Chance to peek into some of city’s architectural gems
Doors Open Baltimore opens distinctive buildings to public for a day
Mike Mannes remembers back when 10 Light Street was the Maryland National Bank building and his company was doing business there. That was years ago, before its expansive, Gilded Age main lobby was turned into an Under Armour performance center, its upper 30-plus stories into luxury apartments.
On Saturday, Mannes, 75, could still envision in his mind’s eye the loan officers whose desks lined the mezzanine, the tellers who counted out the money in the lobby, the members of the city’s business elite who bustled in and out of the building’s front doors. It was fun, he said, flashing back a few decades.
“They’ve done a beautiful job with this building,” said Mannes, an attorney and native Baltimorean who lives in Mount Washington. “This is amazing.”
On Saturday, 61 buildings, dating from the 18th century to just a few years ago, were opened to the public for visits and tours. The occasion was the third annual Doors Open Baltimore, presented by the American Institute of Architects Baltimore and the Baltimore Architecture Foundation as a way of reintroducing Baltimoreans to some of the city’s most distinctive buildings, many of which — like 10 Light Street — are not open to the public on a regular basis.
“It’s a celebration of the city’s architecture,” said Nathan Dennies, communications manager for the architecture foundation, “a way to explore the city and to appreciate the built environment.”
Participants were free to wander the city and visit as many sites as time would allow. Maps and tour pamphlets were available at the Maryland Historical Society, which served as the event’s nexus. Many people walked from location to location, while others took advantage of public transportation, including light rail and the free Charm City Circulator.
Although the open buildings were spread throughout the city, as far north as Mount Washington’s Baltimore Clayworks and as far south as Atwater’s Big Kitchen in Morrell Park, the vast majority were within a 10-block radius of the historical society.
One popular destination was part of the society, the 1847 Enoch Pratt House, once home to the man who gave Baltimore its public library. Located on Monument Street adjacent to the society’s headquarters, it is used mostly for storage and occasionally as a performance venue.
“We came here on a field trip, I kind of remember this room,” said Jennifer Green, 44, of Timonium, who visited as a young girl, when the historical society had its headquarters here. Only the first floor was open Saturday, and the rooms were mostly bare; most of the furniture is on display next door, at the society’s museum. But Green and plenty of other visitors — more than 250 in the first hour, according to tour guide Scott Rubin, the historical society’s visitor services manager — walked through the first-floor rooms, taking in the parlor’s columns and marble mantels, as well as a pair of massive mirrors.
“It’s strange; it’s totally different, seeing it without furniture,” said Green.
Vacant space was almost nowhere to be found at 10 Light Street, where visitors waited a half-hour or more to be taken in groups of 10 for an elevator ride to the building’s 22nd-floor club room and terrace. Stepping outside, it was possible to see all the way south to the Key Bridge. Visitors also got to see some of the finer details of the 1929 Art Deco skyscraper, which opened as the Baltimore Trust Company Building and was once the tallest building on the East Coast outside New York.
“I’ve never had the opportunity to go into buildings like this before,” said Sheilah Kalderon, 69, of Owings Mills.
At 404 N. Howard, in a building from the early 1900s that once housed the Strand movie theater, Carly Bales was giving tours. She and others are turning the building, which had been home for some 50 years to a clothing store, into a performance space to be called Le Mondo. They hope to have it open in March.