[Editor’s Note: 2/7/2024: This 2004 piece by then-contributing writer Jim Duffy ran in our February issue 20 years ago this month. We re-share it today in commemoration of the 120th anniversary of the Great Baltimore Fire—a “blaze for the ages” that obliterated 86 city blocks, consumed 1,526 buildings, and killed five Baltimoreans.] 

It’s hard to believe that H.L. Mencken could sum the scene up in six words, but there you have it: “The burned area looked like Pompeii.”

Strange, isn’t it, how hard it is to find your bearings in the vast, frozen rubble? What corner is that? Which way is the camera pointed? Wait…yes…there’s the City Hall dome!

A century ago this month, Downtown Baltimore went up in flames. No one knows how the blaze started, though all the experts seem content enough with a piece of pure conjecture about a carelessly flicked cigar passing through a window into the basement of the Hurst building that stood on Hopkins Place, where the Baltimore Arena is today.

Historians are on firmer ground when they rank the resulting conflagration as a city-defining moment, one on a par with the defense of Fort McHenry in 1814, and the 1833 founding of the B&O Railroad. The fire raged for two days, February 7 and 8, a Sunday and a Monday. Stiff, shifting winds pushed the blaze north, then east along a clockwise arc and kept firefighters constantly on their heels.

The Baltimore Sun, Feb. 8, 1904: “There is little doubt that many men, formerly prosperous, will be ruined by the events of the past 24 hours…Many of the spectators saw it all go up in flames before their eyes, and there were men with hopeless faces and despairing expressions seen on every hand. In fact, the throng seemed stunned with the magnitude of the disaster and scarcely seemed to recognize the extent of it.”

It’s still hard to fathom the extent of it. On the one hand, only one person died in the blaze (with four more succumbing later to fire-related causes). On the other hand, the fire obliterated 86 city blocks, consuming 1,526 buildings that housed 2,500 businesses. It was, without a doubt, a blaze for the ages: not as big as the legendary 1871 Chicago fire, but a lot bigger than the famed 1872 Boston fire.

In the old pictures, a few human figures stand amid the ruins. But they’re distant, recognizable now more as types than as individuals—soot-covered immigrant, stoic businessman, grim civic leader, drained firefighter. This being a city (then and now) flush with coincidental small-town connections, it’s natural to take an elongated look, wondering whether any of those lives brushed up against yours over the generations.

Perhaps that immigrant was one of your great-grandfather’s shot-and-a-beer buddies. Perhaps that firefighter started a family tradition that reaches the fourth-generation firefighter in the rowhouse next door. Perhaps that well-dressed man’s name ended up on your business card—the old newspaper clippings are chock full of Venables, Marburys, and Semmeses.

Eventually, the wandering mind makes its way back to the point: What was it like to watch the city burn?

The Baltimore American, Feb. 8, 1904: The Maryland, a lunch room, “was brilliantly lighted and patronized by men of grime and of worry…[W]hile they dined a stringed orchestra played beautifully. Soon the rain of sparks in the street made the young lady waitresses nervous, but the leader of the band and his men kept on, oblivious to all except the time and the tune. Then the general cry for retreat went up and, seizing the cash register and a few valuables, all rushed to the open air and safety.”

Some people credit divine intervention for staving off an even more monumental catastrophe. Fervent prayers issued from St. Leo’s Church found answer when the blaze failed to jump the Jones Falls and ravage Little Italy. Others speculate about a more devilish force, noting that the fire backed off on the brink of consuming the old Monumental Burlesque House.

The Baltimore American, Feb. 10, 1904: “Yesterday, however, it was but a smoldering mass of ruins, with no element of danger of further spread. This brought a feeling of indescribable relief to everyone, and the representatives of the commercial, financial, and manufacturing life of Baltimore were free to turn their minds to thoughts of the future.”

The Baltimore Sun, Feb. 8, 1904: “There is little doubt that many men, formerly prosperous, will be ruined by the events of the past 24 hours…Many saw their all go up in flames before their eyes…The throng seemed stunned with the magnitude of the disaster.”

There are many fine ways to mark the centennial of an event so seminal to this city. Some will chase the fire’s mysterious origins. Some will mourn lost architectural gems. Some will relish the heroics of firefighters (and their horse-drawn equipment). The exhibits, tours, and lectures planned around town for the months ahead promise something for every interest.

My own interest is focused on what happened after the fire. Perhaps that’s because there are echoes of current events at New York City’s Ground Zero in the story of the rebuilding of Baltimore. Everybody back then was stunned to find that “fireproof” buildings were nothing of the sort. Crews clearing the rubble worried that post-fire dust would be the respiratory death of them. Rebuilding plans and proposed memorials stirred passionate debates.

The rebuilding story also speaks to current events close to home. A century after the fire, Baltimore once again finds herself about the hard work of raising a new city. Look at the west side of downtown, where the new Hippodrome opens this month. Look at Inner Harbor East, on its way to becoming a little downtown of its own. Then keep tracking the shore down to Canton Crossing, where things are just getting started. Head up to the East Side, near Johns Hopkins Hospital, where they’ve basically decided to create on purpose the situation faced by city leaders after the Great Fire; they’re reducing the area to rubble and then starting over again with a biotechnology park.

On the morning I write this, there’s a story in the paper about a single property on the west side of downtown that’s been trapped for six years in a purgatory of redevelopment paperwork. Six years! Maybe someday it will win a meaningful approval. Maybe someday after that a shovel will strike ground.

Fanned out across my desk are scores of blurry microfiche printouts of stories detailing Old Baltimore’s response to the fire (we had five major daily newspapers back then). It took just two short years—tumultuous years, to be sure, but two short years nonetheless—to clear her 86-block sea of rubble and raise a completely new downtown.

Not only that: The buildings that burnt had a combined value of $13 million. Their replacements were worth $35 million. The rebuilt downtown had better, wider streets and a better, more productive harbor. It delivered Baltimore into a future much brighter than it would otherwise have found.

How’d they pull that off? Could we modern-day Baltimoreans have done as well? Are we doing our rebuilding jobs as well?

The Baltimore News, Feb. 8, 1904: “To suppose that the spirit of our people will not rise to the occasion is to suppose that our people are not genuine Americans…We shall make the fire of 1904 a landmark not of decline but of progress.”

To be frank, Old Baltimore was in rather desperate need of progress. Downtown streets dated to colonial days. They were narrow, confusing, ill-connected and, as a result, paralyzed by horsedrawn traffic jams. Even pedestrian progress was an iffy proposition, thanks to the mish-mash of utility poles sunk in sidewalks to prop up an ugly, never-ending web of overhead wires.

The city’s wharves and port facilities were all but obsolete. The harbor was so thick with silt that only constant dredging kept its depth at 20 feet. That was deep enough for the old sailing ships, but everyone could see that the future belonged to steamships.

Last but far from least: sanitation. Imagine all the mounds of horse poop on those poorly drained streets. Imagine a city without a proper sewer system, its human waste routed from indoor water closets to stagnant nearby cesspools or into open ditches leading to open streams. The sweepers, shovelers, and scrapers who toiled to clear the muck went by a rather hopeful name: the Odorless Excavators Association. Not even they could prevent the filth from flowing freely on those frequent occasions when the Jones Falls flooded, inundating downtown clear to Calvert Street.

Old Baltimore wasn’t so much oblivious to her problems as impotent in the face of them. Most historians blame a brutal municipal hangover lingering from the Civil War, which created bitter divisions in Baltimore’s population while tearing away at the Southern roots of the city’s cultural and business life.

The “war sapped the vitality of an entire generation,” James B. Crooks writes in “Politics and Progress: The Rise of Urban Progressivism in Baltimore 1895–1911.” “Economically, Baltimoreans became more conservative; politically, they became apathetic; and psychologically, they became less daring.”

Nothing came of sanitation commissions established with great fanfare in 1881 and 1893. At the time of the fire, yet another sewer plan was before the General Assembly. As always, the Odorless Excavators lobbied furiously against it. Other civic-minded initiatives died at the ballot box as cynical voters convinced that official corruption was endemic rejected one bond referendum after another.

Still, some Baltimoreans were trying to revive their tired city. Inspired by the City Beautiful movement, the fledgling Municipal Art Society made lots of noise about better schools, wider streets, and new parks. Under editor Charles Grasty, the Baltimore News had become a powerfully progressive voice. In another hopeful sign, the dashing young Robert McLane was narrowly elected mayor in 1903. (McLane was a few months younger at his inauguration than Martin O’Malley was at his.)

The scenery and the players were now in position. Yet over the ensuing years, historians have gone back and forth on the chicken-or-egg question: Did Baltimore rouse herself just in time for the fire? Or was it the fire itself that finally roused her?

There are moments in the fire story when Old Baltimore seems not a century away, but a millennium. As news of the catastrophe spread across telegraph wires, everyone everywhere wanted to help. There was talk of emergency federal aid. Neighboring states offered money, manpower, and equipment. Spontaneous donations started arriving in the mail at City Hall.

The Baltimore News, Feb. 9, 1904: “Mayor McLane made the following statement to the News this morning: ‘As head of this municipality I cannot help but feel gratified at the sympathy and the offers of practical assistance which have been tendered us…To them I have in general terms replied: Baltimore will take care of its own people the best it can…but we thank you, and we appreciate it just the same.”

Some $60,000 in donations arrived in the mail before McLane’s message got out. All was returned, accompanied by properly polite thank-you-but-no notes. The city did accept $250,000 from the state of Maryland to help the injured and unemployed, but 90 percent of those funds were later returned to the state treasury.

Report of the Citizens’ Relief Committee, 1906: “In view of the enormous losses, the remarkably small showing of only $23,000 disbursed proves that the virility and self-respect of Baltimore’s citizens can not easily be matched, and their spirit of independence and capacity for self-help calls forth, even in this progressive age, wonder and admiration.”

As investigators waded into the rubble after the fire, snippets of encouraging news slowly trickled in. Buildings housing banks may not have been fireproof, but the vaults were, so securities and cash survived. Insurance companies offered public reassurances about their solvency. The predicted riots and looting didn’t materialize. Burned-out businesses scrambled to regroup.

The Baltimore News, Feb. 10, 1904: “RUSH FOR HOUSES. $75,000 Given for Building Worth. $37,000 Sufferers From Conflagration Glad to Pay Any Price For Temporary Quarters. North Charles street is now temporarily the center of the financial district. Almost every building is being offered for sale and some exorbitant prices are being asked.”

Of course there was profiteering: This is Baltimore, after all. What did you expect? But more important was the way some farsighted businessmen sensed straight away that the fire presented an opportunity to tackle the city’s seemingly intractable problems. On Tuesday, Feb. 9, retired railroad executive William Keyser called the first informal meeting of like-minded leaders. A follow-up session the next day included the mayor himself.

The Baltimore American, Feb. 11, 1904: “BALTIMORE BRAVE AND DETERMINED WORLD ADMIRES OUR GRIT…To carry out this civic spirit a meeting was held yesterday at City Hall, and steps will at once be taken to organize a special body that will announce to the world, and then proceed to furnish proof thereof, that Baltimore is fully able to cope with the calamity that has befallen it.”

That Friday, McLane named an advisory Citizens Emergency Committee. Its roster reads like a guide to the grand institutions and legal patriarchs of modern-day Baltimore: Henry Walters, Theodore Marburg, William H. Welch, Richard M. Venable, John E. Semmes, Sherlock Swann, Henry Stockbridge.

The headlines may have been gushingly optimistic, but the newspapers also carried reports hinting that caution remained the watchword for many Baltimoreans. Unnerved by the thought of thousands of men suddenly unemployed and hordes of strangers in town to gawk at the devastation, residents in a glitzy new suburb called Roland Park hired extra security patrols. The Maryland National Guard was called in to patrol downtown. And every tavern in the city was ordered shut down.

The Baltimore American, Feb. 15, 1904: “The efforts of saloonkeepers and breweries to elude the blockade of police and militia has led to the adoption of odd devices. Every kind of vehicle has been pressed into service to carry beer, and a story is current that an enterprising saloonkeeper in the Eastern district secured his beer by sending a hearse for it.”

Unnerved by the thought of thousands of men suddenly unemployed and hordes of strangers gawking at the devastation, residents in a glitzy new suburb called Roland Park hired extra security patrols.

The new advisory committee threw caution to the winds.  It split into subcommittees that began issuing reports in as little as three days. Streets should be widened. Parks should be built. Electrical wires should be buried. Wharves should be rebuilt. The harbor should be dredged. A proper sewer system should be built. The committee recommended that the rebuilding be planned and executed through a powerful new entity called the Burnt District Commission (whose acronym, by fitting coincidence, matches that of the modern-day Baltimore Development Corporation). Squeezed by a shortage of space at City Hall, the five-member commission headed by Sherlock Swann held its meetings in a janitor’s closet.

The Baltimore American, Feb. 15, 1904: “FINE PLANS FOR A MODEL CITY. The citizens of Baltimore yesterday, many for the first time, had a chance to pause sufficiently in their work to realize that a new era has been entered—that the Metropolis of the South stands upon the threshold of an epoch full of possibilities for a greater, more progressive and more influential Baltimore, whose importance cannot as yet even be estimated.”

The whole city seemed suddenly drunk with civic good will. Newspapers served up quote after hyperbolic quote from businessmen and politicians. Nary a cynical word was heard, even in the face of recommendations that the new Baltimore should be modeled after Paris—that’s right, the one in France. Then the real work began. And it became all too clear that wider streets meant smaller lots for new buildings, that new parks meant lost lots for some property owners, that rebuilt wharves would have to be city-owned—what of their current owners? At the risk being overly harsh, one might say that everyone in Baltimore favored every proposed improvement except the one that touched on his own holdings (and thus was “Not In My Backyard” born). Soon, voices of dissent were raised. Public rallies in opposition were mounted.

The Baltimore World, Feb. 19, 1904: “Delays are dangerous, and the great danger that hovers above Baltimore today is in delay…Every man who by penuriousness or greed puts a stumbling block in the pathway of the city’s improvements hangs a weight about his own neck, for in retarding the work, and hence the city’s progress, he depreciates his own property. Let us hope that no business man or property owner will fail to measure up to the needs of this occasion, or show that his greed is greater than his love for his city.”

McLane and his allies were nothing if not shrewd. The enabling legislation for the Burnt District Commission (which they had rushed through the General Assembly after the fire) gave the two city council branches that then wielded great power in Baltimore zero authority to amend the plan for new streets.

Pass it whole. Reject it whole. Take it or leave it. Those were the only options. Leave it, and pay the price.

The Baltimore American, March 11, 1904: “Baltimore’s City Council will lay itself open to severe public censure if any of the members allow themselves to get into wrangles over the ordinances required for the rebuilding…There is strong public demand…for prompt action, for no squabbles, for a hearty cooperation in every measure.”

McLane explained the strategy in simple, down-home terms: “We do not want to take three bites at the cherry.”

But his quote is rich with between-the-lines food for thought. His way managed all at once to be populist, progressive, and thoroughly anti-democratic. Sometimes, it seems, serving the public good—even doing the public’s will—requires making an end run around the public’s elected representatives.

Said representatives were none too happy to discover their powerlessness. On March 30, the Second Branch of the City Council erupted into open revolt and cast a stunning preliminary vote to dump the whole rebuilding scheme.

The Baltimore Sun, April 2, 1904: “Act, do something! The spirit of hopefulness and courage with which our citizens faced their calamity the day after the fire is being frittered away while Councilmen, intent upon petty features of the problem, demonstrate their incapacity to comprehend its larger features…The people of Baltimore want the work of rehabilitation to begin right away. They want deeds, not words.”

In the end, they got deeds. But the recalcitrant City Council got something, too—a compromise that killed the most controversial of the proposed widenings, Baltimore Street. The roads that were widened (by anywhere from 15 to 63 feet) include Hanover, Charles, Light, Pratt, St. Paul, Calvert, and German (now Redwood) streets, along with Hopkins Place.

An obvious question still lingers: Where’d the money come from? That brings us to a tale of timely good fortune.

The city had long before sunk some money into the Western Maryland Railroad. But by 1874, when John Mifflin Hood took over a bedraggled WMR, that investment looked like a bad bet, likely to end in a total loss. To everyone’s surprise, Hood turned the railroad around. When he sold WMR in 1902, the city cleared $8.7 million. It was a windfall just sitting there in the city’s coffers when the fire broke out.

The Baltimore World, Feb. 19, 1904: “There’s a good deal of silly sentiment about the Western Maryland money that must disappear in the face of a desperate business proposition such as now confronts us. If the Western Maryland money can help us, we should not hesitate a moment to use it.”

The windfall helped Baltimore get off to a fast start, but it didn’t come close to covering the whole rebuilding bill. Fortunately, a once-cynical public had by now changed its tune: Between 1904 and 1911, Baltimore voters approved bond issues totaling $50 million.

Soon enough, we will move on to our reasonably happy ending  ending. But the events of 1904 necessitate a couple of unfortunate detours first.

One is a personal tragedy. On May 30, 1904, Mayor McLane returned home from City Hall, and promised to take his new bride of just a few weeks out for a carriage ride. He went to his room; there was a shot, and he was found dying of a bullet wound to the head, presumably a suicide attempt. The historical record has whispers of domestic troubles and speculations about the pressure of the mayor’s public position. Some even suspected murder. But no plausible explanation was ever offered. McLane served as mayor for just 385 days.

The second detour returns us to larger civic affairs. Though Baltimore seized many important opportunities after the fire, she also missed out on a few. No memorial to the fire ever got built. Parks got squeezed out of the redevelopment plan, including a grand one that would have stretched along the south side of Fayette Street from the east end of City Hall to the west end of the Post Office and perhaps beyond.

Among the many advocates for this plan was Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., the son of the famed landscape architect. The younger Olmsted weighed in on the rebuilding in a report published by the News on Feb. 20, 1904. He suggested an entirely new street slice diagonally downhill from Baltimore and Park to Pratt and Light. Not only would it would ease congestion, he argued, it would also “form a splendid vista” of the harbor. Olmsted saw something in the harbor that few contemporaries did.

One gets the sense that if he were alive today, he would not be surprised in the least by the Inner Harbor. He proposed a pedestrian promenade for the waterfront, lined with plantings and lights. He suggested that scenic overlooks be placed atop the sheds that would sit along the new wharves.

“There is not a more interesting sight among all the activities of a city,” he wrote, “than the coming and going and maneuvering of big vessels and small craft in a busy harbor…My point is that in a comprehensive and intelligent treatment of the waterfront many matters of appearance and recreation can be provided for by the exercise of some thought…[and] without any material addition to the tax-payers’ burden.”

Olmsted wasn’t always so prescient, however. He also told Baltimore not to fret about its trolley lines, because it was inevitable that the city would soon develop a proper subway system.

Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., son of the famed architect, suggested an entirely new street slice diagonally downhill from Baltimore and Park to Pratt and Light. It would “form a splendid vista” of the harbor.

And so Baltimore’s plan wasn’t perfect. But what plan is?  In “The Limits of Power: Great Fires and the Process of City Growth,” historian Christine Meisner Rosen compares how well Baltimore, Boston, and Chicago recovered from their respective fires. Her conclusion is blunt: “Baltimoreans achieved more of their improvement goals more fully than the others, and consequently solved more problems.”

One can only imagine the scene downtown as 1904 gave way to 1905. Six months after the fire, 236 buildings were under construction. One year after the fire, more than 200 new buildings were completed and 170 more were under construction. And two tumultuous years after the fire, Baltimore had earned the right to do a little chest-thumping.

The Baltimore Sun, Feb. 7, 1906: “TWO YEARS AFTER FIRE BALTIMORE IS BOOMING. Marvelous Progress In Building, Manufactures, Municipal Improvements And General Business. RARE OPPORTUNITIES FOR CAPITAL. The Loss of $100,000,000 By The Conflagration Has Not Only Been Recovered, But The Aroused Enterprise Of The People Has Gone Something Like $100,000,000 Better—How One Of The Greatest Disasters Of Modern Times Has Been Converted Into A Blessing.”

The following September, the city threw a week-long Baltimore Jubilee. There were speeches and sermons and cheers. There were parades, concerts, light shows, and carnivals. There were tens of thousands of revelers downtown every night for a week.

Ninety percent of the lots in the burned district were occupied by then. The street improvements were finished—those are the streets we drive today. The wharves were being rebuilt—those are the piers of today’s Inner Harbor. The sewer system was in the works—that’s the one that’s still working (barely) today.

All played a critical role as Baltimore made the transition from one economic era to another, from dealing in dry goods to becoming a manufacturing powerhouse. In 1904, Baltimore’s industrial output was pegged at $150 million. By 1927, that climbed to $700 million.

When it comes to numbers like this, the historians argue back and forth about the impact of the fire. Some say the fire sparked a great revival. Others think Old Baltimore would have managed just fine in the new century in any case.

The Baltimore American, Sept. 10, 1906: “The conflagration destroyed all but hope and courage, and the two combined have raised from the ashes a new and greater city…Even the casual visitor [will be] compelled to admit that the Monumental City contains all that is possessed by any other city in the country.”

Not quite the Greatest City in America, perhaps, but at least Baltimore was in the running.

This story is based in part on interviews with Stephen Heaver of the Fire Museum of Maryland, Jeannine Disviscour and Barbara Weeks of The Maryland Historical Society, historian Dr. Pete Petersen of Johns Hopkins University, and historian Wayne Schaumburg, who has taught classes about the fire at several local colleges.

In addition to the newspaper articles, books, and official documents mentioned directly in the text, the most important written sources for the article were Baltimore Afire by Harold A. Williams, Baltimore on the Chesapeake by Hamilton Owens, Newspaper Days by H.L. Mencken, and “History of Baltimore 1870–1912,” an essay by John M. Powell in the book Baltimore: Its History and Its People.

Cheryl Duffey sits on a park bench in Locust Point surrounded by large planters sprouting annual flowers. Her two cocker spaniels lie at her feet on a beautiful herringbone brick terrace marking the entrance to Latrobe Park. She grabs the dogs’ leashes and enters the park, down a sweeping staircase and into an allée of trees.

“This is a well-utilized neighborhood park,” says Duffey, who is liaison for the Parks and Beautification committee of the Locust Point Civic Association. “When school lets out or on a weekend, the park is full.”

From the mature trees to local denizens using the space for everything from a volleyball game to a playdate, today’s Latrobe Park would still be recognizable to the Olmsted firm that designed and opened it in 1907. Yet many of the people whiling away a pleasant afternoon here likely have no idea they’re on land designed by the most revered landscape firm in America.

In May, Latrobe reinvigorated that history by placing a bronze plaque at the entrance honoring it as an Olmsted park. Latrobe also kicked off the first phase of the restoration of a pavilion, called “The Longhouse,” with a mural designed by local artist Nicole Buchholz that was painted by neighborhood residents.

“Community participation is an Olmstedian principle, and having residents paint the mural gives them ownership over ‘their’ park,” says Duffey. She says it is also imperative to reignite the cachet of the Olmsted legacy. “The Olmsted name is an invitation for people to come visit—and maybe for there to be more resources for upkeep, too.”

Frederick Law Olmsted is considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, having shaped much of this country’s greenspace from Central Park to the National Parks. Special events and celebrations of his projects—including Sudbrook Park in Pikesville and Mt. Vernon Place in Baltimore—are taking place nationwide in 2022 to mark the 200th anniversary of his birth.

For Latrobe and other parks, it’s a chance to remember Olmsted, whom biographer Justin Martin describes as “the most important American historical figure that the average person knows the least about,” but also to bring attention to his beliefs that parks are essential to democracy and a healthy populace—not just utilitarian places to take the dog for a morning pee.

Olmsted’s designs are beloved for their naturalism, their abundant use of trees, their gentle ambling paths, quiet groves, and open vistas. He wanted parks to be places of serenity and community, particularly as the country healed from the horrors of the Civil War. (So while it’s true that he would recognize Latrobe Park, morning joggers would likely have mystified him.)

His designs make up the fabric of the American landscape as we know it. Along with Central Park, his projects include Boston’s Emerald Necklace and the Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C. He helped preserve Yosemite and Niagara Falls and designed the Biltmore in North Carolina. Olmsted (and the namesake firms that were formed after his death, first operated by his sons as Olmsted Brothers, later as Olmsted Associates) is responsible for more than 1,000 parks and parkway systems and more than 6,000 private and public commissions in the U.S. and Canada over a roughly 100-year period.

Yet Dede Neal Petri, president and CEO of the National Association for Olmsted Parks (NAOP), which is spearheading the yearlong “Olmsted 200” celebration, explains that while Olmsted’s projects are numerous and illustrious, “what we’re focused on with the bicentennial year are the principles behind the parks.” “Parks are viewed as luxuries, but Olmsted saw them as an essential part of our urban infrastructure,” she says. He was also advocating for better and more accessible parks at a time when they were, if they existed at all, private.

“We hope to advance education about the Olmsted firm and its legacy, but, more importantly, we hope to engender a new appreciation and support for the parks, because they’re not self-sustaining,” Petri continues. “Today we need places where people can come together for mental and physical health; we need thriving parks at a time of climate change, and it will call on the commitment of all of us to ensure these parks are around for another generation.”

 

OLMSTED’S DESIGNS ARE BELOVED FOR THEIR NATURALISM, ABUNDANT USE OF TREES, GENTLE AMBLING PATHS, QUIET GROVES, AND OPEN VISTAS.

 

When Duffey moved to Locust Point in 2002, the neighbors were aging and so was the park. What is today the herringbone brick terrace was then a stretch of cracked concrete, and the “playground” was just a few swings and a set of monkey bars. Community activists like Duffey, supported by the city and other partners, have revitalized the park with a sprawling playground and fieldhouse as well as the renovated Long House with its brightly colored mural. The park has evolved to reflect both the neighborhood’s vibrancy and to meet its present-day needs.

This is what Olmsted believed—that parks should be for their communities. When he created Central Park, he stated, “The Park is intended to furnish healthful recreation…for the poor and the rich, the young and old, the vicious and the virtuous.”

It feels particularly appropriate to celebrate Olmsted in 2022. There is, after all, an opportunity here to learn from history.

“Olmsted was born in 1822 and grew up in pre-Civil War America,” says Petri. “It was a very divided country. There was massive immigration. Not unlike today, it was a time of many pandemics, with all types of diseases impacting the American population. And it was a time when we were moving from a rural to an urban society.

“Olmsted’s principles of parks bringing people together, of parks as essential to a democratic society, are very important even as we as a country are going through a racial reckoning and as we go through a pandemic,” she notes. “It’s almost eerie to see the similarities of what Olmsted was dealing with in the 19th century and the challenges we face today.”

While now known for his landscapes, for much of Olmsted’s life he stumbled into various careers. Raised to be a gentleman farmer, Olmsted charmed his way into a gig on a merchant ship and sailed to China despite having no experience at sea. Through friends he was given the opportunity to travel the pre-Civil War South documenting slavery for what is today The New York Times. His collected columns, The Cotton Kingdom, can still be bought on Amazon and was a formative read for Malcom X. The experience made Olmsted an abolitionist and informed his idea that parks must be for all people. He worked on sanitation commissions and provided medical services to the Union Army during the Civil War. He was originally hired in New York not as a landscape architect, but a superintendent in charge of clearing away stones and draining swamps to make way for the soon-to-be developed Central Park. It was only when a competition opened to create a blueprint for the park’s design that Olmsted found his life’s calling.

In Baltimore, it was, in fact, Olmsted’s sons, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and John Charles, both inculcated in Olmsted’s ideas from youth, who had the greatest impact on the city.

For much of his adult life, Olmsted was plagued by an injury from a near-fatal carriage accident, in addition to struggling with ongoing mental health issues. He died in an asylum at age 81 where he—fittingly or perhaps ironically—had drawn designs for the grounds. Olmsted Jr. and John Charles went on to have nearly as illustrious careers as their father, and they proved to be just as impactful to landscape design. Olmsted Jr. helped write the bill that created the National Park Service, for example, and created the first-ever university course in landscape architecture at Harvard.

The Olmsteds designed 136 projects in Maryland, including Homeland, Guilford, and Roland Park. But their Report Upon the Development of Public Grounds for Greater Baltimore, known simply as the 1904 report, shaped the Baltimore greenspace of today.

Retired UMBC American Studies professor and Olmsted historian Ed Orser describes Baltimore at the turn of the last century as the sixth largest city in the country, teeming with people living in crowded rowhouses surrounded by belching industry. The population was growing, the city was expanding, and residents would need places to get fresh air.

“[Baltimore] civic leaders at the time knew the Olmsted Brothers had designed in Paris, London, and New York and they wanted to be in that same company. Every city wanted an Olmsted park,” Orser explains.

Olmsted Jr. is cited as a pioneer of city planning, and the 1904 report is emblematic of that. “What makes the 1904 masterplan visionary is that it was not just for how the city was, but for how it would be,” says Orser.

The brothers envisioned a system of parks and parkways like Boston’s Emerald Necklace, but Baltimore City was too developed to create some of the much-needed connections. Still, they helped the city plan for the acquisition of already “park-like” lands, like the Clifton and Carroll estates, that were rapidly being engulfed by the city. Olmsted Jr. was particularly enamored of the city’s stream valleys, including Herring Run and Gwynn Falls, and championed setting them aside as natural reserves.

“People struggled with that idea because they weren’t ‘parks’ in the way Druid Hill is a park,” says Orser. “Even now, not all people understand that these are parks.”

The report also shows how the world had changed from Olmsted Sr.’s time and the firm was adapting. At the turn of the century, the playground movement was gathering steam and residents wanted athletic recreation, not just Sunday strolls. Hence, the 1904 plan created the recreational extension of Patterson Park. At Latrobe, the design is quintessential Olmsted stuff, with many trees and grassy knolls, but the design also has a “men’s open-air gymnasium” and a “little children’s lawn,” complete with a shaded seating area for Victorian-era mothers.

“Latrobe is less than two blocks, but it is everything Olmsted in miniature,” says Orser.

The 1904 plan, only some of which was realized, was always about connecting larger parks, like Druid Hill and Patterson Park, with greenway networks and tree-lined boulevards as well as building small community parks, like Latrobe and Riverside, so residents could easily access the outdoors. Because of this vision, Baltimore lacks a problem other municipalities face.

“When I attend parks conventions, people often talk about the importance of access,” says Jennifer Arndt Robinson, executive director of Friends of Patterson Park and the current president of Friends of Maryland’s Olmsted Parks and Landscapes, Inc. (FMOPL). “That’s not our problem. Ours is about improving the quality of our parks, ensuring resources, and creating connections with communities.”

When Robinson moved to Patterson Park in 2001, she met folks who hadn’t set foot inside the park in 20 years. Thanks to neighborhood involvement, the park is now a lively place, but it was the COVID-19 pandemic, of all things, that proved to be the biggest boon. People took advantage of parks, including Patterson, as safe gathering spaces.

“Parks play a big part in public health—they did back then, and we see it now with the pandemic,” says Robinson. “How people use parks shifted in the pandemic,” she continues. “Before they may have gone for a run in the morning, but now they’re having picnic dinners there; parks are a part of their daily existence. People’s understanding of the roles parks can play in city living has been greatly enhanced.”

In fact, NAOP’s Petri says parks have been “loved to death” during the pandemic. Where once Robinson was focused on engaging people to use the park, she’s now trying to balance park accessibility with so many users. She also recognizes that much of the successful resurgence at places like Latrobe and Patterson Park is due to shifts in neighborhood demographics and subsequent investment. But what of the neighborhoods that have not seen similar upswings?

“Olmsted would be saying now is the time to look at areas where we have greenspaces that are being underutilized so those communities feel connected to their parks and neighborhoods,” says Robinson.

 

“LATROBE IS LESS THAN TWO BLOCKS, BUT IT IS EVERYTHING OLMSTED IN MINIATURE.”

 

Adam Boarman, PLA, is a licensed landscape architect and FMOLP member. He’s also chief of capital development for Baltimore City Recreation and Parks and knows a thing or two about the difficulties of maintaining the city’s more than 260 parks and approximately 4,600 acres of parkland, much with infrastructure that is over a century old. While almost every Baltimorean is within a 10-minute walk of a greenspace, many need some TLC.

This summer, Recreation and Parks embarked on a comprehensive plan and a citywide condition assessment of its parks to make data-informed decisions about where resources are best allocated. Maintaining existing parks is challenging enough. Creating new ones? Even harder. In 2020, a study was funded for The Baltimore Greenway Trails Network, which calls for a 35-mile “bike beltway” of urban trails linking neighborhoods and outdoor resources that takes inspiration directly from the 1904 Olmsted plan. And just as the entirety of the 1904 plan wasn’t fully executed, the Greenway is hitting resistance. Boarman says it’s a tough balance between equitable access to the outdoors and, say, ample neighborhood parking.

Perhaps that’s why preserving the Olmsted narrative is so important. Boarman notes that, particularly with the naturalistic aesthetic of Olmsted-like projects, it’s easy to overlook the intentionality of the design.

“My staff and I try to reference the history and the original intent of the design, no matter who did it, to honor and respect their vision, while also providing for modernization,” says Boarman. “It’s why Latrobe is so special,” he continues. “We’ve done our best to respect the original geometry and symmetry while adding things like the new field house and turf field, and the park is alive and well.”

The modern park movement isn’t without its successes. The Roland Park Community Foundation (RPCF) recently won its long battle to obtain 20 acres from the Baltimore Country Club. Though privately owned, it will be a public park, reportedly the largest to be created in the city in 100 years. RPCF has announced that “Hillside Park” will feature an Olmsted-inspired design, fitting given Roland Park’s existing Olmsted history.

Robinson says that, as a person who spends her days in Baltimore’s parks, she draws a lot of hope from Olmsted’s ideal of equitable greenspaces intimately tied to their communities.

“Baltimore has a lot of problems where money is not the answer,” she says. “Parks are one where serious investment could take away a lot of challenges. The city would change for the better. I see it every day with our youth workers, how their experience in and with the park changes their perspective. There’s so much possibility in our parks.”