Baltimore's Community Museum
You don’t need a radio show or podcast to have meaningful conversations. Get to know strangers, neighbors, and even friends and family better with your very own deck of questions asked by Aaron Henkin for Out of the Blocks on WYPR. This standard deck of playing cards is an interview toolkit, tried and tested in hundreds of interviews across Baltimore and beyond. Available online here or at the Peale Center for US$10.00 each + shipping!
James D. Dilts, a former Baltimore Sun reporter and author who wrote widely on railroads, architecture, historic preservation and jazz and led the effort for the restoration of the historic Peale Museum in Baltimore, died at Union Memorial Hospital on Tuesday from heart failure and multiple myeloma.
The Evergreen resident was 81.
“Jim was an iconic figure to anyone even remotely interested in the B&O and its embryonic fits and starts. His masterwork,‘The Great Road,’ is a must read. His early history of the railroad is unparalleled,” said Courtney B. Wilson, executive director of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum and a longtime friend.
“His written works, love for Baltimore and its buildings, his kind words and contagious laugh will keep him alive and in the hearts of many,” Mr. Wilson said.
Herbert H. Harwood Jr., a noted railroad author and historian and a retired CSX executive, called Mr. Dilts a “first-class historian.”
“Jim’s book on the B&O is a virtuoso job,” said Mr. Harwood, a Cross Keys resident. “You can’t pick at it one way or the other.”
James Dothard Dilts, who died yesterday at age 81 after a short illness, had many talents. A journalist, historian, book author, carpenter and sailor, he was also a jazz connoisseur, documentary filmmaker, friend of artists and a leader of Baltimore’s preservation movement.
His presence will be missed in those diverse spheres even as his legacy will grow thanks to what he’s left behind – not just a written record of hundreds of articles and a half dozen books, but an elegance of manner capped by an infectious grin that drew many into his orbit.
Insofar as describing himself, Jim liked to recall the day he emerged from a dusty railroad tunnel in West Virginia (part of his hands-on research of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad) only to be confronted by a bewildered local.
“You some kind of enTHUsiast?” the man asked the hot and begrimed city slicker.
Jim cherished that description and, as time went by, his enthusiasm for his adopted hometown only multiplied as he battled to preserve Fells Point from foolish development, covered the local jazz scene for DownBeat and unearthed such buried treasures as Baby Lawrence, the legendary tap dancer who had fallen on hard times.
It is with deep sadness that we must share the news that the Peale Center’s Board President, James D. Dilts, passed away unexpectedly on May 8, 2018. Jim was a true friend of Baltimore and a tireless champion for its history and architecture – above all, the historic Peale Museum building. He was also a master storyteller, a veteran of the Baltimore Sun, and author of numerous books on Baltimore architecture, including with John Dorsey, the definitive A Guide to Baltimore Architecture; historic railroads, with his latest, The World the Trains Made: A Century of Great Railroad Architecture in the United States and Canada, due out in September; and jazz, which he brought to historic buildings across the city in a concert series, “Jazz in Cool Places.” Thanks to Jim’s vision and leadership, the Peale’s exterior is now restored and the building is open again as a center to experience Baltimore’s past and imagine its future through cultural storytelling and innovative exhibitions, programs and events. He helped us all “see Baltimore in a new light.” Penny Williamson, Jim’s wife, asks that donations be made to the Peale’s Capital Campaign in lieu of flowers.
Checks can be made payable to:
The Peale Center for Baltimore History and Architecture, P.O. Box 1742, Baltimore, MD 21203.
Thanks to the continual help and support of Baltimore Gas and Electric, the restoration of a nineteenth-century gas pole and fire alarm box is complete! The pole was lifted out of the back garden of the Peale Center for Baltimore History and Architecture by volunteer BGE engineers and was taken to be restored by David Conrad of Baltimore Foundry Works on an early Saturday morning in March. The pole was initially installed on the South East corner of Monument Street, and Park Ave (see photograph provided by Kevin Larmore) in 1906. When the City’s call box system was shut down in the middle of the twentieth century, it was installed in the historic Peale Museum’s garden. Now you may be asking, what exactly is a fire alarm box, and why is it significant?
Baltimore first installed its call box system in 1859-1860 and was the first line of defense when it came to fires within the City. Each call box had wiring running to the central office, which was located on the second floor of the Peale Museum building, by then being used as City Hall, from 1859 up until 1896. When the fire alarm box was pulled, the central office would get the signal and would relay it to the appropriate fire station. When the firemen arrived at the scene, they would signal back to the central office by pulling the alarm box several more times, utilizing Morse code to communicate if they needed more men or equipment. In this way, the Peale served as the nerve center for the city’s fire alarm system.
The Peale Museum’s founder, Rembrandt Peale, had introduced another new technology, gas lighting, to his galleries two generations before. In order to attract visitors at night and sell more tickets to his Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts, in 1816 Peale began illuminating his galleries with gas light chandeliers on specially-advertised evenings. By 1817, Rembrandt Peale and his partners had founded the Gas Light Company of Baltimore, which is today Baltimore Gas and Electric, and secured the contract to supply gas streetlights throughout the City of Baltimore. Through his efforts, Baltimore was the first city in the United States, and one of the first in the world, to be illuminated by gas lighting. Gas lights lined the streets of Baltimore up until the late 1950s when they almost entirely removed. Through the restoration of this pole and fire box, it will serve as an excellent artifact to showcase this aspect of Baltimore’s innovative history.
See the renovation process below!
[envira-gallery id=”2737″]
Interested in helping reinvent the 21st century museum? The Peale Center for Baltimore History and Architecture is looking for reliable and creative volunteers who want to spread their wings and help us soar! We’re renovating the oldest museum building in the U.S. and relaunching it as a platform for cultural innovation: a center for producing inclusive narratives of the City that help people see Baltimore in a new light.
Whether your thing is art or architecture, storytelling or natural science, history or new technologies, there is an opportunity for you to develop your ideas and skills at the Peale. Even an occasional contribution can make a big difference to the Peale and the services we are able to provide to the City’s communities. Everyone’s input is welcome and valued – contact us if you can help with your time and expertise. Thank you!
Moving Walls is an experimental dance piece that examines human experience in relation to architecture. Combining movement with sculpture, animation, and sound, the piece is a collaborative project that questions our concepts of stability. With wheels, ropes, pulleys, hooks, and hinges, three performers construct and deconstruct the space around them. In turn, they are influenced by their shifting surroundings.
Performances are Saturday April 28, 8pm; Sunday April 29, 7pm; Thursday May 3, 8pm; and Saturday May 5, 8pm. Get tickets here for the dance performances.
Exhibition open April 14–May 5. Self-guided visits are free with timed entry until closing on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 12-6pm, and Sundays from 10-4pm. Book your visit here.
10pm only on April 13, 14, and 20
Promo Code “NIGHTOWL”
Click HERE to reserve your seats!
The Peale Center is developing several opportunities for artists and artisans to sell their work directly to the visiting public, including a Museum Shop, Maker Markets, and other Special Events to kick off in May 2018.
If you are a Baltimore area maker, artist or artisan who would be interested in selling your work at The Peale Center, please answer this informational questionnaire by April 30th to let us know a bit more about you and your work!
You can check out other opportunities at the Peale here.
The Peale Center and its director, Nancy Proctor, were featured in today’s Motivation on Monday by Juststuntproductions.
You can also see Nancy interviewed and every Motivation on Monday on The Artist Exchange Radio Show Mondays 2-4pm www.BeExposedRadio.com