From the humblest of beginnings, John H. Murphy Sr. rose to become the founder of the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, which had an office here at 1336 N Carey St in the 1910鈥檚. Murphy was born enslaved in Baltimore on Christmas Day, 1840. He was the son of Benjamin Murphy III, a whitewasher, and Susan Coby Murphy. Not much is known about his youth. In March, 1864 Murphy joined the 30th Regiment Infantry of the U.S. Colored Troops, Maryland Volunteers. In the army, he rose to the rank of first sergeant. Murphy fought in General Grant鈥檚 Wilderness campaign. Later, he was with General Sherman in North Carolina when the Union Army captured Confederate General Johnston鈥檚 troops. Murphy later wrote of the war:
I went in a slave and came out a freedman. I went in a chattel and came out with the blue uniform of my country as a guarantee of freedom, and a sergeant鈥檚 stripes on my arms to prove that there is a promotion for those who can earn it. After the war, Murphy returned to Baltimore a free man. Soon after he married Martha Elizabeth Howard in 1868. He went on to work for the Sunday school at the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church in Baltimore. In the late 1880s, Murphy became the superintendent of the District Sunday School and moved to Hagerstown, Maryland.聽 As superintendent he began to publish a Sunday school newspaper called Sunday School Helper to realize his dream of uniting all Maryland A.M.E Sunday schools. In 1892, Reverend William M. Alexander started a rival paper, the Afro-American, to promote his church, the Sharon Baptist Church. In 1897, Murphy purchased the Afro-American for $200 and merged it with the Sunday School Helper to create one paper. In its early years, unpaid family members staffed the paper. The popularity of the publication gave Murphy the opportunity to expand the paper鈥檚 paid employees to nearly 100 workers by the 1920s. He was also able to expand into multiple offices, including the Uptown office located at 1336 N Carey Street. By 1922, the Afro-American had grown large enough to become the biggest African American-owned newspaper on the East Coast and the third largest in the nation. Within its pages Murphy was an outspoken advocate for justice and exposing racism in areas such as housing, education, jobs, and public accommodations. In 1913, he was elected president of the National Negro Press Association. He also served as the president of the National Negro Publishers Association. Until his death in 1922, Murphy used the paper as a platform to advocate for the African American community.聽 At the time of his death, Murphy Sr left to his five sons what was then the largest black newspaper plant in the nation, operated and manned by 138 employees, with a circulation of 14,000 subscriptions. Out of all the brothers, Carl J. Murphy was selected to serve as chairman and publisher of the Afro-American. For 45 years, Carl Murphy worked tirelessly to grow the publication from a local weekly newspaper to a national daily chain. Under Carl Murphy the paper reached a peak weekly circulation of 235,000 newspapers in 1945.聽
Today, John Murphy鈥檚 family continues to uphold his legacy. The Baltimore Afro-American remains one of the oldest operating black family-owned newspapers in the United States. And although the original office was torn down, the Uptown office remains a poignant reminder of Murphy Sr.鈥檚 legacy as the first African-American newspaper magnate.聽The research and writing of this article was funded by two grants: one from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority and one from the Baltimore National Heritage Area.In almost every kitchen in Baltimore, and maybe Maryland, there is a tiny yellow, blue, and red tin of Old Bay seasoning. It is an essential part of local cuisine. Yet, most people are unaware of the spice鈥檚 dramatic Jewish history. Old Bay was created by Gustav Brunn, a Jewish immigrant who came to the United States after escaping from Nazi Germany.聽 On the night of Nov. 9, 1938, violent mobs across Nazi Germany and Austria burned and looted Jewish homes, businesses, hospitals, and synagogues in what would be known as Kristallnacht, or "The Night of Broken Glass." The Nazis also rounded up 30,000 Jewish men and sent them to concentration camps. Brunn was among those captured and sent to Camp Buchenwald. His family helped secure Brunn鈥檚 release by paying 10,000 marks to a lawyer who bailed him out. As soon as he was released, Brunn and his children left for the United States. A spice merchant, Brunn left with very little, but he insisted on taking his hand-crank spice grinder. In 1939, the Brunn family arrived in Baltimore and settled into an apartment at 2317 Eutaw Place. After arriving in America, Brunn wanted to re-enter the spice trade, but he had no capital. Brunn had to secure a loan from Katz American to open his spice business. Katz American was not a bank, it was another spice company. As a fellow Jewish spice merchant, Katz put profit aside to help Brunn start his business. After securing a loan from Katz American, Brunn created the Baltimore Spice Company. The company took up residence on the second floor of 26 Market Place; and, the hand-crank spice grinder began to turn once again.聽 Before Brunn created the Baltimore Spice Company, he had worked at McCormick until he was fired for being Jewish. Brunn鈥檚 son said that after McCormick learned Brunn was Jewish, he was promptly fired, and told to 鈥済o and see the Jewish charities.鈥 Although Brunn experienced rampant anti-semitism in his lifetime, he continued to persevere.聽 The Baltimore Spice Company began developing a crab seasoning around 1940. Brunn created the famous spice after noticing local crab steamers come to his shop to buy various spices. His shop at 26 Market Place was directly across from the Wholesale Fish Market. The crab steamers would then blend the spices together to season their crabs. Brunn was inspired by the crab steamers to create his own crab seasoning--Old Bay. Brunn added tiny amounts of various spices to his crab seasoning in order to be unique in an overly saturated crab spice market. According to Brunn鈥檚 son,聽 鈥淭hose minor things he put in there 鈥 the most unlikely things, including cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves and all kinds of stuff that had nothing to do with crabs at all 鈥 gave a background bouquet that he couldn鈥檛 have anticipated. Old Bay, per se, was almost an accident.鈥 In the very beginning, Brunn had trouble selling the spice mixture that would one day become synonymous with Baltimore. However, after giving samples to the local crab steamers, business began to pick up. By this time, the spice still had no name. Brunn named the spice after the Old Bay steamship line, which used to run out of Baltimore. After getting its name, the spice mix鈥檚 popularity continued to grow. Major companies, including McCormick, began to sell a similar product in a similar can.聽 The rivalry between the Baltimore Spice Company and McCormick over the rights to Old Bay did not end until five years after the death of Gustav Brunn. In 1990, the company sold the rights to the original Old Bay recipe to McCormick. The spice has continued to be a mainstay in grocery stores in Baltimore and across the entire Mid-Atlantic. In recent years, the spice mix has gained an almost cult-like popularity and has helped spawn the development of things such as: Old Bay apparel, vodka, and beer.聽 The spice is so quintessentially Maryland that a poll by Goucher College found that 鈥渙pinions toward Old Bay transcend party, age, race, gender, and ideological lines,鈥 said Mileah Kromer, director of the Sara T. Hughes Politics Center at Goucher. 鈥淎n overwhelming majority of Marylanders view it favorably.鈥澛 When Gustav Brunn created Old Bay in 1939, he thought he just created a great spice mixture. He did not know he would create a product that would become integral to the cultural fabric of Maryland. The research and writing of this article was funded by two grants: one from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority and one from the Baltimore National Heritage Area.
In 1890 Charles H. Latrobe, then Superintendent of Parks, designed the Observatory. The structure was intended to reflect the bold Victorian style of the day. From the top of the tower one can view downtown, Baltimore's many neighborhoods, the Patapsco River, the Key Bridge and Fort McHenry. Over time and due to natural decay, vandalism, and lack of maintenance funds, the Observatory was closed to the public in 1951 when the first of a series of partial renovations was attempted. At one point demolition was proposed as an option but thankfully the 1998 Master Plan for Patterson Park called for the complete restoration of the structure. This project was guided by the Friends of Patterson Park, in partnership with Baltimore City's Department of Recreation and Parks and many neighborhood volunteers. Completed in the spring of 2002, the Observatory now stands as an iconic structure for Patterson Park and Baltimore City and signified the renaissance of the community around Patterson Park.
The Canton Branch is one of four branch libraries, all designed by local architect Charles L. Carson, built by the Enoch Pratt Free Library in 1886. It stands alone, however, as the first to open and the only one of the original branch locations still in use as a library.
The branch library wasn't the first reading room to open in Canton. In 1879, Rev. J. Wynne Jones, a recent graduate from the Princeton seminary and pastor at Abbott Presbyterian Church, established the Workingmen's Institute at the corner of Ellwood Avenue and Elliott Street. The Institute maintained an impressive library: fifteen hundred books and over one hundred subscriptions to magazines and newspapers. As a trustee of the Workingmen's Institute, Enoch Pratt, according to later biographers, "realized the wonderful good that the small library was doing in this community and was convinced that such a service might be established for the benefit of every community. Enlarging upon this idea, Pratt planned with the city for a library system."
On February 15, 1886, two hundred and fifty people, including Enoch Pratt himself, crowded into the library reading room to hear Rev. Jones share the history of the Workingmen's Institute and the importance of the library to Canton Resident. Jones enjoyed the honor of being the first to borrow a book鈥攁 collection of poems by Sidney Lanier鈥攆rom the nearly nine thousand books found on the library shelves. In 1923, a large addition replaced the small backyard and flower garden behind the building. Near busy factories and blocks of handsome rowhouses, the Canton Branch had, in 1924, the highest circulation of any of the city's libraries.
Unfortunately, by the 1970s, the building's red brick exterior was painted white with gray trim and was surrounded by a bleak chain-link fence. As the library's centennial approached, Tom Canoles and members of the Canton Improvement Association organized to preserve the building. They received grants from the Maryland Historical Trust and Baltimore City, along with donations from waterfront developers, to restore the original brick, install a handsome wrought iron fence, and improve access with a new ramp and lift.
The Friends of the Canton Library, formed in February 1993, has continued to support and enhance the facilities and services of the library over the past fifteen years. The Friends helped organize a 125th birthday celebration for the branch in 2011 and raised $275,000 for a four-year, $2.9 million restoration completed just in time for the building's 130th anniversary in 2016. The group continues to organize regular programming on the people and history of Canton.
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The origins of this two-story frame church on Jefferson Avenue began in 1861 when a group of Black Baltimore County residents established the Saint James African Union First Colored Methodist Protestant Church. Today, the church is known as the St. James African Union Methodist Protestant Church and the building has stood on this site for over a century. Saint James is the second-oldest church operating in Towson and the oldest of the area鈥檚 Black congregations.
The original church members lived in East Towson鈥攁 small settlement founded by Black men and women who were held in slavery on Hampton estate before their emancipation in Maryland in 1864. Before the community had a dedicated church for worship, they held services in the homes of congregation members James Garrett and Frank and Ida Scovens. On October 17, 1881, the church building opened and for twenty-five years members gathered for regular worship in a modest one-story building. In 1906, a growing membership led to the addition of a second story to the building.
Immediately to the right of the church building sits a 173-year-old church bell鈥攁 relic from a church originally located in Govans. Today, Govans is a neighborhood in north Baltimore City that initially developed as a crossroads on the York-town Turnpike (built in 1810 to connect Baltimore to York, Pennsylvania). Cast in 1845, the bell was donated to the Govans church in 1875. For some period, the bell was used not only to remind worshipers of services but also to notify residents about the departure of the trolley cars on York Road.
For the members of St. James Church, the bell is an iconic symbol of the church鈥檚 long history of 10:00 am services鈥攍ed for over two decades by Reverend Joseph McManus. Rev. McManus presided over the church from 1961 to 1983. Every Sunday morning, he rang the bell twelve times in reference to the twelve tribes of Israel.
The church was temporarily renamed the St. James Methodist Community Church in the 1980s, but the church has since reverted to being called St. James A.U.M.P. Church. The building and congregation still holds services today under current Pastor Osborne Robinson, Jr.
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Constructed in 1908, Lutherville Colored School No. 24 is a simple two-room schoolhouse located on School Lane. Today, the building operates as a small museum of Maryland鈥檚 Black history and the appropriately named School Lane is a dead-end street located just a short distance away from a large highway interchange. From 1909 when the school first opened up until 1955, Black students enrolled in grades one through seven walked from nearby homes on Railroad and Seminary Avenues. Students came from Texas, Beaver Dam, Cockeysville, Riderwood, Ruxton, Brightside and Bare Hills, for their first seven years of education in Baltimore County鈥檚 racially segregated public schools.
The first three grades met in one room while, grades four through seven met in the second, larger room of the school. One teacher, Ms. Bea, taught the first three grades and two others, Mrs. Ross and Mr. Harris, taught grades four through seven. But the Lutherville school, like segregated schools throughout Baltimore and Maryland, was not only segregated but also inadequately funded.
The county school board paid Black teachers and administrators, including principal Roland Harris (who later served in World War II) and Mrs. Arabella Ross (who replaced Harris as principal), less than white teachers and administrators doing the same work. The school couldn鈥檛 afford updated teaching materials. The building lacked bathrooms forcing students and staff to rely on an outhouse year-round. Without enough space for social activities inside the school, extracurricular activities took place at the nearby Edgewood United Methodist Church.
In the early twentieth century, Black students graduating from the Lutherville school had few options to continue their education beyond seventh grade. In 1926, the county government operated six high schools for White students but offered no public high school for Black students. Black households in the county could send their children to Douglass High School in the city but were required to pay transportation costs and tuition totaling over $150 a year. Fifty students paid the fees and made the trip that year but, in 1927, the county instituted an examination for Black students that cut the number of eligible students down to just twelve.
Black parents pushed back immediately with over three hundred people joining a rally organized by the County-Wide Parent-Teacher Association of Baltimore County held in Towson鈥攂ut the discriminatory policy persisted. The construction of the county鈥檚 first Black high school in Towson (named after George Washington Carver) in 1939 provided a closer option but some students continued to take the test and pay out-of-district tuition to attend Booker T. Washington Junior High and Frederick Douglass High School in west Baltimore.
Lutherville Colored School closed in 1955 and the county officially desegregated public schools in 1956, allowing Black students in Lutherville to attend the historically white Lutherville Elementary on York Road. In 1994, Arthur and Helen Chapman purchased the property and converted it into a museum that continues to occupy the building today.
On July 4, 1828, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence and a director of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, laid the cornerstone for the Carrollton Viaduct and remarked, "I consider this among the most important acts of my life, second only to my signing the Declaration of Independence."
Completed in 1829, the railroad named the 300-foot stone structure for Charles Carroll of Carrollton. This bridge over the Gwynns Falls was the first major stream crossing as the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad headed west from its Pratt Street terminus. Worried about competition from canals, Baltimore's business leaders cast their lot with a new untested technology, railroads. Horses initially pulled the loads, but the B&O successfully introduced steam-powered locomotives and became known as "the Railroad University of the United States"
By 1880, the railroad helped make Baltimore a major livestock and coal terminal and the second largest port for grain in the nation. Carrollton Viaduct has endured and is now the world's oldest active railroad bridge.
Carroll Park is Baltimore's third oldest city park and was originally part of the enormous Mount Clare plantation owned by Charles Carroll, Barrister in the mid-eighteenth century. The park was the site of Camp Carroll during the Civil War and, in the 30 years prior to becoming a park, the area surrounding Mt. Clare was leased from the Carrolls and became Southwestern Schuetzen Park鈥攁 private recreation area used by Baltimore's German immigrant community.
In 1890, the City purchased 20 acres of the former estate to create Carroll Park and in 1906 engaged the Olmsted Brothers to develop a master plan. The famous firm鈥檚 recommendations respected the historic character of the west side, including the Mt. Clare mansion, while providing for sports facilities on the east, in keeping with the trend toward more active recreation for urban dwellers.
The Carroll Park Golf Course, on a separate parcel farther west, became the focus of Civil Rights protests over segregation and was integrated in 1951; it features a 9-hole executive course. The Gwynns Falls Trail passes through the edge of the golf course and the park.
Leon Day Park is named for Leon Day an outstanding player in the Negro Leagues who was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. A resident of southwest Baltimore, Day joined the Baltimore Black Sox in 1934 when African Americans could not play in the Major or Minor Leagues. He went on to excel as a second baseman and pitcher for several teams and returned to Baltimore in the 1940s as a member of the Elite Giants. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1995 just a few days before he died. Leon Day played every position in the field but catch, and he played them all magnificently.
From picnic and playground facilities to sports fields and courts, Leon Day Park serves as a gathering place for people of all ages in the Rosemont-Franklintown Road neighborhood. Formerly called Claverton, the area contained mills and slaughterhouses before becoming residential in the 1920s and 1930s. The community became known as Rosemont in the 1960s when it opposed plans to demolish 790 homes to make way for the I-70 highway.
Close beside the Gwynns Falls is Ellicott Driveway, completed by the city in 1917 as the kind of stream valley parkway envisioned by the Olmsted Brothers landscape architectural firm in 1904.
Ellicott Driveway was built on top of the millrace that once carried water to Three Mills operated by the Ellicott Brothers near Frederick Road. In the 1800s, twenty-six gristmills along the Gwynns Falls and others on the Jones Falls and Patapsco River contributed to Baltimore's first economic boom. Besides their Ellicott City mills, the Ellicotts built the Three Mills complex in this area and were partners in the five Calverton Mills upstream at Leon Day Park. The Ellicotts also helped build the Frederick Turnpike so wagons could carry their products to ships at their Inner Harbor wharf. The Ellicott Driveway was completed by the city in 1917 as the kind of stream valley parkway envisioned by the Olmsted Brothers landscape architectural firm in 1904. The diversion dam for the millrace created a dramatic waterfall: "Baltimore's Niagara Falls." In 1930, the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore praised the route, writing:
"so gracefully following the curves of the stream in Gwynn's Falls park [Ellicott Driveway]... adapts itself to the contours of the terrain and... takes full advantage of natural beauty."Today, the route is closed to cars and trucks and reserves its natural beauty for bicycles and pedestrians along the Gwynns Falls Trail.
Industries flourished in the lower Gwynns Falls Valley since the early 1700s, when the Baltimore Iron Works Company turned iron into nails and anchors and Dr. Charles Carroll's gristmills ground wheat into flour. The Union Stockyards, located south of Wilkens Avenue near the railroads from 1891 to 1967, brought "every hoof under one roof" in was was claimed to be the largest stockyard east of Chicago.
Nearby Wilkens Avenue is named for William Wilkens, a German-born entrepreneur who built a large factory complex in 1845 to the east where the Westside Shopping Center is located. The Wilkens Curled Hair Factory, which had as many as 1,000 employees and operated until the 1920s, processed animal hair from slaughterhouses to make mattresses and upholstery鈥攁nd, like many other industries, dumped its waste into the waterways flowing to the Chesapeake Bay. Wilkens built housing for some of his workers and provided land for the avenue that bears his name today.
Where the Gwynns Falls flows into the Patapsco's Middle Branch, countless Baltimoreans have come to work and to play over the years. Since the early 1700s this area his been home to mining operations, brickyards, glass factories, and other industries. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, residents came by streetcar to enjoy amusement parks and dance pavilions, picnic grounds and fish houses, swimming beaches and rowing clubs. Crowds watched the Baltimore Black Sox and Elite Giants of the Negro Leagues play at Westport Park and Maryland Park along South Russell Street.
In 1977, the city created the Middle Branch Park by consolidating existing shoreside parks and began restoring environmentally degraded sites. Ten years later, the Baltimore Rowing and Water Resources Center opened, reviving a tradition of rowing competitions on the Middle Branch.
Established in 1888 as the Druid Hill Conservatory, the Howard P. Rawlings Conservatory has grown from the original Palm House and Orchid Room to include three greenhouses, two display pavilions, and outdoor gardens. In 1874, Baltimore's park commissioners proposed the establishment of a botanical conservatory in Druid Hill Park and directed George A. Frederick, the park architect, to design and make plans for the new building. Abbott Kenny, a member of the committee for the conservatory, traveled to Europe to visit the famous Kew Gardens of London, a model for the new design. The idea was abandoned for a decade but then revived in 1885. Construction soon began on a structure of iron and wood with a Palm House at its center. The Conservatory opened August 26, 1888, to a well-received audience of about three hundred visitors. Holding steady through the years, the affectionately named Baltimore Conservatory was closed to the public in 2002 for a major renovation. The newly redesigned production houses were to include a Mediterranean House, a Tropical House and Desert House. The conservatory re-opened September 24, 2004, and shortly thereafter its official name was changed by law to the Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory & Botanic Gardens, in honor of the former Maryland House of Appropriations chair Pete Rawlings. The Conservatory is the second-oldest steel framed-and-glass building still in use in the United States.
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Although it imitates the arrangement of the U.S. Capitol with a central dome and symmetrical wings, the Baltimore City Hall is covered in French architectural elements, including banded rustication, arched windows, and a crowning Mansard roof. How did this come about?
Between 1861 and 1865, the U.S. Civil War stopped most building projects. By the time the war ended, tastes had changed. Although the Italianate style remained popular (especially in conservative Baltimore), the antebellum Greek and Gothic Revival styles faded away. Indeed, this whole era in American architecture bears a European name: 鈥淰ictorian,鈥 for the queen of Great Britain between 1837 and 1901. Victorian buildings showed off the new products of the industrial revolution then creating out a wealth of new building products: cheaper bricks and cut stone, encaustic tiles and terracotta, various forms of structural iron.
The Victorian style from France is named for the Second Empire of the Emperor Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, who styled himself Napoleon III. It was this Napoleon who extended the Louvre and laid out the boulevards and sewers that made Paris the most modern city in the world in the late nineteenth century. The Second Empire style became very popular for government buildings after the Civil War; it was sometimes called the 鈥淕eneral Grant鈥 style after the eighteenth President. In Baltimore, George A. Frederick鈥檚 design, completed in 1875, employed a good deal of cast iron, including the 227-foot tall dome designed by Wendel Bollman and cast by Bartlett, Robbins, and Company.
About seventy-five years after their construction, Victorian buildings inevitably came to be seen as downright ugly. In Baltimore, the construction of the Abel Wolman Municipal Building overshadowed City Hall, blocking any views from the north. In the 1970s, city officials seriously discussed demolishing City Hall. But wiser heads prevailed, and a prize-winning renovation equipped City Hall for continued use as the center of Baltimore鈥檚 government.
Constructed of tooled Indiana limestone, glass, steel, concrete, and granite, the Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery is at the center of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County campus both literally and figuratively. Since the library first opened in 1968, it has served as a focal point of the campus and UMBC students鈥 academic lives. In 1982, the building was named in honor of Dr. Albin O. Kuhn, the first chancellor of UMBC. Chancellor Kuhn helped to found and plan the University of Maryland campus in Baltimore County and took part in the early administration of the new campus. In 1965, Chancellor Kuhn hired his first full-time employee鈥攖he university鈥檚 first librarian, John Haskell, Jr. Haskell was only 24 at the time, coming to work straight out of graduate school and a few months of active duty in the Army Reserves. He spent many of the early months leading up to UMBC鈥檚 opening ordering books, hiring new employees, and creating a catalog ordering system. The campus master plan from that same year also noted the importance of the library:
鈥淭he building will be viewed on axis from the main approach drive, appearing unquestionably as the major building on campus.鈥In its early years, UMBC housed the library collections in different locations throughout the campus. Chancellor Kuhn鈥檚 house served as the catalog center for the library鈥檚 20,000 volume collection while other collection materials were held within Academic Building I. As the university鈥檚 holdings continued to grow, the UMBC administration began plans for the construction of a specifically designated library building, which would later become known as the Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery. Campus architects designed the library to grow with the university, making plans to build it in three phases. Phase 1, in 1968, brought all of UMBC鈥檚 library collections, which had previously been scattered across the campus, together into one central location. The new library Brutalist unfinished concrete exterior contrasted with an interior of brightly colored walls and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the pond. Baltimore Chapter of the American Institute of Architects recognized the design with their highest honors in 1975. Phase II opened in 1975 adding the library鈥檚 Special Collections department and a select collection of state and federal government documents to the library鈥檚 collection and continued the university鈥檚 efforts to expand its holdings. Phase III, the Library Tower, opened in 1995, increasing the library鈥檚 capacity further to 1,000,000 volumes. As the library has sought to grow and maintain its holdings, the building has also grown as a student-centered space. This role expanded with the completion of the Retriever Learning Center (RLC) in 2011. Student organizations, like the Student Government Association and the Graduate Student Association, advocated for a central group study space as early as the 1980s. The university administration responded by creating the RLC, a space open to UMBC students for collaborative learning and group study. As described by UMBC President Dr. Freeman Hrabowski in 2011, the RLC is 鈥渁nother example of UMBC鈥檚 innovation in teaching and learning.鈥
On a blustery winter day in December 1987, a small crowd of spectators gathered around the Field House at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). They had assembled for the unveiling of a life-size bronze sculpture of the young university鈥檚 mascot. The Retriever statue, aka the True Grit statue, currently located in the plaza in front of the Retriever Activities Center (RAC) continues to stand as a reminder of the student body鈥檚 pride in their university.
The Retriever was chosen as the school mascot in 1966 by the first class of UMBC. A competition was held and forty different suggestions were presented. After a university-wide vote, administrators selected the Chesapeake Bay Retriever, a dog breed native to Maryland, as the school鈥檚 official mascot. The Retriever has since gone on to become the name of the student newspaper, yearbook, and athletic teams.
In 1986, Alumna Paulette Raye, philosophy major and self-proclaimed dog-lover, was commissioned by UMBC administrators to construct a statue for the school鈥檚 20th anniversary, based on the university鈥檚 beloved mascot. Raye took several studio art classes during her time at UMBC, even earning three credits towards her degree, for creating the life-size bronze model of the Retriever. Raye鈥檚 鈥渃onception was that the dog should represent the study body鈥攁lert, intelligent, eager to learn and friendly.鈥 To capture this 鈥渁lertness,鈥 Raye designed a statue of True Grit that would stand upright and gaze straight ahead with his ears cocked.
Raye worked on the statue for almost two years, using a local five year old Chesapeake Bay Retriever named Nitty Gritty as her model. True Grit was the name of Nitty Gritty鈥檚 father, and in an interview with UMBC Magazine Raye recalled that she wasn鈥檛 exactly sure 鈥渨hy the mascot received that name [True Grit instead of Nitty Gritty]鈥 other than it sounded bold and strong鈥攍ike the [school鈥檚] team.鈥 Nitty Gritty later had the honor of pulling a black cloth off the statue of himself at the statue鈥檚 inauguration.
During the unveiling ceremony on December 7, 1987, UMBC Chancellor Michael Hooker instituted a new tradition for the young university: rubbing True Grit鈥檚 nose for good luck. At the unveiling, Hooker remarked, 鈥淭radition is exceedingly important. We used to be young [but] we are adults now. It is appropriate that we begin a new tradition.鈥 Since its unveiling, the Retriever statue has remained a beloved campus landmark, often greeting students with a student newspaper in its mouth or bedecked with a cap and gown during graduation. Students continue to stop by during finals to rub True Grit鈥檚 nose, now discolored due to almost thirty years of UMBC students and faculty taking part in a campus-wide tradition.
Now in its sixth decade, the St. Philip鈥檚 edifice still serves the vibrant community that built it, despite the exigencies of Baltimore鈥檚 history over the years since the building鈥檚 dedication in 1958.
The ordinary or quotidian in architecture often masks the unique, especially if time serves to dull the patina of something鈥檚 newness. St. Philip鈥檚 Lutheran Church is case-in-point: a faded Modernist gem, the church nevertheless embodies the remarkable story of its congregation鈥檚 persistence.
Now in its sixth decade, the St. Philip鈥檚 edifice still serves the vibrant community that built it, despite the exigencies of Baltimore鈥檚 history over the years since the building鈥檚 dedication in 1958.
Home to the nation鈥檚 second-oldest African American Lutheran congregation, St. Philip鈥檚 is also the first church in America to be built under the auspices of urban renewal. Accordingly, its design reflects both church-goers鈥 rapidly-changing expectations in the years after World War II and city planners鈥 embrace of modernist planning solutions. Set back from the street and moderately scaled鈥攍ike a suburban house鈥擲t. Philip鈥檚 Lutheran Church reflects mostly the ideas of its pastor at the time, the Rev. Francis B. Smith. Congregational lore and extant sketches by Rev. Smith attest to his direct involvement in the building鈥檚 design; the architect, Frederic Moehle, seems mostly to have translated Rev. Smith鈥檚 directions into the final, three-dimensional form.
Despite its modest exterior, St. Philip鈥檚 created considerable architectural drama within. Alone among Baltimore鈥檚 contemporary religious buildings, St. Philip鈥檚 low ceiling is illuminated extensively by continuous, floor-to-ceiling windows along both sides. An extensive clerestory window (now, unfortunately, covered over) washed the altar and its podium with 鈥渋neffable light.鈥 Otherwise, the original finishes of the church interior were entirely consistent with the Modernist鈥檚 creed: unfinished block and brick masonry (stacked bond), naturally-finished wood, linoleum tile floor, and serene abstraction throughout the space.
Rev. Smith and the St. Philip鈥檚 congregation fought hard to wrest those qualities from the City鈥檚 鈥淯rban Renewal Plan 3-A鈥 鈥 a.k.a. the 鈥淏roadway Redevelopment Plan鈥 鈥 laid out by architect Alex Cochran and first announced publicly in 1950. St. Philip鈥檚 had occupied a historic structure on Eden Street, designated by Plan 3-A to be demolished and appropriated for Dunbar High School鈥檚 expanded athletic fields. No provision was made in Cochran鈥檚 original plan to relocate St. Philip鈥檚, but a decade of persistent negotiation between Rev. Smith and Baltimore鈥檚 Redevelopment Commission resulted in the congregation鈥檚 purchase of the present site on Caroline Street. Construction proceeded apace, a year before Cochran鈥檚 own celebrated design for the nearby Church of Our Savior (now demolished) could begin.
Recent changes have tarnished St. Philip鈥檚 architectural shine: roof-top AC units, faux-wood paneling, 鈥渢raditional鈥 chandeliers, and much-needed heat-resistant glazing. An addition at the south-east corner provided accessibility for the disabled. But the building is still substantially the building it was in 1958. Especially on the exterior, the church鈥檚 bulk and orientation still express an ease belied only by Johns Hopkins Hospital鈥檚 looming physical presence immediately to the east. What appears 鈥渜uotidian鈥 is, therefore, merely that superficial change wrought by time; what is of interest at St. Philip鈥檚 remains entirely present, if just below the surface.
On the west side of Druid Lake, opposite of the Moorish Tower, stands an imposing statue. At nearly thirty feet from the ground to the tip of the sword, the Wallace the Scot statue strikes an imposing figure. Bearing little resemblance to Mel Gibson鈥檚 鈥淏raveheart,鈥 the question remains of why a statue of a national Scottish hero is in Druid Hill Park. Beginning in 1905, the St. Andrew鈥檚 Society of Baltimore, or the Scottish Society, has used the Wallace the Scot statue as a site of pilgrimage. Gathering at the monument on St. Andrew鈥檚 Day, the anniversary of real William Wallace鈥檚 death, and the founding of their organization in 1806, members of the society wear traditional clothing (such as kilts or capes) and celebrate their heritage as Scottish Americans. By the 1850s, more than 100,000 Scottish immigrants were living in the United States and, between 1890 and 1910, this number grew to over a million. Successful Baltimore banker William Wallace Spence was proud of his heritage as a Scottish immigrant and claimed to be a distant descendant of William Wallace. Considering Wallace a personal hero as well as a national one, he shared how he admired Wallace鈥檚 character and saw him as a 鈥渃hampion of freedom whose memory not only Scotland, but all the world should honor." As the leader of the Scottish resistance against English rule, the original William Wallace spent most of his life battling with English forces for Scottish independence. His takeover of Stirling Castle is considered by many historians to be the first major victory for the Scottish resistance. Unfortunately, his victory was short lived and after a defeat at the Battle of Falkirk, Wallace was taken captive and executed in 1305. The statue itself is cast in bronze, a perfect replica of the famous William Wallace statue that stands on Abbey Craig in Scotland. Originally sculpted by D.W. Stevenson in 1881, Spence commissioned his replica at a large scale to make the figure seem more dramatic and imposing. The figure stands at an impressive fourteen feet tall, from his feet to the tip of his raised sword. The sculptor specifically chose the pose for its symbolic meaning鈥擶allace supposedly struck this pose at the Abbey Craig as he watched the army of Edward I gather before the Battle of Stirling Bridge. Stevenson also designed the pedestal upon which the Druid Hill Park statue now rests. The sixteen-foot tall granite base was carved of Maryland granite and is engraved with the inscription "William Wallace, Patriot and Martyr for Scottish Liberty, 1305."
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Designed and built by George Frederick in 1870, the Moorish Tower remains an impressive sight for anyone visiting Druid Hill Park or driving on the Jones Falls Expressway. The structure stands over thirty feet tall with eighteen-inch wide solid marble walls. Inside, early visitors found a spiral iron staircase leading to an observation deck with an astonishing view of Jones Falls valley and the city beyond.
For decades, cyclists, pedestrians, and carriage riders enjoyed the tower as a place to rest and look out over the city. In 1910, visitors crowded into the tower, lined the walkway and covered the hillside to watch the dedication of the Union Soldiers and Sailors memorial. Later that same year, picnickers and families traveled to the Moorish Tower searching for the best vantage point to view an airship as it flew over Baltimore.
As time went on and the tower began to deteriorate, the Park commissioners debated dismantling the structure. Not only was the tower considered to be 鈥渋n the way,鈥 but the rusted iron staircase and crumbling walls were viewed as a safety hazard for those visitors hoping to still use it as an observation deck. Fortunately, the high cost of demolition and enduring affection for a local landmark encouraged the preservation of the Moorish Tower.
The city removed the rusted staircase, sealed off the entrance, and reinforced loose blocks and the base of the tower. The renewal of this iconic landmark has helped to encourage a broader revitalization of Druid Hill Park supported by residents, park advocates, and Baltimore City.
Of the many Jewish institutions in East Baltimore, the Jewish Educational Alliance at 1216 East Baltimore Street is one of the most fondly remembered. The organization formed in 1909 when the Daughters in Israel merged with the Macabbeans, a similar organization serving local boys.
The JEA building, donated by the Levy family, opened in 1913. It immediately became a refuge where local adults and children participated in activities that included English classes; art, dance, and music programs; citizenship, business, and job training; and athletic, literary, and social clubs. There was also a nursery, kindergarten, health clinic, and rooftop playground.
In 1951, with Jewish families gone from the neighborhood, the JEA merged with related organizations to form the Jewish Community Center (JCC), located in northwest Baltimore, and this building was sold to the maritime Seafarer鈥檚 Union. It later became an adult day care center. Through the years, the building was altered so that the original brick facade is no longer visible but it is still the same building that served thousands of Jewish residents in East Baltimore.
with research support from Jewish Museum of Maryland
Today, the entire south side of the block between Exeter and Lloyd is occupied by the Helping Up Mission, a transitional housing and recovery center which has recently completed renovation of the several historic buildings that it occupies. Their building at 1017-1021 E. Baltimore Street has long history of providing care to the residents of East Baltimore since it first opened in 1877 as the Presbyterian Eye, Ear & Throat Charity Hospital.
The hospital鈥檚 mission was 鈥渢o serve the suffering poor of East Baltimore.鈥 By the early 1900s, when tuberculosis was rampant in the neighborhood, its patients included many Russian Jewish families.
Across Baltimore Street from the hospital stood the Brith Sholom Hall at 1012 E. Baltimore Street (demolished in the fall of 1998. A self-help institution for Russian Jewish immigrants, the Independent Order of Brith Sholom formed in 1902. Under the leadership of Cabman Cohen, it helped newly arriving 鈥済reenhorns,鈥 raised money for Jewish causes at home and abroad, and served as headquarters for men鈥檚 lodges and women鈥檚 auxiliaries. It moved to this location in 1914.
Attman鈥檚 Delicatessen at 1019 E. Lombard Street is one of just a few delis the remain at the heart of the old Lombard Street market that once stretched from Albemarle Street to Central Avenue. Imagine New York鈥檚 famed Lower East Side, minus the tenements. Here, Russian immigrants became fish sellers offering fresh carp in white-tiled pools; poultry dealers selling live chickens, ducks, and geese from wooden cages; bakers and grocers; dry goods merchants, and shochets (a slaughterer who follows Jewish religious laws when killing animals).
Food has a long history at 1019 E. Lombard Street. After starting their business on Baltimore Street in 1915, Harry and Ida Attman purchased this building in the early 1930s. They bought it from Nathan and Elsie Weinstein, whose grocery business also dated back to 1915. Before that, around 1910, Russian-born Joseph Lusser sold fish and poultry here. His family shared the house with two other Russian Jewish families.
The opposite side of Lombard Street was occupied from the 1930s through the 1970s by the well-known Tulkoff鈥檚 horseradish plant, now located in Dundalk. Another local fixture, David Yankelove, sold chickens on the north side of the street until the 1980s. David鈥檚 father, Louis, had been a butcher here beginning in the early 1900s.
The next row down from Attman鈥檚 at 1005-1011 E. Lombard is an early block of houses with steeply pitched roofs that suggest they were built before the Civil War. The deep-back buildings are later additions, constructed to accommodate immigrant families in search of affordable housing. These houses speak volumes about commercial life on the turn-of-the century Lombard Street. From the 1910 census, we learn that 1105 housed a grocer, 1007 was an Italian-owned fruit store, 1009 featured a butter and egg business, and 1011 was a poultry dealer.
The empty space to the right of Attman鈥檚 was formerly Smelkinson鈥檚 Dairy. During the Riots of 1968 following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Smelkinson鈥檚 burned to the ground. However, most of Lombard Street survived the riots with little damage and the street remained vital until the late 1970s, when a combination of inner city decline and the rise of the suburban shopping mall caused its small family businesses to close.
In the early 1900s, the Labor Lyceum at 1023 E. Baltimore Street was a busy union hall and neighborhood cultural center. Americans once used the term 鈥渓yceum鈥 to describe public halls used for lectures and meetings. The Labor Lyceum was one of many halls serving working class immigrants. Local men and women came here to read newspapers, socialize, and discuss job prospects. During strikes, which occurred frequently, the Labor Lyceum became the center for organizing union members, planning strategy and garnering public support.
In March 1913, more than one hundred East Baltimore female garment workers gathered at the Labor Lyceum before marching to a downtown train station, where they joined other women鈥檚 groups on their way to Washington, D.C., for a demonstration in favor of working women鈥檚 rights and female suffrage. Today, the Lyceum is the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg building, part of the Helping Up Mission complex.
A few steps away stands the former home of the Arbeiter Ring, more commonly known as the Workmen鈥檚 Circle. Established in 1898, the 1,200-member Workmen鈥檚 Circle was the center of Jewish socialist and labor activities for decades and moved to 1029 E. Baltimore Street in 1930. From 1909 to the early 1920s, the same building housed Talmud Torah, Baltimore鈥檚 first large Hebrew school. Founded in 1889 by recently arrived Russian Jews, the Hebrew Free School, as it was known, attracted students from very poor families and often provided shoes and clothing.
On a vacant lot facing the McKim Center, once stood a mid-nineteenth century Greek revival townhouse that served as the Jewish Working Girls Home in the early 1900s. The home at 1200 East Baltimore Street was a boarding house operated by the Daughters in Israel, founded in 1890 to aid immigrant girls and daughters of immigrants.
The adjoining vacant lot at 1208 East Baltimore Street was the former site of the acclaimed Russian Night School, run by Baltimorean Henrietta Szold, who later achieved fame as the founder of Hadassah, the Zionist women鈥檚 organization. Szold鈥檚 work with the Russian Night School reaffirmed her commitment to the often-despised Eastern European Jewish immigrants, whom she found to be intelligent, cultured, and well-versed in history and literature.
The Russian Night School closed in 1898 after city officials assured its directors that public night schools for immigrants would soon open.
with research support from Jewish Museum of Maryland
This building was slated for demolition in 2023.聽
Looking up at this large, handsome red brick and stone building across Baltimore Street, one can just make out the remnants of 鈥淗endler Creamery Company鈥 written across the front fa莽ade. Manuel Hendler (1885-1962) opened this ice cream manufacturing plant in 1912. Born to Jewish immigrants and raised on a Baltimore County dairy farm, Hendler became a household name in Baltimore. His popular ice cream attracted the attention of the New Jersey-based Borden Company, which bought his operation in 1928.
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In the early 1900s, more than 600 people lived in the 70 houses on just a single block of Lombard Street between Lloyd and Central Avenue. For example, two households lived in 1139 E. Lombard Street in 1910. The Bergers consisted of Morris, a 55-year-old pants presser; his 50-year-old wife Eva; their 18-year-old daughter Fannie, a coat operator; their newlywed son, 26-year-old Harris, a pants maker; and Harris鈥檚 wife Rebecca, age 20. The Sundicks included 36-year-old Max, a pants presser; his 35-year-old wife Sarah; and their four children ages 6 months to 10 years.
As they made the difficult economic and cultural adjustment to life in America, struggling Jewish immigrants like the Bergers and Sundicks often relied on the many charitable organizations run by uptown German Jews. One of the best known, the Hebrew Friendly Inn and Aged Home (which later became Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital) began in 1890. In the early 1900s, it was located at 1153 E. Lombard Street, just east of Weiss Deli.
On the site of what is today Lenny鈥檚 Deli, Louis Herman operated a shvitz bad (Russian bath) in the early 1900s at 1116 E. Lombard. While very few homes featured hot water or indoor bathrooms, going to the Russian baths was generally an indulgence reserved for special occasions. For most residents, bathing meant a trip to the Walters Free Public Bath on High Street near Pratt (demolished 1953) where a nickel bought a shower, soap and a towel.
Albemarle Square is a new residential development that makes up virtually all the housing in the Jonestown neighborhood today. Albemarle Square opened in 2006 on the footprint of the old Flag House Courts public housing project.
The history behind Albemarle Square is a story of urban change and revitalization. Upwardly mobile Jewish immigrants began to move out of the neighborhood in the 1920s. From the 1930s to the 1950s, the area housed a diverse population of the working poor: black and white, Italians, Jews, and others. Declared 鈥渂lighted鈥 by city officials, the neighborhood鈥檚 sagging old row houses were torn down and replaced by Flag House Courts in 1955. The public housing project鈥檚 mix of three massive high-rise apartment buildings and 15 low-rise buildings lasted until 2001, its final years plagued by crime and neglect.
Realizing that 鈥渨arehousing鈥 the poor in vast concrete structures was a failed solution to poverty, city officials demolished Flag House Courts and designed Albemarle Square as an innovative mixed-income development with architecture that echoes the row houses of old. The residents of the development now include both homeowners and tenants.
The history of delicatessens in East Baltimore is not limited to Lombard Street. In the thoughtfully restored 800 block of East Baltimore Street, Harry Goodman established one of the city鈥檚 earliest delicatessens at 825 E. Baltimore Street around 1905 and Herman Buderak followed with a delicatessen at #813 around 1910. In 1915, Jacob H. Sussman, a 23-year-old immigrant from Minsk, moved to 905 E. Baltimore where he operated the New York Import Company.
It is at 923 E. Baltimore where Sussman and Carl Lev went into business together in 1926 as importers, wholesalers, and retailers of 鈥渁ppetizing delicatessen and all kinds of herring, smoked fish, and imported candies.鈥 In the buildings between Sussman鈥檚 two businesses, two of Baltimore鈥檚 oldest delicatessens operated before 1910: Harry Caplan鈥檚 at 915 and Frank Hurwitz鈥檚 at 919. Caplan moved his deli several times before settling near Mikro Kodesh Synagogue in the 1920s.
One of the largest businesses on the West Side in the early twentieth century the Baltimore Bargain House鈥攁 mail-order wholesale business that employed over a thousand people and earned profits in the millions that grew to become the fourth largest wholesalers in the county. Driven by the devotion of Jewish Lithuanian immigrant Jacob Epstein, the Baltimore Bargain House became a hub for Southern Jewish merchants and a local business community. When firm's grand showroom at West Baltimore and North Liberty Streets opened in 1911, a crowd of 500 local businessmen, the Mayor of Baltimore, and the Governor of Maryland all attended the dedication. After spending years himself as an itinerant peddler, traveling throughout Western Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, Jacob Epstein first opened a small wholesale store in Baltimore in 1881. Epstein focused his attention on the American South, working specifically with Jewish peddlers and merchants. In the early 1900s, Epstein treated hundreds of merchants to annual visits to Baltimore to restock and view new merchandise. Arriving from North Carolina, Tennessee, and across the South, these merchants helped grow a successful and extensive business in Baltimore. Between 1881 and 1929 the Baltimore Bargain House was one of the most significant businesses in Baltimore, with gross sales over $34 million in 1921 alone, comparable to over $410 million today. To operate the Baltimore Bargain House, Epstein also built a local community of employees, which included over 1,600 people. The workforce was relatively diverse, comprising of immigrants from various countries as well as industry experts from across the nation. Many workers remained employed at the Baltimore Bargain House for decades. Although remarkable for his considerable business acumen and the success of the Baltimore Bargain House, the business' founder, Jacob Epstein was also well known for his extensive charitable donations to local Jewish groups and to institutions like the Baltimore Museum of Art.
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Construction on the Battle Monument began on September 12, 1815, a year to the day after Baltimore soundly defeated the British in the War of 1812, and the monument endures as a commemoration of the attack by land at North Point and by sea at Fort McHenry. In addition to serving as the official emblem for the City of Baltimore on the city flag, the work is extraordinary in the history of American monument building for a number of reasons. Architecturally, it is considered to be the first Egyptian structure in the United States with a base, designed by French-born architect Maximilian Godefroy, to look like an Egyptian sarcophagus. The base sits on 18 layers of marble, symbolizing the 18 states that then belonged to the Union. The main column is of Roman design and depicts a fasces: a bundle of rods held together with bands in a symbol of unity. In an age when the United States had few public monuments at and when war memorials focused on generals and commanders, the Battle Monument stood out for its focus on the common soldier recognizing all 39 of the fallen soldiers, regardless of their rank, in a ribbon of names spiraling up the central shaft. Italian sculptor Antonio Capellano created Lady Baltimore 鈥 one of the oldest monumental sculptures in the country. She wears a crown of victory on her head and holds a laurel wreath in her raised hand as a symbol of victory over the British. In her lowered hand, she holds a ship's rudder as a testament to Baltimore's nautical role in the war. Both arms are now prosthetics after having been blown off in storms. Both also were created by well-known Baltimore artists. The raised hand with the wreath is the work of Hans Schuler, and the lowered hand with the rudder is by Rueben Kramer. The same year that the monument was adopted as Baltimore's emblem, it also helped give rise to the city's nickname as "The Monumental City." In 1827, President Adams visited Baltimore and stayed at a nearby hotel. The Battle Monument had been completed and work was underway for the nation's first public monument to President Washington in "Howards Woods," soon to become the Mt. Vernon neighborhood. At a dinner with dignitaries and veterans from the war, President Adams gave the final toast of the evening: "Baltimore, the Monumental City: may the days of her safety be as prosperous and happy as the days of her danger have been trying and triumphant!" Baltimore's new monuments made an impression on the President, and enough to spark a name that has lasted nearly 200 years.
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