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Maryland Historical Society
Library of Maryland History
201 W. Monument Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
Phone: 410-685-3750
Fax: 410-385-2105
E-mail: library@mdhs.org

Baltimore Architecture:
Then and Now

Old B and O Building, 120-134 Baltimore Street
image info

Architects:
1882  E. Francis Baldwin
1911  Joseph. E. Sperry

The first notable building to arise at the northwest corner of Baltimore and Calvert Streets was the Baltimore Museum, opened in 1829 by Reubens Peale after the sale of his family's original Museum on Holliday Street to the city of Baltimore for municipal offices. For over 40 years the Museum was operated by a succession of entrepreneurs - including, for a time, P.T. Barnum - until it was destroyed by fire in 1872.

The site was purchased the following year by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which commissioned local architect E. Francis Baldwin to design a building capable of holding all its various departments under one roof. Baldwin originally projected a five-story structure with arched window heads on every floor, but the railroad's growth in the late 1890s required that the building grow, too.  By the time it opened in 1882, it consisted of seven floors with arched window heads on only every other floor. Further railroad expansion required the addition of two more floors under a mansard roof in 1888. The building was destroyed in the 1904 Baltimore fire, after which the railroad moved its offices to a new building on North Charles Street.

The Baltimore Street corner became the site of the Emerson Hotel, Joseph E. Sperry's entry in Baltimore's race to copy New York's Plaza Hotel. The 17-story Emerson, which opened in 1911 and closed in 1969, was demolished in 1971.  After the site's obligatory stint as a parking lot, the Bank of Baltimore Building opened in 1989. The building in 2001 was the main office of Sun Trust Bank.

Image information
left: Baltimore - Office Buildings - B and O Building, [1881] (MdHS Subject Vertical File Photograph Collection).
right: Photo by John Orrick, 2000.

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Baltimore Architecture - Homepage
 

Site Contents 
1  Masonic Building
2  Enoch Pratt House
3  Graham-Hughes House
4  American Brewery
5  Belvedere Hotel
6  Camden Station
7  Alex Brown Building
8  Williams-Small House
9  Timanus Mill
10  The Pembroke Apartments
11  Merchant's Exchange
12  Old B and O Building
13  Denny & Mitchell Building
14  Guardian Trust Building
15  Old Post Office Building
16  St. Joseph's R.C. Church & Washington Firehouse
17  The Maryland Casualty Building
18  Church of the Redeemer Building
19  The Popplein Family Mansion/Marlborough Apartments
20  Samuel Hoffman, later the Dr. William Osler Mansion
21  Cohen Brothers, later the Dr. Robinson Building
22  Saint Peter's Catholic Church 1770
23  The Baltimore Humane Impartial Society Building
24  Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad Calvert Station
25  The Richmond Market Building Site
26  Dr. Charles Howard's Site and Mount Vernon Place M.E. Church
27  The Stephen Broadbent Mansion "The Glen Mary"