The massive walk-in safe now holds office supplies. There's a big-screen television flashing stock market updates where Canton homebuyers once made their passbook payments. The old president's office sits at the top of the well-worn stairs.
What had once been the Canton Pulaski Building Association, at 3201 Elliott St., has returned to its roots. It's now a financial planning and investment business called Community Pride Wealth. This summer, the owner, Canton resident Mike Engler, plans to open a sidewalk "financial cafe" where residents can get free Wi-Fi and a seat under an umbrella.
"I was intrigued by this place," he said. "It was a beautiful building, but it had been vacant for years. Every once in a while, a 'for sale' sign would appear. ... We finally found who owned the building, and we made a deal."
The building, which will open for a neighborhood viewing from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, is a curious Baltimore survivor.
Never substantially changed (the skylights got tarred over), this house of neighborhood finance was built as the Canton National Bank. It retains evidence of its earlier life. It's not hard to imagine a bookkeeper wearing an eyeshade here. The structure appears to have been constructed not long after 1900. You can almost hear the ticking of the adding machines and the typewriter keyboards.
The Canton National Bank, organized by Canton residents in 1892, grew as the neighborhood prospered. The bank officers approved construction of this handsome headquarters. Their business was so brisk that they had to buy more property.
By 1923, this building, at the corner of Elliott Street and East Avenue, was too small. The bank sold the property to another financial institution, the much smaller Canton Pulaski Polish Building Association. It traded here until about 20 years ago, when the property became vacant.
And because It stood vacant, its classic interior escaped modernization.
Baltimore once had hundreds of these small neighborhood building associations. These were not commercial banks; they did not offer checking accounts or safe-deposit boxes.
They were places run by your neighbors (board members often contributed their time) where you traditionally got a mortgage to buy a home. That residence was often a rowhouse, sold by a builder who was most likely well known to the officers of the building association.
Historically, they often had ties to churches or to immigrant groups who felt comfortable dealing with their own, often in a language that was not English.
Baltimore's building associations were created by the financial pillars of the German, Polish, Italian, Bohemian and Greek communities. The African-American neighborhoods also had building associations.
These building associations were highly neighborhood-centric. There were ones for Ten Hills and Peabody Heights. Some used oddly archaic names, such as the Kennedy Hill Association, on Greenmount Avenue near 23rd Street. The "Kennedy" was a reference to the family who lived in the adjoining Oak Hill estate.
And while the building associations have not completely disappeared (Southeast Baltimore still has its Kopernik Federal Bank and Kosciuszko Federal Savings Bank), the banking industry has changed. Financial institutions are no longer headed by the neighborhood druggist, building contractor and lawyer.
Engler said new offices in Canton area can be too expensive for a small-business person. He leased the former building association late last year after its owner power-washed the facade and made other improvements.
He and his staff of two moved in in November. He said he wants to accommodate two additional employees. "We are a small operation," he said.