Monument Street Garden
The Monument Street Garden is next to the MdHS’s school tours entrance at 201 W. Monument Street on the site where Enoch and Maria Louisa Pratt cultivated their 19th-century garden. There has been a garden on this site for 150 years.
In the garden are architectural fragments from demolished Baltimore structures. While these fragments no longer contribute to the streetscape as they once did, their placement in this setting allows us to examine their design and craftsmanship and provides an important record of the built past. We hope that this garden will inspire our visitors to look at Maryland’s existing architecture with a new appreciation.
Garden Tour New Look
click on the thumbnails below to learn more.
Sculpted Figure
Unknown artist Unknown location, c. 1850 Marble Gift of Calvin Buikema, 1999
The donor found this figure in the yard of Udell’s Memorial Company on Washington Boulevard in Baltimore.
With its swag of morning glories and other flowers, the figure may have decorated the facade of a Roman Catholic church. The flatness of its rear drapery suggests it originally stood against a wall.
Newel Post
Joseph Evans Sperry, architect Baltimore, 1900 Marble Gift of Calvin Buikema, 1999,
Northeast corner of St. Paul and Lexington Streets, Baltimore
This massive newel post formed part of a grand interior stairway in the Maryland Telephone Company building. A rival phone company, the Chesapeake and Potomac, acquired the former company and occupied the building beginning in 1907. It now houses the Office of the Public Defender. Renovations to the building interior eliminated the stairway as well as other architectural detail.
Carved Dragon
Attributed to Charles Carson, architect Baltimore, c. 1891 Brownstone Gift of Calvin Buikema, 1999
1024 Hopkins Place, between Pratt and Lombard Streets, Baltimore
This carved dragon, and others like it, once graced the front of the Spear Brothers boot and shoe factory, a building occupied by Fisher’s Specialty House in the 1940s. Demolished in 1979, the Romanesque-style building stood where the Days Inn Inner Harbor now stands.
Cartouche
Otto Simonson and W. Theodore Pietsch, architects Baltimore, 1908 Cast concrete Gift of the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 1997
304 East Baltimore Street, Baltimore
Horn & Horn was a popular lunch spot in the financial district until it closed in 1977. Open 24 hours a day, the restaurant attracted an eclectic crowd. The highly ornamented building was demolished in 1997 to build a garage.
"Canton" and "Sailor"
Hayward, Bartlett & Co. Baltimore, late 19th century Cast iron Maryland Historical Society, Gift of the Koppers Company, Inc., 1987.6.1-2
Scott and McHenry Streets, Baltimore
These Newfoundland dogs are two of many examples that Hayward, Bartlett & Company cast in the 19th century. The popular dogs became the company’s mascots and for years they stood by the door of the Koppers Company, successors to the iron foundry. Another pair flanked the door of a Carey Street house in Franklin Square.
Ionic Column
Benjamin Henry Latrobe with Maximillian Godefroy, architects Baltimore, 1816-20 Italian marble Courtesy of the Maryland Commission on Artistic Property of the Maryland State Archives, MSA SC 1545 3002.abcd
Gay and Water Streets, Baltimore
A group of merchants organized the construction of the Merchants Exchange and Custom House, completed in 1820. This column, one of twelve, formed a colonnade in the great hall, where ship owners and businessmen met daily to conduct business and where Abraham Lincoln lay in state. Fielding Lucas wrote of the columns in 1832, "their design and proportion are the closest imitation of the purist Grecian model." They are in fact an adaptation of those found on the Erechtheion in Athens. After the Exchange was demolished in 1902, the columns were reused in the Annapolis Court of Appeals building. Salvaged a second time, eight columns ornament a plaza at the Robert F. Sweeney District Court Building in Annapolis.
Tablet
George Archer and Raymond Allen, architects Baltimore, 1905 Marble Gift of Calvin Buikema, 1999
Argyle Avenue between Biddle and Hoffman streets, Baltimore
Public baths, popular in Baltimore between 1900 and 1960, earned the city a national reputation and served as a model for other cities. Henry Walters constructed five public baths in densely populated sections of the city to provide Baltimoreans with a place to bathe and to launder clothing. At Walters Public Bath No. 3, which served an African-American population, one could take a shower and rent a towel and soap for a few cents.
