Baltimoreans often use outdated names to refer to familiar spots and buildings, and 2014 forced me to refresh my list of rechristenings.
What we long ago called the Federal Reserve Bank, then Provident Savings Bank, is now The Lenore, an apartment building at 114 E. Lexington St. that opened this year at the former site of these financial institutions. Its lobby is a reminder of the house of money it once was.
Work in 2014 continued at 10 Light Street, the 34-story Art Deco skyscraper that has had many former names, among them Baltimore Trust, Mathieson, Maryland National and Bank of America. It, too, is going the apartment-conversion route.
This year I visited and had a lunch in the refurbished Lord Baltimore Hotel at Baltimore and Hanover streets. This is a case where the old Radisson name was tossed aside and this venerable hostelry reverted to what Baltimoreans have always called it.
I wanted to list the completion of the work transforming Charles Street and its carriage lanes in Charles Village, but work still drags on. At least the northbound lanes are open to traffic. The Baltimore Museum of Art, one of the major destinations served by the street, reopened its American Wing last month. There I encountered an amazing piece of local silversmithing — a punch bowl made to commemorate the completion of the Calvert and St. Paul Street bridges at Pennsylvania Station in the 1870s. The spans connected the Station North and Mount Vernon neighborhoods.
As a child I watched these beautiful Victorian spans be junked. At least we have a silversmith's art to recall bridges that Gustave Eiffel might have designed.
Mount Vernon saw the reopening of a renovated 11 E. Chase St. Built in 1914, it quickly became physicians offices. When new, it was called the Algonquin, but was soon known by its street address. It's now going by its original name.
The old Hochschild-Kohn department store furniture warehouse at Park and Centre is now 520 Park. It has an amazing atrium.
Remington saw the grand opening of the new Single Carrot Theatre in an old auto maintenance shop at the corner of 26th and Howard. There's a pleasant scent of wood smoke that drifts around here from the chimney of the Parts & Labor restaurant and butcher shop that is also part of this complex.
North Avenue changes quickly. The old Centre Theatre is well underway to becoming an arts and education complex. And a former auto showroom and used office furniture shop at 120 W. North that housed the Load of Fun Gallery until a few years ago is destined to become an arts center and restaurant. It recently received a state tax credit for a planned $6 million renovation. Its new name will be the Motor House.
On Christmas Eve, I was coming into the downtown area from Federal Hill and spotted the craggy concrete silhouette of the former Morris Mechanic Theatre. Its demolition began in late summer but seemed to pause for weeks, as if the wreckers couldn't figure out how to get the best of this 1967 landmark.
But not long ago, a large crane arrived and went to town. It ripped out walls and exposed the proscenium arch over the stage — for a few days until it disappears.
I recalled the last week of December 1970, when the brilliant cast of "No, No Nanette" filled the Mechanic stage with music and dancing. The audience gasped that night 44 years ago when the permanent Mechanic curtain rose to reveal a beautiful set and a special silky curtain made for this production. Now, four decades later, I gasped as I took what might be my last look at this once-treasured landmark.