“In this very polite Maryland atmosphere we write things,” Zelda Fitzgerald wrote in a letter while she was living in Towson. Zelda and her husband, F. Scott, came to Baltimore several times in the 1930s. Many Baltimoreans are no doubt already familiar with the story: Perhaps the most famous muse...
Traffic crosses the Orleans Street Viaduct in 1955 and today. The bridge, built in 1936 to a pass over the Pennsylvania Northern Central Division rail yards, remains a primary route to travel between East and West Baltimore.
Preston Gardens along St. Paul Street, recently reopened after a $6.75 million renovation. The park, completed in 1919, replaced a neighborhood that Mayor James Preston considered a slum and was the home to many African-Americans.
Readers: Think you know your Baltimore? Try answering our weekly trivia question. Some weeks will be ridiculously easy, some weeks a bit more challenging. Put your best guess in the “answer” field and hit “submit.” Or comment on Instagram: @retrobaltimore. If you’d like to be recognized for a correct...
Baltimore and the surrounding area sure has changed a lot in its centuries-long history. But many traditions and landmarks from decades ago are still around today, give or take a few variations.More
As turnarounds go, it was a lulu. Fifty years have passed since the Baltimore Bullets won their first National Basketball Association division title — after finishing last the year before. On March 21, 1969, having clinched first place with a win over the Bulls in Chicago, the players made merry....
La-Tonya Wallace was recalled as an 11-year-old, bright-eyed little girl from Druid Park Lake Drive. She was in the fifth grade at Eutaw-Marshburn Elementary School. “She vanished on a cold, dreary Tuesday afternoon in February 1988 after leaving the Park Avenue branch of the Enoch Pratt Library,”...
Readers: Think you know your Baltimore? Try answering our weekly trivia question. Some weeks will be ridiculously easy, some weeks a bit more challenging. Here’s last week’s trivia: QUESTION: Along with Martin O'Malley, who were the other two candidates elected in 1991 to the Baltimore City Council,...
Readers: Think you know your Baltimore? Try answering our weekly trivia question. Some weeks will be ridiculously easy, some weeks a bit more challenging. Here’s last week’s trivia: QUESTION: U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings credits what African-American female politician in Maryland with launching his...
The recent death of Sylvia Chase, a pioneering ABC female news broadcaster in the 1960s, recalls an era when such reporters as Lesley Stahl, Connie Chung, Judy Woodruff, Andrea Mitchell, and Baltimore native Catherine “Cassie” Mackin were changing the face of the male-dominated TV news business....
Readers: Think you know your Baltimore? Try answering our weekly trivia question. Some weeks will be ridiculously easy, some weeks a bit more challenging. Here’s last week’s trivia: QUESTION: Baltimore-born jazz singer Ethel Ennis, who died this week, provided the singing and speaking voice for...
In the early 1800s, you could walk the city of Baltimore in an evening. Thanks to researchers from UMBC, who have created a 3D digital model of Baltimore circa 1815, you can see an approximation of what that walk would have looked like — building-by-building, block-by-block. If you didn’t know...
Readers: Think you know your Baltimore? Try answering our weekly trivia question. Some weeks will be ridiculously easy, some weeks a bit more challenging. Here’s last week’s trivia: QUESTION: What Sparrows Point High School grad and University of Maryland alum made a stunning diving catch to vex...
Now here is a Valentine’s Day gift that is as romantic as it is practical. In the 1980s, Baltimore launched a Valentine’s Day “adopt-a-pothole” campaign in which citizens could pay to have a pothole filled in their sweetheart’s name. A pink or red heart was stamped in the asphalt by the repair,...
With Valentine’s Day here and Spring Training hard upon us, who better to revisit than former Orioles outfielder Fred Valentine? A native of Clarksdale, Miss., and a star shortstop (and quarterback) at Memphis’ Booker T. Washington High School (class of ’53), Valentine was signed by the Orioles...
Baltimoreans, it seems, were serious about their Valentine’s Day cards back in the 1890s — serious enough to spend as much as a third of their weekly salary on one. In an “I Remember...” column that ran in The Sun of Feb. 12, 1956 (just two days before Valentine’s Day), August M. Roth recalled...
The Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 is one of those city tales in which the reality is greater than the myth. The blaze began innocently enough, Sunday morning, Feb. 7, 1904, at the John E. Hurst warehouse, a structure that stood on the site of what is now the Baltimore Arena, at Liberty near Baltimore...
Readers: Think you know your Baltimore? Try answering our weekly trivia question. Some weeks will be ridiculously easy, some weeks a bit more challenging. Here’s last week’s trivia: QUESTION: MLB Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson played one season for the Orioles in 1976, but he also played on an amateur...
Sometimes it pays to be short, even for a building. The 1901 Alex. Brown & Sons building at 135 East Baltimore Street was at the center of the conflagration that erupted in downtown Baltimore on February 7, 1904. Despite temperatures estimated to be 2,500 degrees at the southwest corner of Baltimore...