Baltimore City Landmarks List

A few weeks ago, the National Trust for Historic Preservation announced their 11 endangered buildings around the US. Baltimore just announced its 12 submissions for the Landmarks list. This means that it is harder to either demolish a building or make significant changes to it without working through the Commission on Historical and Architectural Preservation.

A few years ago, a friend and I founded an architectural salvage non-profit because we were horrified at the number of buildings that were being torn down during the building boom in our region. We knew that there were fabulous architectural elements that were ending up in landfills and we wanted to save them.

The buildings on Baltimore's list range from a small house to a large Masonic Temple, as well as several churches, including one that was scheduled to be turned into condos before the market tanked. An old friend of mine owns one of the buildings, an interesting old warehouse, and I remember fondly one summer evening, watching the both the sun and a drug deal go down. One of the other buildings on the list is where Ouija Boards were made. All good buildings, and all worth preserving.