It’s a cold day in January as Sol Davis, director of the Jewish Museum of Maryland, walks through the newly renovated building just days before it reopens to the public. Sunshine pours into the renovated lobby. Printed signs are taped to the walls. The new podcast studio is stuffed with boxes waiting to be unpacked. One of the galleries hums with construction as sawdust fills the air.

Davis is unhurried—he knows everything will get finished and he’s eager for the empty spaces to be filled with community again: “There’s been a lot of anticipation.”

For centuries, Baltimore has been home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the United States, and to this day, it remains incredibly diverse and active. The museum, the successor to the Jewish Historical Society of Maryland, which was established in 1960, is nestled between two historic synagogues—Lloyd Street, housed in a Greek Revival-style building and the third-oldest synagogue in the United States, and the nearly-as-old B’nai Israel, with its more Gothic look—in historic Jonestown.

The first iteration of the museum came about in the 1980s, when the society opened the Jewish Heritage Center, which officially became a museum in the late ’90s. Over the past two decades, it has hosted countless exhibits, programming for families, and a bris or two, but the building has stayed the same. Meaning this newest makeover—one that finally brings it into the 21st century—is long overdue.

“We’ve been talking about the project as really a big step in our evolution into the museum field,” says Davis, who was director of the Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center in Arizona before coming to Baltimore in 2021. “And also, a once-in-a-generation kind of capital investment in Jewish culture in Baltimore City.”

The space, once dark and dated, now feels fresh and modern. Every inch has been reconfigured and reconstructed—down to the gallery floors, which have transformed into a comfortable terrazzo to encourage lingering. And all throughout, there is an emphasis on participation and engagement, moving away from the model where visitors are passive observers who strictly read placards next to photographs.

“What participatory means to us is really an invitation to Jewish Marylanders to co-narrate the story of the Jewish Maryland experience together,” says Davis.

That will be done through changing exhibits and even a new campaign to collect photographs from Jewish Marylanders of their generational families. And the centerpiece? A state-of-the-art production studio to record as many Jewish oral histories as possible.

“The charge we gave to the architects was, how can we move out of a spectator paradigm and really [offer this space] as an experience and as a partnership between the museum and the community,” says Davis.

For him, that also includes opening the door to those who aren’t part of the Jewish community—especially their neighbors from Jonestown, a predominantly African-American community.

“It’s a huge opportunity for us to think about Jewish and African-American relations historically and how we can nourish those relationships in the present.”

The renovations have been helped along by Baltimore Orioles owner David M. Rubenstein, who announced a gift of $1.5 million to the museum last September. The lobby—now named the David M. Rubenstein Exhibition Arcade—is very orange, something Davis says is mere coincidence.

Its design is inspired by 19th-century Parisian arcades, aka passageways, featuring an arched ceiling lined with skylights. There are display cases for artifacts from the museum’s archives, interactive stations, and a large video screen. The museum refers to them as portals.

Which all goes back to one simple purpose, says Davis: “We want to connect Jewish Marylanders with their roots.”

There’a a new addition to the Baltimore skyline: a 26-foot-tall glowing red heart that overlooks 1 Aisquieth Street. That beaming symbol belongs to the much-anticipated Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) Maryland, which will open its brand-new location in the historic Jonestown neighborhood on May 14.

The $30-million project will allow the RMHC to expand its mission of providing a home away from home to families with seriously ill or injured children by accommodating 2,200 families annually, more than doubling the occupancy of the current house on West Lexington Street. “We were turning away as many as 30 families per night and over 600 families per year because we didn’t have room,” says RMHC president and CEO Sandy Pagnotti. “Our old house is a wonderful place, but our families deserve the absolute best.”

While some guest-favorite comforts will continue at the new house (gift cubbies for the children and volunteer-made meals, to name a few), families will have access to new five-star amenities such as a business center, a classroom, and a meditation room.

Since the house was designed around the team’s philosophy of making it “the Ritz meets Disney meets Grandma’s,” messages of love and warmth are spread throughout the 60,000-square-foot facility, including “hope stones” made by previous visitors that are layered into the foundation of three of the floors. As part of RMHC’s effort to engage with the Jonestown community, the house’s “backyard” will transform into a city park featuring a playground and a basketball court.

For Renee Boca and her 7-year-old daughter, Hannah the experience of staying at the RMHC has been defined by its community of staff and volunteers. When they left Ireland in December to receive treatment at Sinai Hospital for Hannah’s rare orthopedic condition, Boca worried that the intense physical therapy would wear on Hannah’s outgoing spirit.

But now she says that Hannah has blossomed thanks to her interactions with everyone from the shuttle drivers to the other children. “She’s really grown as a person because of the supportive environment she’s been in,” says Boca.

As for the families who will move into the new house once it opens this month, Boca says they can expect to live by the saying, “Enter as strangers, leave as friends” that hung on the wall of the house on West Lexington Street: “People say that it takes a village to raise children, and it very much feels like that when you’re at the RMHC.”

If you’ve driven in Southeast Baltimore these past few weeks, you may have noticed a glowing, red heart has been added to the skyline. That beaming symbol belongs to the much-anticipated Ronald McDonald House Charities Maryland (RMHC), which will open its brand new location in the historic Jonestown neighborhood on May 14.

The $30 million, 60,000-square-foot project will allow the nonprofit to expand its purpose of providing a home-away-from-home to families with seriously ill or injured children by accommodating 2,200 families annually, more than doubling the occupancy of the current house. Ahead of its opening, we talked with the facility’s president and CEO Sandy Pagnotti to learn more about the new house.

What inspired the decision to construct the new Ronald McDonald House Charities Maryland?
We’ve been over on West Lexington Street for 36 years. We can currently house 32 families, but over the past 10 years we’ve had an ongoing waiting list. We were turning away as many as 30 families per night and over 600 families per year because we didn’t have room. So six or seven years ago, we decided to start thinking about building a new house. Our old house is a wonderful place, but our families deserve the absolute best.

Why 1 Aisquieth Street?
We wanted to be close to our partner hospitals, about equal distance. The new house is more central to our kids at Johns Hopkins, Kennedy Kreiger, the University of Maryland Hospitals, and Sinai Hospital. This also gave us the opportunity to come into an underserved community and really try to become an anchor of change. We hope that we become a catalyst for more good things to come into this community. There’s so many wonderful people and programs here already and we’re excited to add to it.

How will RMHC interact with the Jonestown community?
We’ve been working with Baltimore City Recreation and Parks to build a new city park with a basketball court and a playground. That’s part of our auxiliary project so that when our doors open we’ll also have helped make a new city park. That way local kids and our kids can all play together. That’s the vision: Our mission goes beyond our own bricks and mortar. It is bigger than what happens inside the walls—we’re also helping to spread love outside.

Tell us about some of the new features and amenities in the new house.
Our team has a philosophy that our house is the Ritz meets Disney meets Grandma’s. The accommodations are five star, it’s family-focused and child-friendly, and our families feel feel warm, nurtured, and taken care of here. New to the house is a serenity room, a teen and young adult room, student classroom space, a business center, fitness center, our first-ever kosher pantry, a board and community room that can be rented out by community groups or businesses, and more. There’s also a special Magic Room for when the kids get surprise visits, presents, or anything special. We have been collecting ideas for years, and now we’re excited to implement as many as we can.

What is the All You Need is Love project and how will it be utilized in the new house?
About seven or eight months ago, we put a call out to artists saying that we wanted to adorn the walls of the new house with art that’s loving and happy and brings joy to families. Now we have more than 250 pieces of art that were donated. We asked for as many of them, if they could, to put hearts somewhere in the work. And then eventually, we’ll make a heart-art scavenger hunt for the kids. When planning, we tried to think, “What’s going to make this feel like more than just a hotel? What are the pieces that are going to make it feel like home?” So we really put a focus on art and infusing the community into everything we do.

What’s the idea behind the giant red heart on top of the building?
Our heart is 26 feet tall and, at night, it lights up the sky. We just kept thinking, “How great would it be to have an iconic part of the skyline?” I say that the biggest hearts in Baltimore have always been inside [the RMHC], but now it’s outside, too. And now we can shine that love all over Baltimore.

THE CITY THAT READS: Originally this plot of land in Jonestown was six rowhouses. When the city was looking to build another library they ended up choosing this spot. This was Branch 11 of Enoch Pratt Free Library, built about 100 years ago. 

GRUNT WORK: I used to work IT for Fannie Mae so I’ve always kind of been around real estate. Now I just manage my own real estate. I’ve spent a lot of years peeling wallpaper while everyone else was at the music festival. It’s been a lot of work, but it’s paying off.  

BLANK SLATE: I just fell in love with this property—I’ve owned it for three years. When I bought this place, I had no idea what I was going to do with it. It was a distressed property and had been vandalized at one point and someone had cut out all of the copper piping. 

SHELF LIFE: There are no windows on the first floor of this building because, when it was a library, the walls were lined with bookcases, and what is now the kitchen was a lecture room. 

MELTING POT: A century ago, this neighborhood was mostly Eastern European immigrants. In fact, the third oldest synagogue in the country is in this land block. Most of the books in this library weren’t in English—they were in German, and Polish. 

OLD SCHOOL: I was told that after it was a library, it was an overflow elementary school that they used for years. I still have people who walk by and tell me stories about when they went to school here. 

MIX AND MATCH: I’m very eclectic. I like new stuff, I like old stuff, and I am really attracted to Asian-inspired things and primitive work. 

SEA WORLD: The antique globes hanging in the living room are from different places. The white one is from Norway and the others are Korean and Japanese. Before they had Styrofoam, buoys were made out of glass and wrapped in rope, so those are just old fishing buoys. They used to get caught in the current and would wash up onshore along the beaches in Washington and Oregon. 

PIER PRESSURE: The painting above the couch is by a local artist and is of the Moran tugboats, which used to be based where the new Sagamore Pendry Hotel is now. 

SUN DIAL: It’s a neat property because every corner of this place is a little different. The sun comes in the different windows throughout the day. My dogs—Banjo and Kazooie—love being here. They’ll spend the day moving around to wherever the sun is coming in. 

SKY HIGH: My favorite part is being upstairs in the top section during the sunrise because you can see several of the Baltimore steeples and the sky is pink at that time. Sunset is also pretty with the backdrop of downtown. 

EASY BREEZY: The top room I had as my bedroom, but occasionally I switch it out. Right now it is a sitting room because I wanted it to be something everyone could enjoy. It gets so much sun that it basically heats itself. And all of the windows open so you get a great breeze.