The Polish Home Club, known then as the Polish Home Hall, opened to six hundred members of the Polish community on August 11, 1918, in an area of Fell's Point known as 鈥淟ittle Poland.鈥 Baltimore鈥檚 Polish population grew rapidly in the late nineteenth century as Polish immigrants arrived at the port to work on the docks. By the turn of the century, the community was well-established with Polish churches, a Polish-language newspaper and financial institutions that offered loans to Polish people. By 1923, the Polish community had become large and organized enough to gain political representation through Baltimore鈥檚 first Polish city councilman, Edward Novak.
The Polish Home Hall, erected at a cost of $81,000 and affectionately called Dom Polski, opened to great fanfare. Marked by a banquet and speeches by Wladislaus Urbanski and Rev. Stanislaus Wachowiak, the dedication ceremonies revealed a beautiful community hall for future events. The night followed with music by the Polish National Band and dancing. Two years after the hall opened, it hosted the Polish Falcons鈥 Alliance, an international Polish organization, for an annual convention and accompanying athletic contests in Patterson Park.
When financial difficulties nearly led to the close of the Polish Home Hall, the Polish Home Club, organized in 1933 and led a community effort to raise funds for the building attracting around two thousand supporters. The Polish Home Club organized the first Polish Festival in 1973 at the Constellation Dock. The festival featured Polish food, music, dancing, and singing. In the years to follow, the festival enjoyed a long run at Rash Field, then Patterson Park, and currently, Timonium Fairgrounds.
The largest draw to the Polish Home Club is its restored wood dance floor. The club hosts a dance every Friday and Saturday evening where they play traditional Polish music and pop and serve Krupnik, the house drink, at the bar. The hall is also available for community events and gatherings.
The Polish population of Fell's Point has dwindled and a thriving Latino population has filled the void. As the neighborhood around the club changes, some fear that Polish traditions might be lost. However, the Polish Home Club hopes to stick around and be a cultural resource for future generations of people with Polish heritage.
Sudbrook Park is one of only three examples in the country of Frederick Law Olmsted鈥檚 鈥減erfect鈥 suburban community. The other two, Riverside in Chicago and Druid Hills in Atlanta, would make him a pioneer in landscape architecture. Frederick Law Olmsted felt a pull to make suburban communities long before it was in fashion to live in them. He used two styles of creation: pastoral and picturesque. Unlike the pastoral approach, he used a picturesque style to heighten the mysteriousness of the location with a constant play on shadow and light.
Sudbrook Park鈥檚 land originally belonged to the McHenry family and passed to J. Howard McHenry by his grandfather. McHenry had a plan for a suburban community on a large portion of his land but with horse and carriage as the only means of transportation at that time, he deferred his dream. His lifetime efforts ensured the construction of a railroad through his lands. He died in 1888 and the Sudbrook Company bought part of his land. Now with rail access, the company then began planning the community he always desired.
Early on, McHenry reached out to Olmsted to get some provisional layouts on Sudbrook but he focused heavily on the cost and never finalized the project. The Sudbrook Company followed suit and immediately contacted Olmsted for the design, which they immediately adopted. In 1889, the detailed construction began. Sudbrook鈥檚 main design feature focused on Olmsted鈥檚 use of curvilinear lines. The curved roads endlessly pulled visitors deeper to the heart of the community. His revolutionary methods, however, created a dilemma with laying out the stakes for the roads. No one knew how to lay out curved lines, so Olmsted made a special drawing including the radii and tangents of each curve.
Olmsted favored the Sudbrook suburb as a place where the crowded, unsanitary conditions of the city gave way to clean personal and community spaces. He placed emphasis on fences to mark property lines as he blamed the lack of defined personal space as a contributor to the unsanitary practices of the city. He also preferred to have plenty of street and sidewalk space to allow for leisurely strolls or drives through the area. Unfortunately, many of the original sidewalks disappeared when the city widened the street for cars.
Beautiful, park-like spaces created a sense of community and provided ample space for neighborhood activities. In the heart of Sudbrook, Olmsted left a large plot for a church or community building as an epicenter for the area. Once construction finished, Olmsted insisted on 16 deed restrictions for Sudbrook homeowners to protect his master plan and the residential character of the neighborhood.*
In 1973, after years of growth and decline, the National Register officially recognized Sudbrook Park as a National Historic District. While the historic district did not cover later construction at the edges, it preserved the heart of the community. Later, the Maryland Transit Administration, against strong objections from the community, added a subway through the edge of the community which many feel destroyed the alluring entrance way. In response, the community fostered extensive landscaping to bring the area back to its former glory. Currently, the area participates in the Tree-mendous Maryland program which offers trees for public areas at reasonable prices. Sudbrook leaders have also added the 600 block of Cliveden Road and hope to make more additions in the future.
*Considered the first example of comprehensive land-use requirements in Maryland, the restrictions are as follows:
The Munsey Building was erected by and named after the publisher, Frank Munsey, who had purchased the Baltimore News to add to his publishing empire. Though he wanted the paper, he did not like the five-year old building that housed it. So, he had a new one erected more to his liking. Completed in 1911, the newspaper's new offices were designed by the local architectural firm of Baldwin & Pennington, together with McKim, Mead & White of New York.
The Munsey Trust Company, which eventually became the Equitable Trust Company, opened on the ground floor in 1913. The paper was eventually bought by William Randolph Hearst, became the Baltimore News-American, and moved a few blocks away.
The building鈥檚 most recent purpose is to serve as loft apartments that are helping revitalize downtown Baltimore. The renovation of the Munsey included keeping the grand entrance way, with its marble floor, elevators, and grand front door, as well as cleaning and repairing the exterior. Baltimore Heritage recognized the conversion with a preservation award in 2004.
When Baltimorean William Painter invented the bottle cap in 1891, it didn鈥檛 take long for beverage companies (beer brewers in particular) to realize its value, and for Painter to realize he needed to build significant manufacturing facilities to keep up with demand. Painter's enterprise, the Crown Cork and Seal Company, opened its first big production facility in 1897 on Guilford Avenue and not long after expanded by opening a larger complex on Eastern Avenue in Highlandtown in 1906. The Guilford Avenue complex continued as the base of operations for custom building the sealing machinery while the Highlandtown complex acted as the hub of Crown Cork and Seal鈥檚 manufacturing operations.
In 1910, the Highlandtown complex expanded again to include two new buildings. Both used mill construction with brick exteriors and granite trimmings as well as new advances like fireproof elevator shafts, fire escapes and ventilators. The five story building had two massive water towers that held 15,000 gallons each to be released in case a fire broke out inside.
Crown Cork and Seal鈥檚 Highlandtown complex became the base of machinery production in 1928 after the owners abandoned the Guildford Avenue plant. Despite its modern fire protections, however, the added activity at the complex and its constantly whirring electrical machines were at high risk of fire. In 1940, managers at the building made twenty-six calls to the fire department, almost all of which appeared unnecessary, until one signaled a very real five-alarm fire. Despite the loss of $500,000 in baled cork, the company minimized the damage and kept churning out bottle caps for the world鈥檚 beer brewers.
In 1958, Crown Cork and Seal moved its headquarters from Baltimore to Philadelphia and the owners sold a group of thirty buildings, including the Guilford Avenue complex, to the city for $1.5 million. The Highlandtown plant continued to operate for nearly 30 more years, but finally closed in 1987 as use of aluminum and plastic containers rose and the demand for glass bottle caps waned. Today the building houses artist studios and light manufacturing and is occasionally used by movie studios.
The first Patterson Theater to occupy 3136 Eastern Avenue opened in 1910. In 1918, Harry Reddish purchased the building to renovate and redecorate it. He reopened it two years later and renamed it the 鈥淣ew Patterson鈥. The Patterson Theater housed a large second floor dancehall with a wide stage and organ that could only be turned on by climbing under the stage. In 1929, the 鈥淣ew Patterson鈥 closed.
The next year saw a larger Patterson Theater, referred to as a playhouse, built in place of the old building. It opened September 26, 1930, showing Queen High with Charles Ruggles. Built by the Durkee Organization, John J. Zink designed the 85x150 ft building. He used a plain brick exterior (one of the plainest Zink ever designed). But the ornate, vertical sign appealed to the public. The interior color scheme consisted of red, orange, and gold with matching draperies and indirect lighting from crystal chandeliers. The theater鈥檚 low back chairs and spring-cushioned seats held between 900 to 1,500 people at a time. During its construction, designers took great care to ensure crisp 聽acoustics for the showing of talking pictures. The Grand Theater Company, an affiliate of Durkee Enterprises, operated the Patterson Theater.
In November 1958 an usher accidentally started a fire that caused considerable damage to the auditorium. By the spring of 1975 the owners twinned the theater into two 500 seat spaces, but the 聽machinery remained untouched. In 1986, the old machinery proved deadly when a refrigeration company鈥檚 employee asphyxiated on Freon gas in the basement cooling system. The theater filled with firefighters who had to remove the maintenance man and set up large fans to push the colorless, odorless gas from the building. The Patterson Theater continued to operate until 1995, but by then the theater only showed discount films. It would be the last theater operated by the Durkee Organization.
Creative Alliance, a community organization geared toward bringing audiences and artists together, undertook an extensive multi-million dollar renovation of the old Patterson Theater. Renovations began in 2000 when Cho Benn Holback & Associates gutted and rebuilt the building鈥檚 interior. Creative Alliance kept the fireproof concrete projection booth but turned the remainder of the space into a multi-purpose art center with galleries, artist studios, a marquee lounge and a flexible theater. While the historic vertical sign was one of the last originals in the city, extensive deterioration meant it could not be salvaged. Instead, Creative Alliance had it duplicated and replaced just before their reopening in May 2003.
Work continued a few years later with the addition of a caf茅. The original concrete fireproof projection booth remained and became the focal point of the dining room. Gabriel Kroiz, Chair of Undergraduate Design for the School of Architecture and Planning at Morgan State University, recalls when the building showed movies:
鈥淚 have been going to the building since I was a kid. I saw Star Wars there when it came out. I remember when it split in two and started showing the films two weeks after they had been released for less money and then when they closed.鈥
Since the opening of the new building, Creative Alliance has hosted hundreds of new events, including live performances, exhibitions, films and workshops.
1805 Madison Avenue was built around聽1886, when the property was first advertised聽in the聽Baltimore Sun聽as available to rent for聽$35 per month.聽In July 1888, Benjamin and Rosetta Rosenheim purchased the home and moved in with their two young children. 聽Benjamin was a lawyer with an office at 19 East Fayette Street. When Rosetta needed help at home聽in January 1889, the聽Rosenheim household placed an advertisement in the聽Sun seeking a 鈥淲hite Girl, from 15 to 17 years to nurse two children, aged 2 陆 and 4.鈥澛燬imilar advertisements appeared again in June 1889 and March 1890 seeking a caretaker for the two children.聽The family didn鈥檛 stay long, however, and聽on May 29, 1893, Benjamin and Rosetta Rosenheim sold the home to Julia Gusdorff.
The home sold again in 1902聽and聽1914. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, many of the聽German Jewish immigrants聽who had occupied the Madison Avenue homes for the past couple decades began moving northwest into new neighborhoods like Park Circle northwest of Druid Hill Park. Replacing these residents were African Americans聽home-owners and tenants. In 1923,聽Keiffer Jackson, husband of the well known civil rights activist Lille Mae Carol Jackson, purchased 1805 Madison Avenue for $3200.
Lillie Mae Carroll and her husband Kieffer聽Jackson never lived at 1805 Madison Avenue but rented the property to African American tenants from a wide range of backgrounds. In February 1928, Frank H. Berryman, the manager of William 鈥淜.O.鈥 Smith and K.O. Martin, publicly sought to 鈥渁rrange either local or out-of-town bouts for one or both of his fighters鈥 noting managers could reach him at 1805 Madison Avenue.聽Mrs. Lizzie Futz聽lived聽at the house in 1931聽when she was quoted in the聽Afro American聽criticizing a move by the聽Baltimore school superintendent to segregate white and black children on a recent field trip to Fort McHenry:
鈥淚 honestly think that the principal was unquestionably wrong in asking that the two groups be separated. There was no reason for the separation. School children of today get along better than their elders. It鈥檚 such segregation acts that breeds prejudice in the future.鈥
Born in Baltimore on April 29, 1922, Parren James Mitchell moved around as a child. Early on, his family lived on Stockton Street near Presstman Street just south of Saint Peter Claver Church which had stood聽on North Fremont Avenue since聽September 9, 1888.
He was seven years old when his family moved into聽a new home at 712 Carrollton Avenue.聽The new neighborhood had started life as an聽elite suburb built between the 1870s and 1880s within a short walk of聽Lafayette Square or聽Harlem Park. Prior to the 1910s and 1920s, the population of the neighborhood was largely segregated white (although many African American households lived in smaller alley dwellings on the interior of the district鈥檚 large blocks). Segregation in the聽聽was enforced through deed restrictions, local legislation and even physical attacks on black families that attempted to move into the neighborhood.
Parren Mitchell鈥檚 move to the house on Madison Avenue came at an important moment in the nation鈥檚 relationship to struggling cities in the wake of the riots in Baltimore and cities around the country in 1968. The home was a source of pride and provided Mitchell with a perspective on city life that few other representatives in Congress聽could match.聽In June 1974, during a discussion of 鈥渦rban homesteading,鈥 Parren Mitchell shared the success of the聽city鈥檚 new homesteading program (established in 1973) seen from his own front stoop, remarking:
鈥淐ome to my house at聽1805 Madison Avenue聽in the heart of a ghetto in Baltimore聽City and look at the home across the street which was sold for $1 under the Homestead Act. If you do you will see a beautiful and decent residence for a family.鈥
During hearings on the聽, Mitchell repeated the offer:
鈥淚 will take part of my 5-minute time to extend an invitation to visit my home in Baltimore, Md. I live at 1805 Madison Avenue, which is deep in the bowels of the city. It is the ghetto. Four years ago, I purchased a home in the 1800 block of Madison Avenue at 1805, using conventional financing. I have rehabilitated the home, and I think it鈥檚 attractive enough for you to come to visit me on a Saturday morning in the 1800 block of Madison Avenue.鈥
The聽renovation to the house cost $32,000 and combined聽the first and second floor of the building with a new staircase returning the stories into a single unit. He rebuilt the third floor as a rental apartment, a configuration that remains in use at the building today.
The home may have been a source of pride and a sign of his strong commitment to Baltimore but it was also a site of conflict between Congressman Mitchell, the 皇冠体育app City Police Department, and even the Ku Klux Klan. Between 1968 and 1974, before Mitchell鈥檚 move to 1805 Madison, the聽Baltimore Police Department Inspectional Services Division (ISD) kept his home under twenty-four-hour surveillance, illegally bugged his home and office telephones for eight months, and placed paid informers in his congressional campaigns. Beginning in 1971, Mitchell began calling聽for the resignation of Baltimore Police Commissioner聽. When the ISD surveillance program (and its close ties to the FBI) were revealed, Congressman Mitchell extended his criticism to the ISD.
In 1977, Parren Mitchell and his neighbors secured Madison Park聽designation by the 皇冠体育app Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation聽as a local historic district 鈥 the first in an聽African American neighborhood.聽The lead champion of the historic district was聽Michael B. Lipscomb, an aide to Parren Mitchell and office manager at the Congressman鈥檚 Bloomingdale Road office.
Lipscomb was a resident in Madison Park and the vice-president of the Madison Park Improvement Association. In his testimony before CHAP, Lipscomb observed that the district was the 鈥渃ity鈥檚 first all black historic district,鈥 continuing:
鈥淚 came here because I love the house. I love the size of the house, the rooms, the old architecture, the high ceilings, the 10-foot high solid wood doors, the marble fireplaces, the stained glass windows. To get a house built like this would be astronomically expensive.鈥
Other residents in Madison Park were also聽active in the city鈥檚 civic organizations, including John R. Burleigh, II, a resident of 1829 Madison Avenue and director of Baltimore鈥檚 Equal Opportunity program聽and Delegate Lena K. Lee who聽lived at 1818 Madison Avenue. Delegate Lee also supported the historic district designation, testifying:
鈥淲e have been working in this area since 1940 to clean it up and keep the intruders out, to keep it from being overrun by bars, sweatshops and storefront churches that stay a little while and then pack up and go. We want to make it purely residential by getting out all business.鈥
Parren Mitchell sold the property to Sarah Holley in 1986 and moved just a few blocks away to聽1239 Druid Avenue. He remained at that location until 1993 when he returned to Harlem Park and lived at聽828 North Carrollton Avenue where he remained until 2001. This property has been featured on tours of Lafayette Square and is now used as offices for the Upton Planning Council. Sarah Holley lived at the 1805 Madison Avenue聽from 1986 through 1989聽and,聽since 1989, the property has been maintained as a rental property.
Since the doors opened at the former Southwestern District Police Station house on聽July 17, 1884, the square brick building at Pratt and Calhoun Streets has served the city in many different ways. When construction on the new building began in the fall of 1883, the Baltimore Sun claimed the new Southwestern district police station would "surpass in size, elegance and completely of arrangement any police building now in the city, and, indeed, it will have few equals in the country."
Builders Philip Walsh & Son and architect Frank E. Davis completed the three-story building with room for 47 officers. The men had been reassigned from the southern and eastern districts to聽serve under聽of veteran police officer Captain Daniel Lepson聽who led the brand-new district.
In the summer of 1944, Baltimore's first police boys' club moved into the upper floors, serving around 120 boys from 8 to 18 years old every day during the first few weeks after they opened. With donations from a local social club, the officers converted the station's third floor gymnasium into a聽 "big clubroom," described by the Sun as,聽"filled with tousle-haired boys noisily pushing at billiard balls, fashioning B-17's out of wood, nailing magazine racks together and eying each other craftily over checker games."聽The city started four boys' clubs in the 1940s, with a segregated facility for black children at the Northwestern District Police Station on Gold Street.
Both the officers and the Boys' Club departed in 1958 when the Southwestern District Police Station relocated to a modern, air-conditioned facility at Fonthill and Hurley Avenues. Following close on their tails, however, were the men and dogs of the department's K-9 Corps who moved their official headquarters from the Northern District station to Pratt Street.
Unfortunately, by the late 1970s, the building fell vacant. The Maryland Department of Social Services renovated the former police station in the early 1980s. When they left, the building fell vacant again. Today, the structure is deteriorating and remains at risk until a new use for this often reinvented building can be found.
Built in 1921, Pool No. 2 in Druid Hill Park served the recreational and competitive swimming needs of over 100,000 Black residents Baltimore. Pool No. 2 measured just 100鈥 x 105鈥 (half the size of whites-only Pool No. 1), but proved so popular that the swimmers had to be admitted in shifts. In 1953, a young Black boy swimming with friends in the Patapsco River accidentally drowned. The tragedy revealed the difficult circumstances for many Black residents looking for a place to swim in Baltimore. The boy lived near Clifton Park but swam in a dangerous river due to his exclusion from the park鈥檚 whites-only pool. In response, the NAACP started a new push to make all of Baltimore's municipal pools open to all races. When the City Parks Board refused to desegregate, the NAACP filed a lawsuit and eventually won on appeal.
On June 23, 1956, at the start of the summer season, Baltimore pools opened as desegregated facilities for the first time. Over 100 African Americans tested the waters in previously white-only Pool No. 1 but only a single white person swam in Pool. No. 2.
Pool No. 2 closed the next year and remained largely abandoned up until 1999. That year, Baltimore artist Joyce J. Scott won a commission to turn Pool No. 2 into a memorial. In creating her installation, Scott asked herself, 鈥淗ow do we make this area useful and beautiful, and harken back to the pool era?鈥 The results combined architectural elements and aquatic symbolism with abstract, colorful painted designs on the pavement around the pool. The designs and interpretive signage have weathered in the years since but Pool No. 2 remained an important destination to explore the Civil Rights history of Druid Hill Park and Baltimore's pools.
Watch our on this site!
A devout Methodist, Colonel John Berry purchased the site of this church in the early 1800s. Tired of traveling three miles from Calverton Heights to the closest Methodist Episcopal Church, Berry decided to establish a new chapel close to his 皇冠体育app County home.聽A stone chapel was dedicated in the fall of 1836, the church expanded in 1878, and in the 1880s, a Sunday School building was constructed.
By 1920,聽the congregation had outgrown the stone chapel. Even with several later additions since 1835, the building seated only聽275 people鈥攁 fraction聽of the over 450 Methodist families in the parish. The congregation decided to demolish the original chapel and construct a new church.
The present Gothic Revival structure was designed by G.N. MacKenzie and Wyatt & Nolting, a prominent local architectural firm. An article published in The Christian Advocate聽following the completion of the church stated that "A fine plant has been erected with adequate Sunday school rooms, an auditorium that will seat 900, a gymnasium, and other desired features." The cornerstone was laid on July 19, 1920, and the church was dedicated on April 25, 1921.
Bishop Carr purchased the group's first church on N. Mount Street. The small congregation then left the Church of God in Christ for the doctrine of the Apostolic Doctrine in Jesus Name, and was renamed Rehoboth Church of God in Christ Jesus Apostolic. In 1945, the congregation branched off from the larger Apostolic organization, forming its own denomination. The same year, the congregation moved to another church on N. Fulton and Riggs Streets. In 1954, the congregation purchased the former Summerfield Church at 700 Poplar Grove Street, where they are still located today.
The former Maryland National Bank building at the southwest corner of Maryland and North Avenues is a faded but still striking example of the modern architecture that accompanied the city鈥檚 growth in the 1950s and 1960s. The Fidelity Baltimore National Bank (a predecessor of Maryland National) opened their first branch location on North Avenue since the late 1930s. In the mid-1950s, the firm built a drive-in on the eastern side of Maryland Avenue鈥攁 structure still in use today as the home of K & M Motors.
The local architectural firm of Smith & Veale (Albert K. Broughton serving as the project architect) designed the modern building and the general contractor was the Lacchi Construction Company. Broughton remained a practicing architect in Maryland up through 2002, shortly before his death in 2005. Reflecting the continued importance of automobiles to retail banking, a large parking lot was located on the southern side of the building and the branch was designed so patrons could enter the bank from either North Avenue or the parking lot.
As the building went up in March 1961, the Baltimore Sun touted the bank as the city鈥檚 first commercial building with a precast concrete frame. The Nitterhouse Concrete Product Company in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania cast a series of t-shaped elements that were then transported to Baltimore by truck.
The Maryland National Bank sold the property in 1990 and, sometime after 1995, the Korean-American Grocers & Licensed Beverage Association of Maryland (KAGRO) moved into the building as their office. In 2015, the Contemporary occupied the building for an exhibition by artist Victoria Fu. The exhibition, Bubble Over Green, is described as multilayered audio-visual experience consisting of moving images projected onto architectural surfaces, aligning the physical site with the space and textures of digital post-production.