Baltimanual :: Historic Sites

Some cities get nicknames that stick. The Big Apple, the City of Brotherly Love, the Windy City. Baltimore goes through a kind of forced meme change with every mayoral election--the City that Reads, the Greatest City in America, and on and on.

Above: Fort McHenry; Left: The John W. Brown docked near Canton

It was John Quincy Adams, visiting in 1827, who called us the Monumental City-a nod, perhaps, to the Battle Monument (Calvert and Fayette streets) celebrating twin victories over the British. The Brits sacked Washington on their way to destroy the shipyards of Fells Point, only to be stymied at North Point (North Point State Park, 9000 Bay Shore Road, Sparrows Point, [410] 477-0757, dnr.state.md.us) on Sept. 12, 1814. The next day they bombarded Fort McHenry (2400 E. Fort Ave., [410] 962-4290, nps.gov/fomc), but failed to take the fort. You may have heard of that one-Francis Scott Key, watching from a prison ship in the Patapsco River, set it to music.

Another nickname, the City of Firsts, seems apt. The Battle Monument was the first war memorial in the United States, and the nearby Washington Monument (600 N. Charles St.), the first monument to the first president, was begun at the same time. First Methodist Church in America: Lovely Lane United Methodist, built in 1784 (2200 St. Paul St., [410] 889-1512, lovelylane.net). First cathedral built after the Constitution: the Baltimore Basilica, begun in 1806 (409 Cathedral St., [410] 727-3565 baltimorebasilica.org). First American saint: Elizabeth Ann Seton, who lived, that's right, here in Baltimore (Mother Seton House, 600 N. Paca St., [410] 523-3443, mothersetonhouse.org).

The first practical submarine was launched at the foot of South Street in 1897 (today we keep a couple of "lasts" there-the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Taney is the last surviving ship from the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the U.S.S. Constellation is the last ship afloat from the Civil War).

A little further east, Isaac Myers formed the first black labor union in 1869 in Fells Point, where abolitionist, orator, and author Frederick Douglass plied a trade as a ship's caulker (Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park and Museum, 1417 Thames St., [410] 685-0295, douglassmyers.org).

The first Liberty Ship was built in Baltimore, to transport troops and supplies during World War II, and one of the last ones left, the John W. Brown, still docks near Canton (2000 S. Clinton St., [410] 558-0646, liberty-ship.com). We erected the first monument to Edgar Allan Poe in 1875, which seems only fair, since he lived (Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum, 203 Amity St., [410] 396-7932, eapoe.org) and is buried (Westminster Hall, 519 W. Fayette St., [410] 706-2072, westminsterhall.org) here, and after all, it was Baltimore that killed him.

Which brings us to possibly the most enduring name for Baltimore-Mobtown. Long before David Simon made the city's penchant for criminality into a TV show, we had a reputation for stirring up trouble. It was on prime display during the Civil War, when guns atop Federal Hill were trained on the merchants of Pratt Street by Union troops, to keep Confederate sympathizers in line. The first blood drawn during that war fell on Pratt Street as a Baltimore mob attacked Union troops switching trains between President Street Station and Camden Yards, and the former is open occasionally as a museum (Baltimore Civil War Museum, 601 President St., [410] 385-5188).

We seem to attract crime, both real and fictional. The Continental Trust Building (1 Calvert St.) was home during the 1920s to the legendary Pinkerton Detective Agency. One of the agents working out of that office was Dashiell Hammett, whose family ran horse-drawn arabber carts in the city. Hammett left for California in 1920, leaving behind the Trust Building and its ornately carved birds, but he looked back at Mobtown for inspiration after he began his writing career in 1922 with a story about the Continental Op.

Hammett left a little early to witness the birth of a prolific criminal career a few blocks away, at the corner of Calvert Street and Lexington Avenue, where John Dillinger was arrested for trying to pawn a stolen watch in 1923-his first felony-but even in Hammett's day, Baltimore's Block, the vice-friendly district now confined to a couple of blocks of East Baltimore Street, had garnered itself an international reputation as the place to go for a bawdy night out. The Gayety Theatre (405 E. Baltimore St. now home to an adult book store and Larry Flynt's Hustler Club) saw the greats of vaudeville and burlesque, and in later years, stripper Blaze Starr took the stage at her Two O'Clock Club (414 E. Baltimore St., [410] 783-2656, 2oclockclub.com) across the street.

There is no monument to James M. Cain, the author of Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice, who worked at The Baltimore Sun, but he spent a lot of time at the home of Baltimore's most treasured man of letters H.L. Mencken, whose house has become a museum to the Bard of Baltimore (H.L. Mencken House, 1524 Hollins St., [410] 396-3523, mencken.org).

In 1974, an ad man came up with "Charm City," and it stuck in a way that more recent slogans haven't. Hidden among the monuments and the fading industry, Baltimore is a city known for its quirks. The inventor of the Ouija Board is buried beneath a statue of his creation at Green Mount Cemetery (1501 Greenmount Ave., [410] 539-0641, greenmountcemetery.com) near the body of John Wilkes Booth, whose grave is unmarked. Johnny Eck, the sideshow performer most famous for his appearance in the movie Freaks, retired to Baltimore to pursue that most local of arts, screen painting (Johnny Eck Museum, 622 N. Milton Ave., johnnyeckmuseum.com).

One of the city's least heralded monuments graces the street outside Union Memorial Hospital (333 N. Calvert St.). A weeping cherry tree stands next to the hospital entrance, a gift from one-time patient Al Capone, who went to Union Memorial in 1939, after Johns Hopkins Hospital turned the gangster away. Union Memorial, it seems, failed to cure his syphilis-he would die of it the following year-but his tree still blooms every spring.