Maryland - Baltimore
Baltimore
City Hall, seen from Fayette Street.

The War Memorial Building at 101 North Gay Street, constructed in 1921-25 and obviously for the Great War, the War to End All Wars with the hopelessly optimistic name. What's surprising is that this building won a design competition among architects, meaning all the other ones were even worse (by modern standards). Such was the style of the time. The horses are supposed to represent "the might of America crossing the sea", but they look like they just woke up from a Staunton chess set and don't want to move to e5. They're so lazy, they have fossils embedded (well, because they're made of limestone).

Another building with a military past, this is the namesake of Shot Tower Park, back on Fayette Street. Lead was heated at the top, then dropped, molten, into cooling water below, creating shot balls for cannons.

St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church.

Saint Lo Drive passes through Clifton Park, which used to be Lake Clifton, which is why there's an ancient valve house at the entrance. (Not a tiny castle.) The building at the end is Clifton Mansion.

Lake Clifton became a high school in 1962. The old Clifton Park High School, now "Harbor City High School" for an unknown reason, is on Harford Road, MD Route 147, just inside the park boundary to the southwest.

This had to be a theater once, right? Right? It's farther up Harford Road at Northern Parkway, hence the name "Northern Pharmacy."

Camden Yards, newish (1992) home of the Baltimore Orioles.
Inner Harbor.

One more downtown building as I drift northwest, this roof belongs to the 1929 Baltimore Trust Company Building, 34 stories in the Art Deco style.

The 1911 Emerson Tower, a clock tower that became the Bromo-Seltzer Tower when Emerson Drug started producing that product. For many years it advertised with a large metal bottle on top of what you see here from Greene Street at Lexington Street, too far away to show you the clock faces that read "BROMO" "SELTZER" around the dial (OMOREZTLESBR if you actually go by hour).

Heading west on Madison Street, the Baltimore City Jail warden's house is located in front of what is still a jail. It dates to 1859 and both housed the warden and served as the facility entrance for over a century, and appears to now hold keepers' offices. The monument I can't speak to; it's at the southwest corner by the Fallsway, and could be another part of the original jail structure that is otherwise gone.

Madison Street continues to the First Presbyterian Church and Manse, dating to 1859 and completed in 1873 on the northwest corner of Park Avenue. I have done my best to bring out the details in the rain.

The Commonwealth Bank of Baltimore was built right around the turn of the 20th century at the southeast corner of Madison and Howard Streets. Impressively still a bank.

Now onto McCulloh Street, this old tower is all that remains of the factory between Preston and Hoffman Streets. The original 1930s statues were replaced in 2012, so I have not focused on them for closeups.

Booker T. Washington Middle School is #1301 McCulloh Street. It's the school that smiles back.

Closing out McCulloh Street: #1500 on the left, #1811 on the right.

The first church is Bethel A.M.E. at #1300 Druid Hill Avenue, a fine building but no fine details. The remaining photos are the 1837 Metropolitan Methodist Episcopal Church, more easily found as the Orchard Street Church.

We get ever farther from downtown on Pennsylvania Avenue, #2131-2133 and #2223 respectively. The first building is sadly unlikely to ever be habitable again, while the second may still have a use. Can you read the faded text? A little digging unearthed: "E.T. Merryman Groceries. Syrup of Figs."

Closing out at Pennsylvania and North Avenues, the 1909 Tickner & Sons Funeral Home is on the northwest corner. The lions are along the roof. Do they feed on angels? Do they represent eating humans to bring more funereal business? The mind wanders.
The Rotunda/Maryland Casualty Insurance Building
Charles Street
Eutaw Place
Wyman Park
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