Monument City Blog

The Holliday Street Theatre used to be located directly across from Baltimore’s City Hall, at the present site of War Memorial Plaza. Junius Brutus Booth, the father of John Wilkes Booth, made his first American appearance in the historic playhouse, as did Francis Key’s Star-Spangled Banner. Aside from Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre, the Holliday was the oldest playhouse in the country.

Constructed 1794 by Thomas Wignell and Alexander Reinagle, the wood-framed building was given the nickname “Old Drury” by locals. Robert Cary Long rebuilt the theater between 1811 and 1813 after a devastating fire. Long’s building lasted until 1873 when another fire wiped out the historic structure. Rebuilt again in 1874, the Holliday Street Theatre was eventually razed in the 1920s to make way for War Memorial Plaza. This tablet is located at the base of War Memorial Plaza’s southern flagstaff marks the original spot of the building.

City Hall’s second floor has numerous memorial sculptures and tablets on display. Two statues, one of Thomas Gordon Hayes and one of William Pinkney Whyte, dominate the group. The former Baltimore City mayors were sculpted by Edward Berge and Hans Schuler respectively, adding to the large number of public statues created by the pair. Another Schuler sculpture honoring the 100th anniversary of the Star-Spangled Banner is across the rotunda. The Centennial Eagle was dedicated in 1914.

Reuben Kramer, who created downtown’s rustic looking statue of Thurgood Marshall, provided the bust of Theodore McKeldin. The Howard W. Jackson memorial was sculpted by Jack Lambert, the artist responsible for the nearby medallions of Herbert Fallin and Dr. Horace Flack.

Pennsylvania Avenue & Lafayette Street (Street View)

GPS: 39° 18′ 4.20″ N 76° 37′ 55.20″ W

History

Born in Philadelphia, Billie Holiday eventually spent her early childhood years in Baltimore City. At ten years old she was put in Catholic reform school, The House of the Good Shepherd, to help ease her troubled early development. After two years relatives and friends were able to remove her from the rigorous program, her mother then moving the family to New York City. By the time she was in her late teens Billie was working in Brothels and singing for tips. On the verge of eviction and penniless, Holiday was noticed serenading in one of Harlem’s legendary nightclubs and the rest is history.

Notes

When I first went to photograph and inspect the Billie Holiday statue in early June of this year the monument wasn’t there, having been removed for renovation and overhaul. When the bronze likeness was returned to it’s home in July, a more complete version of artist James Earl Reid‘s original vision was achieved. The relief sculptures Reid had attempted to put around the base of the statue were installed, censorship not standing in the way this time around. Across the street from the plaza is a monument to the Royal Theatre, a famous venue that Mrs. Holiday played during her career.

Nearby

• Francis Scott Key Fountain in Bolton Hill
• James Ridgely Monument

Links

• On Panoramio [2] & Flickr

The Parkway Theatre was built in 1915 at what was then the northern edge of Baltimore City. The 1000 seat auditorium has seen various phases through the years, but has mainly been used as a cinema house. The building shut its doors in 1998, unable to deal with North Avenue’s decline. However, there is a potential plan in place (or two) to revitalize the structure along with other buildings in the North Avenue vicinity.

[Source]

“Designed by Oliver B. Wright, The Parkway Theatre was patterned in the Louis XIV style after the West End Theatre near Leicester Square in London and envisioned as a Vaudeville performance house with about 1100 seats. It was acquired and remodeled in 1926 by the Loews organization and later, in 1952, acquired and closed by the Morris Mechanic organization. It reopened in 1956 as the Five West Art Theatre and remained under that operation until the mid-1970s, when it again closed. It was reopened in the early 1990s in an attempt to make commercial office space in the rear orchestra level, but it closed and has remained vacant since 1998.”