From the Heart: City of History

This is the first guest post featured on ‘I Heart Charm City’ and it is the perfect way to start a series of “From the Heart” profiles on what inspires us about this city! Auni’s passion for Baltimore’s history is backed up with a wealth of knowledge that I know you’ll enjoy. If you’re passionate about Charm City, let me know. I’d love to share your story too!

The American Brewery Building, a Baltimore icon itself, towers over a quintessential block of Baltimore rowhomes.(Photo by Auni Husted)

What I genuinely, whole-heartedly and unabashedly love about Baltimore is the amazing history that is all around us, every day. Whether you’re having a picnic by the Washington Monument (the nation’s first monument to George Washington, according to most scholars), taking the Light Rail up the once-bustling Howard Street corridor, going out for a drink in the long-inhabited Fells Point neighborhood, driving over the Jones Falls on I-83, or even just visiting a formstone-covered rowhouse, it is impossible not to see and interact with Baltimore’s history on a daily basis.

When I was growing up in suburban Seattle, reading about American history in textbooks seemed so far removed from my everyday world that I really couldn’t wrap my head around the subject. Sure, I read about the Civil War and even memorized its biggest battles—but it wasn’t until I actually set foot atop the hallowed ground of Antietam that I could even begin to comprehend the enormous scale of the conflict. Maryland students are unbelievably lucky to grow up not only with amazing resources like the National Archives and Smithsonian Institutions a stone’s throw away, but to be able to visit (inter)nationally significant historic sites without many miles, hours and hundreds of dollars of travel. If I knew what “historic preservation” meant when I was in high school, I almost certainly would have pursued a career in it. I believe that working to make sure culturally and historically significant buildings (and communities) survive in a modern context is one of the most important jobs in our society—and Baltimore is a perfect place to see it in action!

Baltimore’s historic preservation community—which is led by hard-working nonprofit organizations like Preservation Maryland and Baltimore Heritage, as well as government agencies like CHAP and the Maryland Historical Trust —makes it easy for the public to learn about and visit Baltimore’s rich past. There are so many high-quality, fascinating museums, historic houses, parks and landmarks to explore that it can almost seem overwhelming. This is clearly not an exhaustive list, but here are a few places I’d recommend checking out if you want to learn more about Baltimore’s history and heritage. I hope to see you there!

Museums and Archives:

• Maryland State Archives: http://www.msa.md.gov/
• Maryland Digital Cultural Heritage: http://www.mdch.org/
• Maryland Historical Society: http://www.mdhs.org/
• Photographs of the Maryland Historical Society (blog):  http://mdhsphotographs.tumblr.com/
• B & O Railroad Museum: http://www.borail.org/
• Baltimore Museum of Industry: http://www.thebmi.org/
• National Museum of Dentistry: http://www.dentalmuseum.org/
• Baltimore Streetcar Museum: http://www.baltimorestreetcar.org/
• Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African-American History and Culture: http://www.AfricanAmericanCulture.org/
• Jewish Museum of Maryland:  http://www.baltimoremuseums.org/visit/museums/jewishmuseum.shtml

Historic Sites and Buildings:

• Fort McHenry National Monument and Shrine: http://www.nps.gov/fomc/index.htm
• Star-Spangled Banner Flag House: http://www.flaghouse.org/
• The Garrett-Jacobs Mansion: http://www.garrettjacobsmansion.org/
• Mount Clare Museum House: http://www.mountclare.org/
• Hampton National Historic Site: http://www.nps.gov/hamp/index.htm
• H. L. Mencken House: http://www.menckenhouse.org/
• Edgar Allan Poe House: http://www.eapoe.org/balt/poehse.htm
• Literary Mount Vernon Walking Tour:  http://www.mdhc.org/programs/maryland-center-for-the-book/literary-mount-vernon/
• Old St. Paul’s Church: http://www.temp.osp1692.org/
• Lovely Lane United Methodist Church: http://www.lovelylane.net/home/
• Baltimore Basilica: http://baltimorebasilica.org/
• Old St. Paul’s Cemetery:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Saint_Paul’s_Cemetery
• Green Mount Cemetery: http://greenmountcemetery.com/
• American Brewery building (now a private company):  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Brewery_(building)
• Clipper Mill: http://clippermillbaltimore.com/

Organizations and Events:

• The Village Learning Place and the Baltimore City Historical Society host Baltimore History Evenings on the third Thursday of every month (Jan-June) from 7-9 PM:  http://www.villagelearningplace.org/programs/baltimore-history-evenings/
• Maryland Humanities Council’s Chautauqua living history series:  http://www.mdhc.org/programs/chautauqua/
• Star-Spangled 200—War of 1812 Bicentennial:  http://starspangled200.org/Pages/Home.aspx
• Star-Spangled Sailabration—international festival of tall ships June 13-19:  http://www.starspangled200.com/
• Bmore Historic: http://bmorehistoric.baltimoreheritage.org/
• Preservation Maryland: http://www.preservationmaryland.org/
• Baltimore Heritage: http://www.baltimoreheritage.org/
• CHAP: http://www.baltimorecity.gov/Government/BoardsandCommissions/HistoricalArchitecturalPreservation.aspx
• Maryland Historical Trust: http://mht.maryland.gov/

 Seattle native Auni Husted moved to Baltimore to attend Goucher College in 2006. She currently works in the nonprofit sector, lives in a stone rowhouse in the city and tries to soak up as much local culture as possible. You can find her online at @aunihusted on Twitter
http://charmcityconfidential.blogspot.com  or
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aunihusted on Flickr.

We’ve come a long way from horse-drawn carriages…

How much do you remember from 8th grade American history? I got to sub for the American history teacher (the same one who had taught  me!) for a couple days last year. We were covering the industrial revolution in the 1800’s and specifically improvements to American infrastructure. One of the many internal improvements mentioned was the construction of a National Road. As we now have the Interstate system, I remember wondering if the National Road was still usable or if at least part of it had been preserved as a historical site. As it turns out, those of us in Baltimore still use the National Road on a regular basis. Route 40 ring any bells?

What’s known today as Route 40 or “Baltimore National Pike” is an Eastern extension of the National Road, whose first phase was started in Cumberland, Maryland to help both pioneers and their suppliers as they crossed the Cumberland Gap in the journey westward.

It’s funny to picture this as the pinnacle of roadways in America, but at one time the National Road was the very frontier of innovation.

When you look at Baltimore on a map, it’s easy to see why it was such a big hub as our nation developed. With a wonderful harbor, a natural stopping point between Philadelphia and D.C., and a gateway to roads further west via the Cumberland Gap, it’s no wonder that Baltimore was quick to adopt innovations in infrastructure. The B & O (Baltimore and Ohio) railroad company started as a way to ship goods from the harbor to the frontiers of Ohio and further west and closely followed the original outline of the National Road.

Even today, Baltimore has a wealth of options for navigating to, from, and around the city. Whether driving, taking a bus, lightrail, MARC train, Amtrak, cruise ship, water taxi, or airplane, Baltimore has many good options to fit any traveler’s need. If you’re visiting, check out the Charm City Circulators: free purple and white buses that circulate around the downtown and Inner Harbor areas. Frequent (every 10 minutes), clean, and did I mention free?, they’re a great way to cover more ground when exploring downtown. I’m also a big fan of the lightrail-airport system. We can literally walk a few minutes down to the station and be at the airport within a 30 minute train ride.

Or for the more adventurous, there’s always travel by pirate ship!

I like to picture standing in Baltimore and being able to look out every direction-NYC and Philadelphia to the north, heartlands and home to the west, DC and warmer climates to the south, the Atlantic and Europe to the east-and knowing that no matter where I wanted to go, I could be well on my way within a few minutes walk from our apartment.

Fitzgerald’s Baltimore: Beautiful Yet Unresolved

“That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald

Just a short stroll down the street from the old rowhouse in which we’re renting an apartment for the year, sits another austere old rowhouse. Unremarkable and even plain next to the others on its block, it would be easy to pass by without further notice except for the round blue plaque placed just above an easily readable level. If you walk through the Bolton Hill neighborhood you will likely notice several of these round blue plaques denoting the residences of significant people and briefly commemorating their accomplishments, especially those that occurred while they lived at the location. One of the most well-known figures to be memorialized in the neighborhood is F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose former residence is this plain rowhouse just up the street.

Before moving to Baltimore, I didn’t even know that Fitzgerald had lived here. I knew of his connections with Minnesota and Princeton which are reflected in his semi-autobiographical This Side of Paradise. I had liked This Side better than The Great Gatsby and recently re-read Gatsby just to be sure. Both stories are more than a little melancholy. However, upon my re-read I was reminded what an exquisite writer Fitzgerald was. His descriptions often capture the subtleties of an idea with a slight twist. Whether it’s sarcastic, melancholic, romantic, or scathingly truthful, the descriptions he offers are are piercing new ways of seeing common things.

“It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played
again.” The Great Gatsby

He challenges me in my feeble attempts at writing to look at things with wide-open eyes. To note the shades of meanings in a word and to be critical in my choices of each one.

In a city like Baltimore, it’s easy to imagine Fitzgerald having plenty of fodder for his stories. The Jazz era he writes of can still be easily seen in places such as The Belvedere– the grand old hotel which stubbornly clings to its past through the black and white photos lining one of its lobby halls. Through its grandly imposing formal foyer, you can still step back into the age of Prohibition as you wander down a side hall and round a corner into the shadowed nooks and stone paved corridors of The Owl Bar, a cafe/bar which only needs a false door to be the incarnation of a speakeasy. The stained glass detailing above the bar, combined with the cozy booths, sturdy wooden tables, and dimly lit cavernous ceilings demand a respectful hush, as if people are exchanging secrets in the next booth. While I haven’t tried the brick-oven pizza there yet, the hearty half-circle of flames visible whenever the oven door is opened, add to the vibrant atmosphere.

The law school which my husband attends has had two social meet-and-greets sponsored by different organizations at The Owl Bar. As voices echoed off the stone and the setting sun illuminated the stained glass, I once again felt lucky to be in Baltimore. It’s finding these simple beautiful things that make me love the city and look forward to exploring more of its stores from the past.

(photo taken from The Belvedere’s website) 

“Think how you love me,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t ask you to love me always like this, but I ask you to remember…I’ll be different, but somewhere lost inside me there’ll always be the person I am tonight.”— F. Scott Fitzgerald (Magnetism)

I think Baltimore is a little bit like this quote. Lost inside itself are several versions of the city, some romantic and cloaked in excitement, and some less savory that the city likes to gloss over. The city is riddled with disturbing scenes-the makeshift mattresses under the on-ramp to Highway 40, the scrawled signs held by cold hands which pass between the rows of rush-hour traffic in the mornings, children wearing their school uniforms on weekends because that’s all they have. These are juxtaposed with the facades of well-kept single family rowhomes, luxury cars secured with steering wheel clubs, and expensive boutiques. The inconsistencies would make for some very piercing observations by a writer such as Fitzgerald today. I’m grateful for the complexities of the city even as I struggle with some of its flaws- it always leaves me with questions to ask and possibilities to ponder.

“If you have anything to say, anything you feel nobody has ever said before, you have got to feel it so desperately that you will find some way to say it that nobody has ever found before, so that the thing you have to say and the way of saying it blend as one matter–as indissolubly as if they were conceived together.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald)