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United States Post Office and Courthouse (Baltimore, Maryland)

1930 establishments in MarylandBaltimore Registered Historic Place stubsCourthouses in MarylandCourthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in MarylandDowntown Baltimore
Federal courthouses in the United StatesGovernment buildings completed in 1930Government buildings in BaltimoreGovernment buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in BaltimorePost office buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in MarylandUse mdy dates from October 2022
1Courthouse east
1Courthouse east

The United States Post Office and Courthouse is a historic combined post office and Federal courthouse located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article United States Post Office and Courthouse (Baltimore, Maryland) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

United States Post Office and Courthouse (Baltimore, Maryland)
East Saratoga Street, Baltimore Downtown

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Latitude Longitude
N 39.290833333333 ° E -76.613055555556 °
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Business and Government Historic District

East Saratoga Street
21202 Baltimore, Downtown
Maryland, United States
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Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Baltimore Branch
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Baltimore Branch

The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Baltimore Branch Office is one of the two Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond branch offices. The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond's Baltimore Branch is an operational and regional center for Maryland, the metropolitan Washington D.C. area, Northern Virginia, and northeastern West Virginia. The Baltimore branch is part of the Fifth District and has the code E5. It supports Check 21 operations, supplies coin and currency to financial institutions and works to maintain stability in the financial sector throughout the Fifth District and also works with local elected officials and non-profit organizations to support fair housing initiatives throughout the Fifth District. The Baltimore branch was founded in March 1918 and is currently headed by William R. Roberts. Each branch of the Federal Reserve Banks has a board of either seven or five directors, a majority of whom are appointed by the parent Federal Reserve Bank; the others are appointed by the Board of Governors. Branch directors serve staggered three-year terms (two-year terms if the Branch has five directors). One of the members appointed by the Federal Reserve Board is designated annually as chairman of the board of that Branch in a manner prescribed by the parent Federal Reserve Bank. The Baltimore branch currently allows private and educational tours of up to thirty people with reservations. Cell phones and cameras are not permitted inside the building. The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Baltimore Branch Office sponsors the annual Fed Challenge to encourage better understanding of the nation's central bank and the forces influencing economic conditions in the United States and abroad. In 1997, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond- Baltimore Branch won the silver U.S. Senate Productivity and Maryland Quality Award. In 2008, Dorothy Voorhees received the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Baltimore Branch 2008 Excellence Award for outstanding achievement in the study of economics.

Battle Monument
Battle Monument

The Battle Monument, located in Battle Monument Square on North Calvert Street between East Fayette and East Lexington Streets in Baltimore, Maryland, commemorates the Battle of Baltimore with the British fleet of the Royal Navy's bombardment of Fort McHenry, the Battle of North Point, southeast of the city in Baltimore County on the Patapsco Neck peninsula, and the stand-off on the eastern siege fortifications along Loudenschlager and Potter's Hills, later called Hampstead Hill, in what is now Patterson Park since 1827, east of town. It honors those who died during the month of September 1814 during the War of 1812. The monument lies in the middle of the street and is between the two Baltimore City Circuit Courthouses that are located on the opposite sides of North Calvert Street. It was sponsored by the City and the "Committee of Vigilance and Safety" led by Mayor Edward Johnson and military commanders: Brig. Gen. John Stricker, Maj. Gen. Samuel Smith and Lt. Col. George Armistead (of Fort McHenry). The site of the former first Baltimore County and Town/City Courthouse (torn down in 1809) was originally designated as the location for the newly planned Washington Monument. Designed by Robert Mills (1781–1855), the cornerstone of the Washington Monument for Baltimore had just been laid on Independence Day, July 4, 1815. But fears that the designed shaft of the column would be too tall for the smaller open space of the old Courthouse Square, and might fall over onto nearby close-in townhouses, caused a last-minute change in location. The monument site for the nation's first president was moved further north of the city into "Howard's Woods" of the "Belvindere" estate of Col. John Eager Howard (1752–1827). The monument, designed by Baltimore architect J. Maximilian M. Godefroy (sculptor to the Court of Spain) and built in 1815–25, is 39 feet (11.9 m) tall. The base of the monument is an Egyptian Revival cenotaph. It is an unusually democratic monument for the time in that it records the names of all who died, regardless of rank. The eighteen layers of the marble base represent the eighteen states that made up the United States at the time of the war. A griffin is at each corner of the base. The column, carved as a Roman fasces, is bound with cords listing the names of soldiers who died during the battle, while the names of officers who died are at the top.The monument is topped by an 8 feet tall 2,750 pound Carrara marble statue by Antonio Capellano of a female figure representing the City of Baltimore wearing a crown of victory, holding a laurel wreath in one hand and a ship's rudder in the other. It was hoisted to the top of the column during the middle of the period of construction on the eighth anniversary ceremonies, Defenders Day, September 12, 1822. Colloquially called Lady Baltimore, the statue was relocated to the Maryland Historical Society on October 5, 2013, in order to preserve it from further damage caused by time and nature. It was replaced by a concrete replica. The monument is the oldest stone monument and first public war memorial in the United States.The monument is depicted on the seal of the City of Baltimore that was adopted in 1827 and the city's flag adopted in the early 20th century. The monument is erroneously depicted as being in Washington, D.C. in the 2007 film Live Free or Die Hard starring Bruce Willis, which had numerous scenes actually filmed in downtown Baltimore. The Battle Monument was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 4, 1973. It is contained within the Business and Government Historic District and is within the Baltimore National Heritage Area.

Baltimore City Circuit Courthouses
Baltimore City Circuit Courthouses

The Baltimore City Circuit Courthouses are state judicial facilities located in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. They face each other in the 100 block of North Calvert Street, between East Lexington Street on the north and East Fayette Street on the south across from the Battle Monument Square (1815-1822), which held the original site of the first colonial era courthouse for Baltimore County (third county courthouse after previous locations / county seats in old Baltimore village on the Bush River and later Joppa) and Town, after moving the Baltimore County seat in 1767 to the burgeoning port town on the Patapsco River established in 1729-1730. The first courthouse in Baltimore Town was built in 1767 and also later housed briefly for a decade the new United States federal courts in the city, after the ratification and operation of the new Constitution in 1789. On July 28, 1776, it was the site for the public reading of the Declaration of Independence, just previously approved by the Second Continental Congress on behalf of the Thirteen Colonies, now United States of America, meeting at the old Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall) three weeks earlier in Philadelphia and read out loud to a gathering of Baltimore Town citizens. It was undercut in 1784 by local builder/contractor Leonard Harbaugh with a pair of arched stone/brick arched piers and raised stone foundation to permit extension of Calvert Street to the north by passing traffic underneath at a lower level. This town/county courts structure was torn down around 1800, leaving an empty small square for fifteen years.A second city/county courthouse of Georgian and Federal style architecture in red brick and limestone trim with a cupola was constructed to the west of old Courthouse Square (later renamed Battle Monument Square in honor of the monument raised for remembering local casualties from the British attack in September 1814 during the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812). It was sited on the southwest corner of North Calvert and facing north towards East Lexington Street, completed in 1805. This second City/County Courthouse (which also served the small federal district court and judges chambers for 15 years until 1820, when they were relocated into one wing of the huge massive H-shaped Merchants Exchange building capped with a low dome at South Gay and East Lombard Streets, designed and completed that year by famous British-American architect Benjamin Latrobe) was partially burned on 13 February 1835 during a spate of mysterious arson fires in the city during the bank riots that year, but it was soon repaired. An adjacent Egyptian style masonry building to the west along Saint Paul Street was constructed for a Records Office. It was razed around 1896 along with the other structures on the block to its south and west.A third and current courthouse, was built 1896–1900, on the entire city block west of the 1815-1822 Battle Monument. It is bounded by North Calvert Street on the east, East Lexington Street on the north, East Fayette Street on the south and St. Paul Street on the west. A small federal district courthouse and United States Post Office of white marble and limestone was constructed on the northwest corner of East Fayette and North Street (later renamed Guilford Avenue) in 1860 for the federal offices relocated from the one wing of the 1820 Merchants Exchange and was dedicated by 15th President James Buchanan and served only 29 years until 1889. Then it was replaced by a much larger structure with a clock tower and eight massive chimneys facing to the west on Calvert Street and the Battle Monument, occupying the rest of the entire block between Calvert, Lexington, North (Guilford) and Fayette Streets. That Federal courts and central city Post Office on Calvert Street was replaced after only forty years of use in 1932, during the administration of 31st President Herbert C. Hoover which served for the next four decades until replaced by the current Edward A. Garmatz U.S. Courthouse at West Lombard and South Hanover / Liberty Street/Hopkins Place structure adjacent to the 1960s era Charles Center downtown redevelopment project. The old Hoover era federal courts and post office was then transferred to the city by the federal government in 1977 for its use and renovated with being renamed Courthouse East. Today the two historic main structures of the Maryland state judicial system in the City of Baltimore are the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse of 1896-1900 and Elijah E. Cummings Courthouse (the former Baltimore Post Office and U.S. Courthouse of 1932). Together they house the 30 judges of the 8th Judicial Circuit for the State of Maryland (Circuit Court of Maryland for Baltimore City). In addition to the criminal, civil and family (formerly orphans court) courts, these two courthouses also contain the Office of the State's Attorney for Baltimore City, the Clerk of the Circuit Court, the historic Baltimore City Bar Law Library, the City Sheriff's Office, the recently established Baltimore Courthouse and Law Museum (in the former Orphans Court chambers), the Pretrial Release Division of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, several pretrial detention lockups, jury assembly rooms, land records, court medical offices and Masters hearing rooms.

Alex. Brown & Sons Building
Alex. Brown & Sons Building

The Alex. Brown & Sons building is a historical structure located at 135 East Baltimore Street in Baltimore, Maryland. During the 20th century it served as the corporate headquarters for the banking firm Alex. Brown & Sons, the oldest in the United States when it was purchased by Bankers Trust in 1997. The two-story building, completed in 1901 and designed by the partnership of J. Harleston Parker and Douglas H. Thomas. Jr., survived the 1904 Baltimore fire. The building was modified on the Calvert Street side and in the interior by the firm Beecher, Friz, and Gregg in 1905.The building was sold to Chevy Chase Bank in 1997. A plaque on the side of the building states: A thorough historical renovation of the building was completed in 1996 when it was reopened as a traditional retail bank branch. The beautiful stained glass dome, probably the work of Baltimore artist Gustave Baumstark (who studied under both Louis C. Tiffany and John LaFarge) was cleaned and refurbished. The marble columns and the plaster moldings of the great banking hall were restored to their original designs. During the renovation the original teller line was reconstructed. Even such details as the design and placement of the freestanding furniture now in existence in the bank branch were designed to mimic the original furniture. The Alex. Brown & Sons Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.It was reported in May 2021 that the building has been leased for the set of the Disney-FX film pilot The Spook Who Sat by the Door, based on the novel of the same name.

Mercantile Trust and Deposit Company
Mercantile Trust and Deposit Company

Mercantile Trust and Deposit Company is a historic bank building in Baltimore, designed by the Baltimore architectural firm of Wyatt and Sperry and constructed in 1885. It has a brick-with-stone-ornamentation Romanesque Revival structure, with deeply set windows, round-arch window openings, squat columns with foliated capitals, steeply pitched broad plane roofs, and straight-topped window groups. The interior features a large banking room with a balcony, Corinthian columns and ornate wall plaster work.The Safe Deposit Company on Redwood Street in Baltimore was one of the few buildings that survived the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904. It was "created as a repository of Southern wealth in 1864" This date was not only "one year before the start of the Civil War but one year after the National Bank Act of 1863". Coincidentally, the March 10, 1864 grant of the state charter for the Safe Deposit was on the same day that newspapers reported General Sherman's arrival in Vicksburg, MS at the end of the Vicksburg Campaign. The Safe Deposit Building was finished in 1886, was "red brick with light red firestone trim". Around the turn of the century, the Safe Deposit Company boasted about the security of their vaults. Safe Deposit touted its "Great Vault," whose three fireproof outer doors and two burglar-proof inner ones sat in walls of steel and iron, surrounded by a foot of concrete and 2 feet of brick, according to a company history. Along the street, there were "spy steps" which enabled roving late 19th century policemen to peer into the windows. These "spy steps" provided in the center of the south part of the west wall, and on each side of the doorway are about three feet from the ground. They are a protruding stone step, and at shoulder height is a bronze ring. This was intended to assist a policeman to look in the windows. The "brass ring at shoulder level was used to balance them on the step. The steps are still jutting out into the sidewalk on both the Calvert and Redwood street sides of the Safe Deposit building. However, metal rings are only on one of the Calvert "spy steps" and on the right-hand side of the Redwood Street main entrance. The February 1904 fire that devastated downtown Baltimore left the Safe Deposit Building still standing. It did, however, sustain some damage when bricks from an adjacent building "fell through the skylight and set fire to the interior". The structural iron in the roof and basement helped to preserve the structure. The exterior and safe deposit boxes survived, but the interior had to be rebuilt.Mercantile Trust and Deposit Company was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.Previously the home of Club Dubai, the building was purchased by Modern Globe LLC for $1.25 million in May 2012 for use by the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company. After improvements estimated to cost about $6 million, there are plans to open the Mercantile building as a new venue for the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company in 2014. Plans call for a thrust stage, surrounded on three sides by two mezzanine levels.