A Walk Around Baltimore’s Mount Vernon

 Baltimore
May 202024
 

May 2024

The George Washington Monument of Baltimore.

This Washington Monument has graced Baltimore’s historic Mount Vernon neighborhood since 1829. It was based on a design submitted by architect Robert Mills. The 178-foot-tall landmark is the first in the U.S. dedicated to President George Washington.  Four small parks surround the monument.

Washington faces south towards Annapolis and is depicted resigning his commission as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, an act that took place in the Old Senate chamber in the Maryland State House in Annapolis on December 23, 1783. The statue was carved by Italian-born sculptor Enrico Causici, who previously had been employed to carve reliefs for the United States Capitol.

A lion was sculpted by Antoine-Louis Barye (1795-1875) on one of the parks surrounding the Washington Monument. The Lion is from the collection of William Thompson Walters, whose museum also sits on one of the four parks.

The Peabody Library

Also, sitting along one of the parks, you will find the magnificent Peabody Library.

The Peabody Library

The library’s interior is often regarded as one of the most beautiful libraries in the world, and I agree. It was completed in 1878 and designed by Baltimore architect Edmund G. Lind. The monumental neo-Greco interior consists of a 61-foot-high atrium towering over an alternating black and white slab marble floor. This is all surrounded by five tiers of ornamental black cast-iron balconies (produced locally by the Bartlett-Hayward Company).

The library houses over 300,000 volumes, focusing on texts from the 19th century.

The Garret-Jacobs Mansion

The Garret-Jacobs Mansion

Built in 1853 by Samuel George for Mary Frick Garrett Jacobs, who, with her husband Robert Garrett, transformed the home into a prime example of the Gilded Age mansions of the city.

Robert and Mary lived in their row house for ten years while Robert worked in the railroad business. Robert Garrett became president of the B & O in 1884. Prompted by their growing business, social responsibilities, and money, the Garretts decided to enlarge their home. So they engaged the services of Gilded Age architect Stanford White of the architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White. The renovations would continue for thirty-two years until the house included over forty rooms, sixteen fireplaces, and one hundred windows.

Mosaics tiles in the entryway

The carved vestibule panels, decorative work, and staircase that rises from the vestibule were the work of the Herter Brothers of New York, furniture and interior wood design specialists.

Tiffany provided large stained glass windows and the skylight at the top of the stairs.

The mantel of a fireplace in one of the many rooms

Mary Elizabeth Garret – painting by John Singer Sargent

Mary Elizabeth Garrett (March 5, 1854 – April 3, 1915) was the youngest child and only daughter of the Garretts.  Mary Garrett was a formidable woman and worth getting to know.  In 1893, she donated money to start Johns Hopkins University Medical School on the condition that the school would accept female students “on the same terms as men.”

She founded Bryn Mawr School, a private girls preparatory school in Baltimore. She generously donated to Bryn Mawr College of Pennsylvania with the requirement that her intimate friend Martha Carey Thomas be the president.

Garrett was very involved in the Women’s Suffrage Movement. In 1906 she hosted the National American Woman Suffrage Association’s convention in her Mount Vernon home. Attendees included Baltimore college women and notable suffragists, such as Susan B. Anthony.

The Walters Museum

Memento Mori in the Walters Museum of Baltimore

One of the highlights of my trip was The Walter’s Museum.

As with many private collections, the pieces are far-ranging and eclectic. This museum is no different, but it is so excellent in its curation and pieces that it is worth at least one-half of a day.

Founded and opened in 1934, it holds collections amassed primarily by William Thompson Walters and his son Henry Walters. William Walters began collecting when he moved to Paris as a Confederate loyalist at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861. Henry Walters refined the collection and made arrangements for the construction of what ultimately became the Walters Art Museum.  The museum consists of three buildings that have been joined together over time.

A few of the more unique objects I tripped upon.

This is a rare, experimental combination of body armor (shield) and a weapon (matchlock gun). The gunsmith, Giovanni Battista of Ravenna, proposed this gun shield to King Henry VIII of England in 1544. Interested in technology, the king had 100 made for his bodyguards. As a firearm, it was too heavy to aim unless rested on a support and was rejected for use. However, in the late 1600s, 66 were still kept in the royal armory, perhaps as curiosities. Technological hybrids were appreciated as attempts to do two things at once.

Perpetual Motion Mechanism. The original was by Dutch Cornelis Drebbel 1572-1633. The model is by English Andrew Crisford in 2005

The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

This basilica is so vast that it is virtually impossible to photograph properly without time and lots of equipment. But a tour is worth it to learn the history of Catholicism in America and, more importantly, the engineering and architecture of this grand building.

The Basilica was constructed between 1806 and 1863, and it was designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764-1820), America’s first professionally trained architect and architect of the U.S. Capitol.

Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Latrobe originally planned a masonry dome with a lantern on top, but his friend Thomas Jefferson suggested a wooden double-shell dome (of a type pioneered by French master builder Philibert Delorme) with 24 half-visible skylights. For the inner dome, Latrobe created a solid, classically detailed masonry hemisphere. Grids of plaster rosettes adorn its coffered ceiling.

The undercroft shows Latrobe’s genius.

Latrobe scientifically laid out the foundation so that modular brick blocks were used for the vaults in the undercroft. The inverted arches that go all the way to the ground carry the weight of the rotunda’s pendentives. The arch distributes those loads evenly on the soil. These have stood the test of time, including a small earthquake in 2011.

There is so much history in the Mount Vernon area of Baltimore that if you can, grab a guide from their historical association and explore.

I conveniently stayed at the Hotel Revival. It sits on one of the four parks and is a lovely hotel with a rooftop bar that offers 360-degree views of Baltimore.

Walking the Federal Hill Neighborhood of Baltimore

 Baltimore, Maryland
May 202024
 

May 2024

In 1788, Maryland ratified the the U.S. Constitution. On that day, 4,000 Baltimoreans gathered to celebrate, and the celebration concluded on the hill, giving it its name. In 1797, an observatory was opened at the hill’s peak, enabling merchants to receive advance word of ships approaching the harbor. During the War of 1812, Federal Hill served as an observation post and signal station. When the British bombarded Fort McHenry, many citizens watched from the hill.

View from Federal Hill

Early in the colonial period, the area known as Federal Hill was the site of a paint pigment mining operation. The hill has several tunnels beneath its park-like setting that occasionally collapse, requiring infill.

View of the Inner Harbor from Federal Hill

On the night of May 12, following the Baltimore riot of 1861, the hill was occupied in the middle of the night by a thousand Union troops and a battery under the command of General Benjamin F. Butler. During the night, Butler and his men erected a small fort with cannon pointing towards the central business district. Their goal was to guarantee the allegiance of the city and the state of Maryland to the United States government. This fort and the Union army presence persisted for the duration of the Civil War.

The top of Federal Hill

The Federal Hill neighborhood, situated on the south side of the Inner Harbor, was the home of shipyards from the late 18th century and the home of the related business owners and workers.

Row houses of Federal Hill

Most houses in the historic district of Federal Hill date from the mid-to-late-19th century, although a smattering of earlier structures also exists. These were primarily the homes of sailors and shipyard workers who worked at the port. All are of brick construction with extensive use of white marble trim, and most are attached row houses of two or three stories in height and approximately 15 feet in width.

White marble stairways of Federal Hill

A 1/2 row house on the right

With only a single room per floor, half-houses were generally built as rentals for those at the lowest income level.  The house above is part of a historically African American section known as the Sharp-Leadenhall neighborhood, established in the 1790s by freed slaves and German immigrants. These row houses were sold to freed craftsmen, including carpenters and blacksmiths.

One of the last wood houses in Baltimore

In February 1904, a two-day fire utterly destroyed downtown Baltimore. H.L. Mencken said at the time, “The burned area looked like Pompeii.” The fire obliterated 86 city blocks, consumed 1,526 buildings, and destroyed 2,500 businesses. The fire was the end of wood houses in Baltimore, although a few still stand.

An old firehouse converted into a home.

The United States did not have government-run fire departments until around the time of the American Civil War. Prior to this time, private fire brigades competed with one another to be the first to respond to a fire because insurance companies paid brigades to save buildings.  This was the home of the Watchman Volunteer Fire Company. The building was constructed in 1840 and decommissioned from fire service in 1859 when Baltimore City took over all-volunteer fire companies and converted them into paid fire companies. It is the oldest standing firehouse in the City of Baltimore and possibly the oldest standing firehouse in Maryland.

A home on Federal Hill I found unique due to its curved front.

American Visionary Art Museum of Baltimore

At the foot of Federal Hill is one of the most unique art museums I have had the privilege to visit. The museum specializes in the preservation and display of outsider art (also known as “intuitive art,” “raw art,” or “art brut”).

The founder and director of the AVAM is Rebecca Alban Hoffberger, who, while working in the development department of Sinai Hospital’s (Baltimore) People Encouraging People (a program geared toward aiding psychiatric patients in their return to the community). Hoffberger became interested in the artwork created by the patients in the People Encouraging People program and found herself “impressed with their imagination” and looking to “their strengths, not their illnesses.”

The entryway floor is made of toothbrushes.

Outsider art is made by self-taught individuals who are untrained and untutored in the traditional arts and typically have little or no contact with the conventions of the art world. Wandering the museum, I became enthralled with the story of the artists’ lives, almost more than their art.

The Art of Ray Masterson

One that really sticks with you is Ray Masterson. Born March 15, 1954, in Milford, Connecticut, Raymond Materson grew up in the Midwest. He earned a G.E.D. and attended Thomas Jefferson College as a drama and philosophy major but was plagued by a serious drug problem. To support his habit, he committed a string of robberies with a shoplifted toy gun, was eventually arrested, and sentenced to 15 years in a state penitentiary in Connecticut. To keep himself sane, Ray taught himself to embroider, using unraveled socks for thread and a sewing needle secured from a prison guard. He stitched miniature tapestries depicting life outside prison walls and sold his works to other inmates for cigarettes. Most of Materson’s miniature embroideries include approximately 1,200 stitches per square inch, measuring less than 2.5 x 3 inches.

 

One of my favorites: World’s First Family of Robots by DeVon Smith

 

The Fells Point Neighborhood of Baltimore

 Baltimore, Maryland
May 202024
 

May 2021

The Fells Point Neighborhood

 

The Fells Point Neighborhood

Fell’s Point is one of Baltimore’s oldest neighborhoods and was once a bustling shipbuilding port. It was home to jazz singer Billie Holiday and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Today, there are more bars in Fells Point than in any other part of Baltimore, and many streets are still lined with Belgian Block.

The oldest continuously open bar in Baltimore opened in 1775. It was the last destination before the mysterious death of the author Edgar Allan Poe.

Fells Point was established around 1763 along the north shore of the Baltimore Harbor and the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River.

Belgian Block

This is Belgian Block. They are extremely large rectangular or sometimes cubical-shaped pieces of stone that can be upwards of 10 to 12” in length and height and are typically made of granite. It is thought that the term Belgian Block may have some historical connection to when European ships set sail from ports such as Antwerp, and large blocks of stone were used as ballast for ships that were too light.

Broadway Market

Broadway Market dates to 1786 and is one of the first public markets in Baltimore. It is one of six remaining public markets. In the early days, the market yards were equipped with stalls, barns, and a weighing platform to accommodate the livestock the farmers brought into town to sell.

A market stall number is still etched on the curb of the public square

A home owned by Frederick Douglass

While still enslaved, Douglas was hired out to the shipbuilder John A. Robb as a caulker at the Fells Point shipyard. In his autobiography, Douglass recounts that, years earlier, the first time he had been sent to Baltimore, the Fells Point neighborhood was where he taught himself to read and write, copying the letters with which the men in the shipyard labeled boards and “making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers.

The H and S Bread Company

In 1943, H&S Bakery was founded by Greek immigrants Harry Tsakalos and Steve Paterakis in the basement of a Baltimore rowhome. Steve’s son, John Paterakis Sr., added H&S’s first Automatic Rolls plant in 1962 and, most importantly, made a handshake deal with Ray Kroc in 1965 – starting a long-term & successful relationship with McDonald’s.

The Captain Steele House in Fells Point was built just after the Revolution. It has dormer windows and high-relief moldings characteristic of English Georgian architecture.

Welcoming sidewalk in Fells Point

An exuberance of color in Fells Point

The Recreation Pier

When the Recreation Pier was first built in 1914, the brick-faced structure served as a landing point for the thousands of immigrants who made their way to the United States. Today it is the Sagamore Pendry a high-end hotel. A major piece of the pier’s restoration involved replacing the pilings that are driven underwater and into the Baltimore harbor bed, an expensive undertaking. The pier’s restoration required 200,000 worker hours, $250,000 worth of asbestos removal, and $300,000 worth of lead paint removal.

Sagamore Pendry Baltimore was designed by BHS architects and reopened in March 2017.

Pirates walking the shores of Fells Point

Odds and Ends of Baltimore

 Baltimore, Maryland
May 202024
 

May 2024

The Owl Bar – The complete poem over the bar reads: A wise old owl sat in an oak. The more he saw, the less he spoke. The less he spoke, the more he heard. Why can’t we all be like that wise old bird?

Prohibition began on January 17, 1920, and for the next 13 years, the bar operated as a speakeasy.

At the time, owner Colonel Consolvo placed two large plaster owl statues on the cash registers. The owls were named Sherry Belle and John Eager Howard, and they had electric glass eyes that signaled the availability of contraband whiskey. An amber eye on each owl would blink when the hotel’s basement had liquor, and the coast was clear of law enforcement. When Prohibition ended in 1933, the owls mysteriously disappeared.

The bar fell on hard times and went through many owners.  However, in 1976, Victor Frenkil bought the property at auction and restored it to its former glory.

Frenkil’s friend found the original owls in New York, and late one night in April 1977, they mysteriously reappeared in the locked bar with a new poem:

Where we’ve been, what we’ve seen  No matter the din, no one will glean. But if your eyes are clear today, you can tell  The Owls of Belvedere—have returned from Hell!

One of The Owl Bar’s original owls on the left.

United Methodist Church of Mount Vernon

The United Methodist Church “is one of the most photographed buildings in Baltimore. It sits near the Washington Monument on the site where Francis Scott Key died in 1843. Its sanctuary seats 900, and its rose window resembles the one in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

The church is a Norman-Gothic-style church that was completed in 1872. It was designed by Thomas Dixon, a Baltimore architect, and is built of blocks of a green-toned Maryland fieldstone with brownstone ornamentation. It features three spires.

 

Evergreen Museum & Library .

Evergreen is operated by Johns Hopkins University.  It was built in the mid-19th century and bought in 1878 by the president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, John W. Garrett. It is a 48-room mansion with a 23-karat gold plated bathroom, a 30,000-book library, and a theatre painted by famous Russian artist Léon Bakst.

I will admit the home did not really impress me.  This was primarily because, like so many house museums given to Universities, it wasn’t in the greatest shape.  The library, however, was impressive in its number of rare collectible books.

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What did catch my eye were the Tiffany canopy and the Tiffany front door.

The theater painted by Russian artist Léon Bakst.

This amazing gadget was in the kitchen of a house museum in Annapolis.  The x-shaped bowl on top of the goldish contraption on the hearth holds a bowl you fill with water.  It slowly drips and causes the chain to move, continuously rotating the spit hands-free.

 

An empty plinth in a park in the Mount Vernon Neighborhood

This plinth once held a statue of Roger Taney.  It is one of many Confederate statues removed from their locations across the country. Taney is most famous for his decision in the Dred Scott case, which advanced slavery in America and is tied to the Confederate cause. Taney served as the chief justice of the Supreme Court for nearly 30 years, beginning in 1836. During that time, Taney oversaw the ruling of the Dred Scott decision that stated that African Americans could not be considered citizens and, by extension, could still be considered property even if they were in a free state.

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Random Architecture

I found this building interesting because of its 1/2 urn ornamentation, not something I have seen before.

Other interesting buildings in Baltimore caught my eye.

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