New Monumental tours of Baltimore history and architecture – Sundays from April to November

Looking for a fun activity on a Sunday morning? Friends and family coming to town and you’d like to show off the best of Baltimore? Join us for a Monumental City tour!

We are expanding our Looking Up Downtown tours at the Baltimore Farmer’s Market walking tours into a new tour series highlighting the history and architecture of four iconic Baltimore landmarks & neighborhoods almost every Sunday morning from April to November.

First Sunday – Downtown Landmarks and Lions

Courtesy Library of Congress, Historic American Building Survey.Come with us to find a piece of the Berlin Wall, a War of 1812 cannon ball mounted on a Conestoga wagon hitch, and over a hundred lions looking down at you from the tops of Baltimore’s buildings.

Second Sunday – Jonestown and the Shot Tower

Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.Walk with us just a few blocks east of the Baltimore Farmer’s Market to explore one of the oldest neighborhood’s in the city and get inside the famed Phoenix Shot Tower—the tallest structure in the United States until 1846.

Third Sunday – Mount Vernon and the Washington Monument

Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.Take a short stroll around Mount Vernon Place to hear the stories of local residents including the owners of the B&O Railroad, the founders of the Walters Art Museum, and the wealthy owners of Mercantile Bank. End the tour with a climb up the newly renovated 200-year old Washington Monument! This tour begins on July 19.

Fourth Sunday – Battle of Baltimore and the Patterson Park Observatory

Patterson Park Pagoda by Smallbones, 2012 March 14. Wikimedia Commons.Climb the stairs of the Patterson Park Observatory and enjoy an unparalleled panoramic view revealing the fortifications where Baltimore defeated the British during the War of 1812, the home of the original butcher on Butcher’s Hill, and Patterson Park’s rich history from the early 19th century up through the present day.

We hope you can come out and join us for all four tours this year. Find more details or register on our events calendar.

Our Monumental City tours are supported by the Baltimore National Heritage Area and our partners: the Friends of Patterson Park, Carroll Museums, and the Mount Vernon Place Conservancy. Special thanks to all of our volunteer tour guides who help us bring Baltimore’s landmarks to life!

Springtime is here! Check out our Baltimore by Foot tours from Mount Washington to Pigtown

The first day of spring is here (even if it arrives with a bit of snow) and it’s time for our annual Baltimore by Foot neighborhood walking tours. This year, we’re thrilled to be touring five quite different neighborhoods with resident experts and local historians. Come on one tour or come on them all!

If you missed our Mount Vernon Love Stories Valentine’s walking tour in February, you’re in luck. A cold alert forced us to cancel but we rescheduled with Jamie Hunt to lead the tour again on Sunday, April 12 with a morning and afternoon option. Finally, don’t miss our upcoming tour of the 1889 Jenkins House on Maryland Avenue on March 26 for a look into this historic orphanage that has helped generations of Baltimoreans.

This Saturday! Meet Baltimore’s historic homeowners and learn new ways to help your house

This Saturday, we are partnering with Retrofit Baltimore and Live Baltimore to host our very first historic homeowner social. Stop by Second Chance anytime from 10:00 am to 11:30 am to enjoy coffee, donuts, and answers to all your questions about weatherization, historic tax credits, and home buying in Baltimore City.

This event is also your first chance to sign up for the 2015 Baltimore Historic House Co-op. The co-op is a way for homeowners to save money on weatherization services through Retrofit Baltimore. For each home-owner who signs up before April 25 and pledges to complete their project by the fall, Retrofit’s contractors are offering a 1% discount – up to a 15% discount for everyone who participates. Learn more about the benefits of weatherization for historic properties or sign up for the Historic House Co-op today.

This new partnership is just one of many new resources that we’ve put together for historic home-owners over the past few months. Check out new or recently updated resources including:

We even have a new resource guide just for homeowners – a growing online toolkit  for the thousands of home-owners who preserve historic neighborhoods. If you have questions or suggestions for how we can help historic homeowners in Baltimore, please get in touch. And don’t forget to join us at Second Chance on Saturday morning!

New heritage tours from North Avenue to Thames Street

After a chilly February, we hope you will warm up with us next month on our new heritage tours in Station North and Fell’s Point.

We’re thrilled offer a tour of the Centre Theater on March 4 led by Jubilee Baltimore’s Executive Director Charlie Duff who is leading an ambitious rehabilitation project for the building. Jubilee and their partners at Johns Hopkins University and MICA are transforming this long-neglected Station North landmark into a home for film education and arts programming. On March 26, the Women’s Housing Coalition is opening up the grand Margaret Jenkins Mansion on Maryland Avenue for a unique tour of a former orphanage turned into a transitional home for women in 2008.

At the end of March we are launching a new series of walking tours in Fell’s Point in partnership with the Preservation Society to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the construction of the Robert Long House. Take a deep dive into the history of Fell’s Point on our tours and the Preservation Society lectures on topics including economic development, African-American heritage, and immigration. Distinguished local historian and former state archivist Dr. Edward Papenfuse, is leading the first tour in the series – Fell’s Point as Boomtown – on March 29.