City - Baltimore MD - Rebuilding a city 1906
by Mike Savad
Title
City - Baltimore MD - Rebuilding a city 1906
Artist
Mike Savad
Medium
Photograph - Colorized Photo
Description
Colorized photo from 1906
Original Title: The Continental Bldg
Photographer: Detroit Publishing
Location: 198 E Baltimore St, Baltimore, MD
At first glance, this looks like a normal ordinary city. Old buildings mixed with new ones, and something is always under construction. But this is not the case for this city.
In 1904, Baltimore had a great fire, it burned a very large portion of the city. This building was right in the heart of it. The outside was made of brick, the inside made of metal, and the building stood through it, though the interior was destroyed. But since they didn't have to rebuild the entire building, they were up and running very quickly. Originally this building was built between 1900-1901, so it actually never took a very long time to build in the first place.
Knowing that there were knocked over piles of bricks and ashes everywhere, the thought that they were able to remove the remaining buildings, clear the debris and rebuild everything with new building code in just two years time is pretty amazing. Considering they probably had to do a lot of it by hand, using horses, shovels, and maybe a steam shovel.
Despite taking only a year or so, they were able to not only construct these buildings, they took the time to add little details. Many of these buildings are still standing today, at least half still exist. This picture was taken 2 years later and they are still rebuilding sections of it, you can see the Power Plant in the background, half of it is missing, there are cranes in the front.
A fun facts about the Continental Trust Building (the one in front of us), it was built in 1901 by Daniel H Burnham. He also was noted for designing many iconic buildings, such as the Flat Iron building in NY, and Union Station in Washington DC. In its day it was considered the tallest building around in this area.
The American author, Dashiell Hammett worked as an operative at the Baltimore branch of Pinkerton's National Detective Agency. It was located in this very building from 1915-1918. People believe that's where he came up with the idea to use the fictional name: Continental Detective Agency, and it had a nameless detective who worked there known as the Continental Op.
On the Baltimore St side of the building there are two ornamental eagles, or maybe they are falcons. Those birds may have inspired him to write about the Maltese Falcon.
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November 3rd, 2019
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Jeff Iverson
Congratulations your wonderful work is now featured on What's New! Please add your work to our Discussion archive for features.
Jeff Iverson
Congratulations your wonderful work is now featured on Artist Salon 1! Please add your work to our Discussion archive for features.