Baltimore City Hall | |
---|---|
General information | |
Architectural style | Second Empire |
Location | 100 North Holliday St., Baltimore, Maryland |
Coordinates | 39°17′27.1″N76°36′38.5″W / 39.290861°N 76.610694°W |
Completed | 1867–1875 |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | George A. Frederick, Wendel Bollman |
Designated | May 8, 1973 |
Reference no. | 73002180 [1] |
Designated | 1971 |
Baltimore City Hall is the official seat of government of the City of Baltimore, in the State of Maryland. The City Hall houses the offices of the Mayor and those of the City Council of Baltimore. The building also hosts the city Comptroller, some various city departments, agencies and boards/commissions along with the historic chambers of the Baltimore City Council. Situated on a city block bounded by East Lexington Street on the north, Guilford Avenue (formerly North Street) on the west, East Fayette Street on the south and North Holliday Street with City Hall Plaza and the War Memorial Plaza to the east, the six-story structure was designed by the then 22-year-old new architect, George Aloysius Frederick (1842–1924) in the Second Empire style, a Baroque revival, with prominent Mansard roofs with richly-framed dormers, and two floors of a repeating Serlian window motif over an urbanely rusticated basement. [2] [3]
In its early years, Baltimore city government met in a series of buildings that it purchased or leased, including the Maryland Insurance Company building on South Street from 1801 to approximately 1812; the Baltimore Dancing Assembly Rooms at the northeast corner of Holliday and East Streets (later Fayette Street) from 1818 to 1823; the Baltimore Exchange Company from 1823 to 1830; and Peale's Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts from 1830 until city government moved into the new City Hall in the spring of 1875. [4] At the laying of the cornerstone for the new building on October 18, 1867, speaker John H.B. Latrobe noted of the museum location that "the First Branch held its sessions in what was formerly the very modest picture gallery of Peale's Museum, and the Second Branch succeeded a collection of stuffed animals in an adjacent room." [5]
The site for the new building was selected and some designs were submitted before the American Civil War. The cornerstone for the building, under Frederick's new design, was not laid until 1867; construction was completed eight years later. At a cost of more than $2 million (in 1870s money), the Baltimore City Hall is built largely of many courses and rows of thicknesses of brick with the exterior walls faced with white marble. The marble alone, quarried in Baltimore and Baltimore County (famous "Beaver Dam" quarry), cost $957,000. [6] [7]
By the end of World War II, City Hall was showing signs of age and deterioration. The slate roof leaked, the exterior marble was eroding in places and the heating, cooling and electrical systems needed to be replaced. Even the cast iron dome's fastenings had rusted through and many plates were cracked. In 1959, 15 pounds of iron ornament came loose and plunged 150 feet into the Board of Estimates hearing room. In 1974 the city voted to renovate the old city hall rather than build a new one. Architectural Heritage Inc., in association with Meyers, D'Aleo and Patton Inc., local architects, were retained to begin the design. The ceremonial chambers were restored and the office space was doubled. In the process the dome was disassembled and put back together. Two years and $10.5 [8] million later the Mayor, the City Council and other city departments moved back into the building. [9] Usable space was increased almost twofold after the renovation, by fitting in two extra floors, by replacing dead storage space in the basement with offices, and by moving corridor walls to maximize office space.
In 2009, a building survey found that sections of the building's marble exterior were cracked and crumbling due to age. The city approved spending $483,000 for repairs to be made the same year. [10]
In 2008, the City Hall's bell "Lord Baltimore", cast in 1887, was repaired by its original manufacturer, McShane Bell Foundry. [11]
On October 11, 1883, James F. Busey, a Democratic ward operative, was shot and killed outside of City Hall. The man who shot him, William T. Harig, was also a Democrat from another ward. The two got into a political argument and after some punches were thrown, both men drew their pistols and began firing at each other in rapid succession. Busey fired wildly; Harig did not, hitting Busey four times. Harig was taken into custody and charged with murder. [12]
Nearly 93 years later, Charles A. Hopkins stormed the temporary City Hall with a hand gun and killed a city councilman. On April 13, 1976, Hopkins, angered that his restaurant was being shut down, killed Dominic Leone, a member of the Baltimore City Council. Hopkins also wounded another city councilman, a police officer and a mayoral aide during the shooting spree. Hopkins was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the shootings but has spent most of his life since then at mental health facilities. In 2007, a Baltimore judge reduced his level of confinement. [13]
The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also called the Baltimore Basilica, is a Catholic cathedral in Baltimore, Maryland. It was the first Catholic cathedral built in the United States after the nation's founding, and was among the first major religious buildings constructed therein after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution.
The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a private art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, it is regarded as one of the oldest art colleges in the United States.
Westminster Hall and Burying Ground is a graveyard and former church located at 519 West Fayette Street in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is currently part of the grounds of the University of Maryland's School of Law. It occupies the southeast corner of West Fayette and North Greene Street on the west side of downtown Baltimore. It sits across from the Baltimore VA hospital and is the burial site of Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) and several politicians and military officials. The complex was declared a national historic district in 1974.
George William Brown was an American politician, judge and academic. A graduate of Rutgers College in 1831, he was mayor of Baltimore from 1860 to 1861, professor in University of Maryland School of Law, and 2nd Chief Judge and Supreme Bench of Baltimore City. He was founder and president of the Bar Association of Baltimore City and the Library Company of the Baltimore Bar.
Green Mount Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Established on March 15, 1838, and dedicated on July 13, 1839, it is noted for the large number of historical figures interred in its grounds as well as many prominent Baltimore-area families. It retained the name Green Mount when the land was purchased from the heirs of Baltimore merchant Robert Oliver. Green Mount is a treasury of precious works of art, including striking works by major sculptors including William H. Rinehart and Hans Schuler.
The Peale is a community museum in Baltimore, Maryland, which opened in 2022 after a 5-year renovation. It occupies the first building in the Western Hemisphere to be designed and built specifically as a museum.
Boston's Old City Hall was home to its city council from 1865 to 1969. It was one of the first buildings in the French Second Empire style to be built in the United States. After the building's completion, the Second Empire style was used extensively elsewhere in Boston and for many public buildings in the United States, including the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., Providence City Hall in Providence, Baltimore City Hall in Baltimore, and Philadelphia City Hall in Philadelphia. The building's architects were Gridley James Fox Bryant and Arthur Gilman.
The history of The Baltimore City College began in March 1839, when the City Council of Baltimore, Maryland, passed a resolution mandating the creation of a male high school with a focus on the study of English and classical literature. "The High School" was opened later in the same year on October 20, with 46 pupils under the direction of Professor Nathan C. Brooks,(1809-1898), a local noted classical educator and poet, who became the first principal of a new type of higher institution in the developing public education system in the city begun in 1829. It is now considered to be the third oldest public high school / secondary school in the nation. In 1850, the Baltimore City Council granted the school, then known as the "Central High School of Baltimore", the authority to present its graduates with certificates of completion. An effort to expand that academic power and allow the then named "Central High School of Baltimore" to confer Bachelor of Arts degrees began following the Civil War in 1865, and continued the following year with the renaming of the institution as "The Baltimore City College", which it still holds to this day, with also the retitling of its chief academic officer from "principal" to "president", along with an increase in the number of years of its course of study and the expansion of its courses. However, despite this early elevation effort, it ended at that brief period unsuccessfully in 1869, although the B.C.C. continued for a number of years as a hybrid public high school and early form of junior college which did not fully appear in America in different form until the beginning of the 20th century. Very often the elaborate decorative fancy engraved graduation diploma from the B.C.C. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was accepted by many other colleges and universities entitling City graduates to enter upper-division schools at the sophomore year,.
George Proctor Kane was an American politician and policeman. He is best known for his role as Marshal of Police during the Baltimore riot of 1861 and his subsequent imprisonment at Fort McHenry and Fort Warren without the benefit of habeas corpus. His position as Marshal of Police and his southern sympathies were two of many factors in Abraham Lincoln's decision in February 1861 to pass through Baltimore surreptitiously on his way to Washington to be inaugurated, in order to avoid a possible assassination attempt. Despite his politics, Kane was instrumental in providing protection and an escort for Mary Todd Lincoln on her arrival in Baltimore in February 1861 on her way to the inauguration of her husband, who had preceded her.
John Rudolph Niernsee was an American architect. He served as the head architect for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Rudolph also largely contributed to the design and construction of the South Carolina State House located in Columbia, South Carolina. Along with his partner, James Crawford Neilson, Rudolph established the standard for professional design and construction of public works projects within Baltimore and across different states in the United States.
Lake Roland is a 100-acre (0.40 km2) defunct reservoir in Baltimore County, Maryland. It was named for Roland Run, a nearby stream that feeds the lake and eventually flows into Jones Falls. It runs southeast through the city center to the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River and the Baltimore Harbor. It is located just north of the Baltimore city limits.
The Baltimore City Circuit Courthouses are state judicial facilities located in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. They face each other in the 100 block of North Calvert Street, between East Lexington Street on the north and East Fayette Street on the south across from the Battle Monument Square (1815-1822), which held the original site of the first colonial era courthouse for Baltimore County and Town, after moving the Baltimore County seat in 1767 to the burgeoning port town on the Patapsco River established in 1729-1730.
George Aloysius Frederick was a German-American architect with a practice in Baltimore, Maryland, where his most prominent commission was the Baltimore City Hall (1867–1875), awarded him when he was only age 21. Later in the late 19th century, he served as the semi-official municipal architect.
The First Unitarian Church is a historic church and congregation at 12 West Franklin Street in Mount Vernon, Baltimore, Maryland. Dedicated in 1818, it was the first building erected for Unitarians in the United States. The church is a domed cube with a stucco exterior. The church, originally called the "First Independent Church of Baltimore", is the oldest building continuously used by a Unitarian congregation. The name was changed in 1935 to "The First Unitarian Church of Baltimore " following the merger with the former Second Universalist Church at East Lanvale Street and Guilford Avenue in midtown Baltimore. The American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America (established 1866) representing the two strains of Unitarian Universalism beliefs and philosophies merged as a national denomination named the Unitarian Universalist Association in May 1961.
The Baltimore bank riot of 1835 took place in Baltimore, the major port city of Maryland. It was a violent reaction to the failure of the Bank of Maryland in 1834. Thousands of citizens had lost millions of dollars in savings. The riot, which lasted from 6 to 9 August, attacked the homes and property of a number of former directors of the bank, who had been accused of financial misconduct and fraud, as well as the federal district courthouse located on Battle Monument Square. The Baltimore bank riot was one of the most violent and destructive events of civic unrest in any American city prior to the Civil War.
Eastern High School, established in 1844 along with its sister school Western High School, was a historic all-female, public high school located in Baltimore City, Maryland, 21218, U.S.A. Its final building, at 1101 East 33rd Street, is to the west of The Baltimore City College, also at 33rd Street, and across the street from the former site of Memorial Stadium. E.H.S. was operated by the Baltimore City Public Schools system at successive locations until it was closed in 1986. The final building was renovated in the 1990s and is currently owned and used for offices by the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.
J. Maximilian M. Godefroy was a French-American architect. Godefroy was born in France and educated as a geographical/civil engineer. During the French Revolution he fought briefly on the Royalist side. Later, as an anti-Bonaparte activist, he was imprisoned in the fortress of Bellegarde and Château d'If then released about 1805 and allowed to come to the United States, settling in Baltimore, Maryland, where he became an instructor in drawing, art and military science at St. Mary's College, the Sulpician Seminary. By 1808, Godefroy had married Eliza Crawford Anderson, editor of her own periodical, the Observer and the niece of a wealthy Baltimore merchant.
Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census, it is the 30th-most populous US city. Baltimore was designated as an independent city by the Constitution of Maryland in 1851, and is the most populous independent city in the nation. As of 2020, the population of the Baltimore metropolitan area was 2,838,327, the 20th-largest metropolitan area in the country. The city is also part of the Washington–Baltimore combined statistical area (CSA), which had a 2020 population of 9,973,383, the third-largest in the country. Though Baltimore is not located within or under the administrative jurisdiction of any county in the state, it is part of the Central Maryland region, together with the surrounding county that shares its name.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Bartlett-Hayward Company was an American metalworking company with large foundry, fabrication, and construction business lines, located in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in the 1830s, it was independent until 1925 and since 1927 was owned by Koppers, of which it remained a division long afterward.