Virginia Rambler: Charm City

Your Virginia Rambler correspondent and a companion crossed the Potomac and headed to Baltimore, a.k.a. Charm City. From a home base at the Brookshire Suites (120 E. Lombard St.), we explored the Inner Harbor and nearby neighborhoods.

One day, I headed out the door of the Brookshire Suites and down Calvert Street. I had no specific destination in mind, just a desire to see what there was to be seen. In the space of half an hour, I saw a wide array of buildings representing different styles and functions. There were such riches; I hardly knew where to look first. Here are some highlights. (Click on any picture for a larger version.)

We had a direct view of this lovely building (the Jeweler's Building, 31 S. Calvert St.) from our suite at the hotel. The first, second, and fifth floors are occupied by Quintessential Gentleman, a charming barbershop, day spa (for men and women), club, and retail store.

Street art on a pillar across from 31 S. Calvert Street (helpfully labeled as "street art").

207 Redwood Street (corner of Calvert and Redwood). This building, formerly called the Keyser Building, was originally an office building. Developers bought it in 2005 and planned to convert it to a hotel, the Hotel Indigo. Progress on the renovations stalled in 2010, when the developer sought bankruptcy protection. This neo-gothic 1906 structure has 72,000 square feet of space longing to be occupied. Attempts were made to get the money needed to finish renovations, so that revenues from the hotel could be used to pay creditors, but without success. There's a rumor that a nightclub will open soon in a small portion of the building.
     I haven't been able to trace the origin of the building's name. I'm guessing it may have been named for Michael Franklin Keyser, a 19th-century Baltimore businessman and descendant of a founding family.

The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company will have a new home in the 1885 Mercantile Trust and Deposit Company building (200 East Redwood), a lovely Romanesque Revival structure that's on the National Register of Historic Places. The company says it hopes to create a "modern Globe" theater that will combine the intimacy of a traditional Elizabethan playhouse with a contemporary sense of design and convenience. The theater is scheduled to open this year.

Decorative iron (?) work over a doorway on S. Calvert. If you didn't look up, you'd never know
it was there.

This 1815 monument (Battle Monument Square on North Calvert St. between East Fayette and East Lexington) commemorates those who lost their lives during the battle of North Point and the bombardment of Fort Henry, September 12 and 13, 1814 (War of 1812). The monument was designed by Baltimore architect J .Maximilian Godefroy, sculptor to the Court of Spain. The "ribbons" that criss-cross the column list the names of soldiers who died during the battle;  the names of officers who died are at the top.

The gold-lettered signs for Mosler Safes & Vault Doors, in the second-story windows of this building, caught my eye. Mosler was an Ohio-based company, in business from 1867 to 2001. Its safes and vaults were legendary for their strength. In the 1940s, four Mosler vaults were installed in a bank in Hiroshima, Japan, and they survived the atomic bomb blast. Other vaults in the same bank did not. (Much was made of this fact in Mosler's advertisements, a move both canny and in dubious taste.)

From Calvert St., I turned onto Baltimore Street. There appeared to be a commercial district, and since I never pass up the chance to do a little souvenir-shopping, I decided to investigate. Ooops.... the establishments on this stretch are selling something, but it's not souvenirs.
     Above, we have Larry Flynt's Hustler Club, on the site of the former Gayety Theater building, the last of the burlesque, vaudeville, and movie theaters that lined this block in the first half of the 20th century. (The building burned in 1969, but the spectacular Baroque/Art Nouveau facade was salvaged.) And across the alley from the Hustler Club is Club Pussycat.

Across Baltimore Street from Club Hustler is the 2 O' Clock Club; I liked the sign so much I'm including two shots of it. (By night, the sign glows red and is illuminated with neon, and a stylized woman's figure is superimposed on the "2.") Back in the 1950s, famed burlesque dancer Blaze Starr performed at the 2 O' Clock (and for a time owned the building). Unfortunately, this neighborhood (The Block) has changed in character, for the worse. The 2 O' Clock Club was the location of a murder/stabbing incident on Feb. 10, 2014.

 At the end of the block with the Hustler Club, Pussycat Club, and many other, um, establishments, is the Grace & Hope Mission (4 South Gay St.), which would appear to have its work cut out for it. The building, which the Mission has occupied since 1919, has three very large stained glass windows on its facade, protected by metal grillwork (a marriage of beauty and pragmatism).

Standing on Baltimore Street near the Hustler Club, if you turn 180 degrees, you see the dome of City Hall. (Odd bedfellows, indeed.)

The former offices of the Baltimore American (one of the two major Baltimore newspapers for some 200 years), now home to a 7-Eleven. The illustration between "Baltimore" and "American" is the newspaper's masthead, with the Statue of Liberty and the inscription "Liberty Enlightens the World," which was the statue's original name. (The date 1773 represents the first newspaper's founding; 1904 stands for the year in which the building was erected.) You can see the reflection of another classic building (the former offices of the competing newspaper?) in the windows of the second photo.

 This building (next door to the Springhill Suites) is being converted to condos.

The Springhill Suites (120 E. Redwood St.) was built as a bank headquarters over a century ago, and has been lovingly repurposed.

The lobby is spectacular, and the facade is in excellent condition. Above is a domed entryway (a side entrance). Below is an old night depository slot.

Take the stairs from the lobby down to the lower level, and you'll see the original vault, repurposed as a board room. It's gorgeous--don't miss it.

Etched metalwork on the inner edges of each door, and part of the mechanism. Hardly anyone would notice these decorative touches because of their location, but the pride in craftsmanship is there nevertheless.

Handle on the outside of the vault doors (steampunk fans' delight).

Sign in the window on the side of the Springhill Suites. If you look closely, you'll see a reflection of four actors' faces from the sign advertising the new home of the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, across the street. (See photos of the theater building earlier in this article.)

Alleyway on Redwood Street; to the right is the Goodwill building (222 Redwood St.).

Werner's Restaurant (231 E. Redwood St.), a vintage 1950s restaurant that's unchanged by the decades. This little time capsule of bygone days has been the set for television shows and movies, including "The Wire," Syriana, Tin Men, "Homicide: Life on the Street," Ladder 49, and Liberty Heights.
     Compare picture 2 below with the picture of the Greensboro sit-in luncheonette counter at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_sit-ins--the stools are identical except for the coverings (vinyl-covered padding in the Greensboro picture and wood in the picture below). The owner, John, assured me that all the furnishings at Werner's were original. When he bought the restaurant, quite a lot of restoration/cleanup was needed. They've done a fine job!

Soda fountain.

 Pickle pyramid.

I walked past the mini-monument above several times without noticing it--thank-you to Dave from Werner's restaurant for bringing it to my attention. This item consists of a cannonball on an iron stand. The cannonball was fired from a British warship during the bombardment of Fort Henry, September 13-14, 1814. It fell inside the fort. It was presented to Michael Keyser by an officer. (This is in front of the building formerly known as the Keyser Building; see photos of the Hotel Indigo earlier in this post.) The iron base is a rack that was used to bend bar iron so it could be best loaded into the old Conestoga wagons before the railroads replaced the wagons.

Above and below: Graffiti on a wall in an alley off Water Street, near Commerce. The caption beneath Edgar Allen Poe reads "Consumers, and nothing more."

"Here to stay" has special meaning in downtown Baltimore, an area that was devastated by the 1904 fire. Like the Phoenix, the city has risen from its ashes. Here's to the next 100-plus years, Charm City.

Sources

• Kilduffs Baltimore Buildings: http://www.kilduffs.com/Buildings.html
• Baltimore Business Journal, "Hotel Indigo developers seek approval to finish work." http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/news/2011/01/13/hotel-indigo-developers-seek-approval.html?page=all
• Hotel Indigo Baltimore: http://www.emporis.com/building/hotel-indigo-baltimore-baltimore-md-usa 
• CSC's New Indoor Home: http://www.chesapeakeshakespeare.com/building.html
• Mosler Safe Company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosler_Safe_Company
• Unbreakable: Hiroshima and the Mosler Safe Company: http://conelrad.blogspot.com/2010/08/unbreakable-hiroshima-and-mosler-safe.html
• Damon Safe and Iron Works Company: http://www.certificatecollector.com/html/certs3/damonSafeIron.html 
• "It's 2 o' Clock. Do You Know Where Your Husband Is?" http://www.charmcityhistory.com/2013/03/its-2-oclock-do-you-know-where-your.html 
• "Built to Last: Ten Enduring Landmarks of Baltimore's Central Business District." http://www.nps.gov/history/hdp/exhibits/baltimore/7.htm 
• Grace and Hope Mission Incorporated: http://www.gracehopemission.com/

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