Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: United States

  • Baltimore – Washington Monument

    Located in the Mount Vernon area of Baltimore, this column and statue was the first substantial monument to George Washington. It was designed by Robert Mills who also designed the Washington Monument in the country’s capital. Work started on the monument in 1815 and was completed in 1829, with a time capsule added which was discovered in 2015. It was originally meant to be built in a more urban area of the city, but it was built in the suburbs as some residents complained that it might fall over onto their houses.

    When I was in Baltimore a few years ago the column was closed to the public whilst urgent repairs took place. It re-opened in 2015 to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary since work started to build it, with the cost of the project coming to a not inconsiderable $6.5 million. There are 227 steps to the top of the monument and when I finally get back to Baltimore, I might try and climb them…..

  • Baltimore – The Walters Art Museum (Colosseum by Giovanni Paolo Panini)

    Thanks again to the Walters Art Museum policy on having photos of their exhibits available to download, I’m again using their version rather than my considerably less sharp photo. The painting by Giovanni Paolo Panini is more favourable to the Colosseum and to the Arch of Constantine than they deserve, made more attractive for the purposes of the artwork. The artwork was painted in 1747, in the middle of the artist’s career.

    The museum, keen to give the provenance of every artwork, notes the history of the ownership of this painting:

    “Tyrwhitt-Drake, Shardeloes, Amersham, Buckinghamshire [date and mode of acquisition unknown]

    Agnew, London [date and mode of acquisition unknown]

    David Koetser, London and New York [date and mode of acquisition unknown];

    Walters Art Museum, 1954, by purchase.”

    The first owner, Tyrwhitt-Drake, was from the family descended from Sir Francis Drake and it was purchased for their country home in Buckinghamshire. I imagine that it was collected as part of some grand tour of Europe by a younger member of the family. Agnew and Koetser are art dealers, so I assume that the family later needed the money and wanted to sell this painting.

  • Baltimore – The Walters Art Museum

    The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore is one of the few museums around the world which has placed into the public domain photos of nearly every major item in their collection. This seems to me a wonderful gesture which is in keeping with the aim of a museum, which is to promote and share knowledge.

    And, as if that wasn’t enough, they’ve gone further and made a real effort to detail the provenance of items in their collection. This isn’t a unique policy, but it should be much more common in my view. So, visitors to the museum can discover not just more about a particular item, but also how it came to be in the collection of a Baltimore institution.

    I visited the museum in the summer of 2015 and the museum was so clearly laid out, with friendly staff, that I remember much of my visit. There is also no admission charge, a decision made in 2006, to try and enable as many people to visit as possible. Out of all the museums and galleries that I’ve visited, this remains one of my favourites.

  • Baltimore – The Walters Art Museum (Pilgrimage Flask)

    Using the Walters Art Museum photo rather than own, this fascinating little item is a pilgrimage flask, which was worn around the neck of those going on pilgrimages across Europe. It was originally filled with holy water from the Shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. There aren’t many of these which survive in such good condition, and to someone, this would have likely been one of the most important things that they owned.

  • Baltimore – The Walters Art Museum (Cat Mummy)

    Cats were bred near to temple sites and they were mummified as a gift to the Gods. The cats were mummified on an industrial scale and sadly a vast number were destroyed during the nineteenth century. In Liverpool in 1890, a consignment of 180,000 mummified cats were sold as fertiliser.

    The museum’s photo of its cat is of course somewhat better than mine…. This cat was carefully and tightly wrapped in linen and when the museum x-rayed it they discovered that “its neck was intact, with the forelegs pressed down against the body and hind legs folded together”.

  • Baltimore – George Peabody Library

    I couldn’t possibly not go to somewhere known as the ‘Cathedral of Books’. The George Peabody Library is one of the better known libraries in the United States because of its design and elegance. The building was completed in 1878, having been designed by Edmund George Lind.

    Unfortunately my photos aren’t of a particularly good quality, but they give an impression of the design and scale of the library.

    I never tire of looking at shelves full of books, a glorious sight, even though these are somewhat damaged. I doubt they’re accessed enough to justify the costs of repair or rebinding though.

    This book was published in 1861 and is the catalogue of the books which the library had proposed to buy. The opening of the library was a little delayed due to the American Civil War, but the hopes of having such a grand library in Baltimore didn’t diminish during the wait. Even by 1863 the first librarian, John G. Morris, had purchased over 2,000 books, although the book above had a list of 20,000 title, so he still had some way to go.

    Today the collection has over 300,000 books and is today part of the John Hopkins University who note that the library has “strengths in religion, British art, architecture, topography and history; American history, biography, and literature; Romance languages and literature; history of science; and geography, exploration, and travel”. Which isn’t a bad little collection of strengths.

    There’s no admission charge to enter the library, although it’s main purpose now appears to be just as a book store as there were no readers at all when I was there. The higher levels of the book stacks aren’t accessible to visitors, but it’s still a worthwhile visit just to be able to look inside the building.

  • Baltimore – Memorial to Firefighters

    This statue in honour of past, present and future firefighters is located outside the Fire Department Headquarters, near to Baltimore City Hall. Made of bronze it was placed here in 1990 and it was sculpted by Tylden Streett, an artist who was born in the city. Coincidentally, I was just Googling the sculptor and discovered that he died yesterday, at his home in Richmond, California.

    The statue was funded by the Baltimore City Fire Fighter’s Monument Committee, who raised $107,000 to construct the memorial. They got two different firemen to pose for the statue and it’s designed to look as though the fireman is gazing off into the distance, contemplating his role and the work that he does.

  • Baltimore – Photos of Harbour

    From summer 2015, some photos of Baltimore Harbour, or more accurately perhaps, Baltimore Harbor. Baltimore had once been a thriving port, but it was too shallow for many boats to use and it fell out of use during the mid-twentieth century.

    Today the area is mostly now related to entertainment, with museums, bars, restaurants and other tourist attractions. I visited most of the attractions on my first visit to Baltimore, such as the National Aquarium and the Historic Ships, and it was also my first of many visits to the Five Guys restaurant.

  • Baltimore – Wi-Fi Password

    I was given this when I asked in an Irish bar if they had wi-fi. To be honest, I’ve seen slightly more memorable passwords….. I remember that it worked fine as I thought for a while they were just amusing themselves getting customers to type it in multiple times thinking they’d made a mistake.

  • Baltimore – Shot Tower

    This impressive brick built tower in Baltimore was the tallest structure in the United States when it was completed in 1828 and it wasn’t over-taken until 1846 when Trinity Church in New York opened.

    The purpose of the shot tower was to make lead shot, which was done by dropping molten lead from the top to then plunge into cold water at the base of the tower. It remained in operation until the turn of the twentieth century when more efficient production methods were discovered.

    The structure was added to the National Historic Landmark register in 1971 and it is one of only three remaining shot towers in the United States. Unfortunately the tower only opens at weekends, and I wasn’t in Baltimore on a weekend…. But, maybe I’ll get to go back and see inside one day.