebel. The stops include the cavernous Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, the sculptor’s paradise Schuler Studio, St. Ignatius Church and its glorious architecture, and 10 Light Street, perhaps Baltimore’s grandest Art Deco building.

Of course, these are just a few of the over fifty sites you can see during Doors Open Baltimore this Saturday. Be sure to check out our Explore Baltimore Heritage tour to learn more about the history and architecture of these landmark buildings.

We also wanted to let you know: our 2016 Fall Lecture celebrating 100 years of the National Park Service is rescheduled to from Thursday, November 3 to Wednesday, November 2. The talk by Ms. Joy Beasley, the Park Service’s Deputy Director for Cultural Resources, still starts at 7:00 pm (with a wine and cheese reception following) and is still at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore. We hope you can join us to hear how the National Park Service has changed how it manages some of our country’s most precious cultural resources over the last century and what it is planning for the next one.

Finally, if you can ride a bike, we hope you can join us on the morning of Saturday, October 29, 2016 for a pedaling tour of all things beer. From Baltimore’s Barnitz Brewery in 1748 to today’s Union Craft Brewery in Hampden, we’ll get a little exercise and learn about our city’s rich brewing history. The tour will start and end at Union Craft Brewery.

Celebrating the National Park Service Centennial at our Fall Lecture

America’s national parks have been called the best idea our country has ever had. The National Park System includes hundreds of parks and millions of acres—everything from small urban parks to great expanses of wilderness. This year their chief steward, the National Park Service, turns 100 years old. Please join us for a discussion of how the Park Service grew from a small office in 1916 into today’s force for preserving natural and cultural heritage. Our speaker, Ms. Joy Beasley, is the National Park Service’s Deputy Associate Director for Cultural Resources, Partnerships, and Science, the agency’s designated Federal Preservation Officer, and luckily for us is also a Baltimorean.

The talk is on Wednesday, November 2 at 7:00 pm with a wine and cheese reception following. Our host is the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore, a historic treasure of its own.

Doors Open Bus Tour on October 22

Doors Open Baltimore

We enjoy getting a chance to peek inside dozens of great buildings during the annual Doors Open Baltimore event so much that this year we’re teaming up with event sponsors the Baltimore Architecture Foundation and AIA Baltimore to host a guided bus tour to explore five of the featured places in depth. Join preservation architect Tom Liebel, who also chairs the city’s historic preservation commission, as we hop from site to site on a journey down Charles Street and learn what makes these places fantastic.

Free parking is available at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen. The member rate for this tour is available for members of Baltimore Heritage, Baltimore Architecture Foundation, and AIA Baltimore.

Don’t forget that you can learn more about Doors Open Baltimore sites with our Explore Baltimore Heritage tour. You can also download the recently updated Explore Baltimore Heritage app for iOS or Android.

Photos: Exploring Industrial Heritage in Woodberry for Doors Open Baltimore 2014

Thank you to the nearly 500 people came out and participated in Doors Open Baltimore 2014 tours this past weekend. Congratulations to AIA Baltimore on an exciting first year and we are excited to continue our partnership for Doors Open Baltimore in 2015. In thehistoric mill village of Woodberry, the Greater Hampden Heritage Alliance offered a full day of walking tours led by Nathan Dennies including stops at Clipper Mill and Union Mill. Participants had the chance to pick up the brand-new Greater Hampden History Tour brochure available now along the Avenue.

Don’t miss the chance to meet other history-lovers and preservationists in the Hampden area at the Greater Hampden Heritage Alliance holiday celebration on December 12!