Chapter 7: Northwest
Northwestern Roland Park was one of the more difficult areas to develop for the Roland Park Company, given the hilly terrain. It is characterized by houses built into steep hills, as visible in the background in this photo. This shot was taken just west of the intersection of Edgevale and Englewood roads. The man is standing in the future backyard of what will soon be 8 Englewood Road. Englewood Road itself is obscured from view by the piles of planks in the house-to-be's front yard. The halfway-built house behind the man is 4-6 Englewood, a duplex. On the other side of Englewood Road, the Dutch-barn stylehouse is 1 Englewood. The houses on the hill are those at the very end of the Longwood Road cul-de-sac. The photo's original caption is, "These building lots reflect the challenge Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. faced in his site design of some of the more difficult terrain in Roland Park. March 11, 1912." (Photo source: Karen Lewand. 1989. North Baltimore: From Estate to Development. Baltimore, Md.: Baltimore City Dept. of Planning.) Click photos for larger images.
Along Belvedere Avenue (Northern Parkway)
Set 1a
Mapped Scene: The photographer's position just to the west of the Falls Road and Belvedere Avenue intersection is shown here. Cater-cornered from the photographer's position, the Egenton Home was a white girls' orphanage affiliated with First Presbyterian. Founded in 1836 and originally housed on Madison Street, in November 1905 it moved to the 40th Street site now occupied by Keswick Multi-Care. By 1926, it had moved here, 1017 St. George's Road. It closed in late 1959 and the land was sold to a developer, who in 1961 built the Belvedere Towers apartment building on the lot (now called The Falls at Roland Park apartments).
Scene: Looking east along Belvedere Avenue — now Northern Parkway — from the southwest corner of Belvedere's intersection with Falls Road. The box on the utility pole is the world's first — literally, the first one off the assembly line — sound-activated traffic signal. It was invented by Charles Adler, Jr. Approaching cars sounded their horns, at which point the light would change in their favor. The device was installed at this location on February 22, 1928.
Commentary: The once comparatively minor Belvedere Avenue was widened into a major highway in 1962, at which point its name was changed to Northern Parkway, with a view to its being a feeder to the then brand-new Jones Falls Expressway (JFX). Like the almost permanently traffic-jammed Cold Spring Lane, in the early 21st century Northern Parkway is a major pedestrian barrier between Roland Park/Tuxedo Park, to is south, and Poplar Hill/New North Roland Park to its north. The Adler signal has been gone for decades, but below at set 1b is a photo of an elderly Adler installing a commemorative plaque at its former site.
Set 1b
In Detail: Close up of a later version of an Adler sound-activated traffic signal at an unknown location; unknown photographer.
Scene: This is the same scene as above, Belvedere and Falls again, taken by the same photographer a few seconds before or afterward. (The car and traffic officer are the same.)
Commentary: This is not strictly — or even remotely — a "now" shot, but it was taken many years later than the vintage shot at left. The setting is the same location as at left (intersection of Belvedere Avenue and Falls Road), but looking west. The houses in the background are those on the north side of Belvedere Avenue and, nowadays comprising the 1200 block of W. Northern Parkway, they still exist.
Set 2
Mapped Scene: The old Belvedere bridge is at the top left of this map excerpt.
Scene: Looking west along the Belvedere Street bridge across the Jones Falls and the Northern Central Railroad line.
Commentary: The quaint 1884 bridge was replaced by the current six-lane, concrete highway bridge in 1962. The new bridge is neither bicycle nor pedestrian friendly, making it difficult to get from one side of the Jones Falls to the other by any means other than a car.
Set 3
Scene: Looking north from the Northern Central Railroad (NCRR) tracks at the old Belvedere Street bridge. In the set above this one, the photographer was standing at the far right end of this bridge looking along to the left end of it.
Commentary: It is no longer possible at this location to get down to the level of the train tracks, at least not without risking one's life. The tracks are now sandwiched between the Jones Falls and the tall concrete retaining wall that serves as the embankment for the southbound entrance ramp from Northern Parkway onto the JFX. The retaining wall is obvious on the left of this photo, and the only way to photograph the tracks is to lean over the wall as far as possible. The bridge shown above the tracks is the Northern Parkway bridge that is the subject of the set above.
Set 4
Scene: Looking south from the east bank of the Jones Falls at the demolition of the Belvedere Street bridge. From the photographer's perspective, Falls Road is to the left and the future Sinai Hospital campus is ahead and to the right. The beginnings of a concrete support for the soon-to-be replacement bridge can be seen at the far right of the photo.I n the background, between this and the collapsed old bridge can be seen the NCRR tracks.
Commentary: As was the case with the modern photo in set 3, it is here, too, impossible exactly to replicate the historic photo, so greatly has the landscape changed. The concrete support visible in the old photo is that just visible toward the right of the photo above, beyond the foliage and under the new bridge itself. This modern photo was taken from the entry ramp from Northern Parkway onto northbound JFX. The original photographer would have been perhaps 60 yards ahead and somewhat to the left (an area now inaccessible).
Along Falls Road
Set 5
Scene: The photographer is looking north from the parking lot of the Polytechnic Institute/Western High School complex, which opened in 1967. To the right, on the east side of Falls Road, is the late 1960s remnant of the old Cross Keys Village, a comfortable and mostly African-American neighborhood that had existed since the early 1800s. In the 1960s, all the houses on the west side of Falls were condemned by Baltimore City and razed to make way for the parking lot shown here. Now situated about half a mile to the north, the comparatively new Village of Cross Keys condominium development is named after the neighborhood shown here.
Commentary: The same scene as at left but taken some four decades later. In the old photo, there are five quite prominent houses visible along the east side of Falls Road (toward the right of the shot). Four of these still exist (the one with the flat roof and the two-tiered porch has been demolished). The house furthest to the right in the old shot (partially cut off) is that second to the the right in the new photo (with a porch and red shutters, partially hidden by a tree). The leftmost of the five houses in the old photo, the vaguely churchlike building, is 4723 Falls Road, known by Roland Parkers as the "Stable." (A house nowadays, it was once the stable building for the Symington house above on Ridgewood Road.) In the modern photo, the Stable is hidden by foliage. Despite the condemnation and demolition of dozens of Cross Keys Village houses in the 1960s to make way for this school parking lot, it is in fact rarely if ever filled to capacity.
Set 6
Mapped Scene: Short Path (descending from Ridgewood Road) and Oakdale Road (ascending from Falls Road) are shown on this 1935 Matthews map. The old photo below was taken from about the spot marked by a red circle, the photographer looking north.
Scene: The photographer is looking north up Falls Road from a point a little to the north of Cold Spring Lane. Though not visible here, just over the rise, the houses peter out and the golf course lies to right and left. In the 1960s, all the houses on the left of this shot demolished, to be replaced by the Poly/Western parking lot shown in the set above. A handful of those on the right survive. The road coming in from the right is probably Oakdale Road, this part of which no longer exists, but which terminated on Falls Road about where the entrance is now to the ManorCare northern parking lot.
Commentary: With the wholesale razing of Cross Keys Village in the 1960s there are, by definition, no landmark snow to compare against the old photo above. The driveway coming in from the right is that leading to the northside Manor Care parking lot. This lot stands on what was once the 1100 block of Oakdale Road, which intersected with Falls Road at this spot. The 1100 block was not accessible by car from the upper section of Oakdale Road in Roland Park because the drop between Ridgewood and Falls roads was too steep. However, a Roland Park footpath called Short Path, leading off Ridgewood Road, almost connected to this section of Oakdale, with pedestrians scrambling up the bank between Oakdale and Short Path. Short Path still exists, sometimes called Short Lane or Maiden Lane.
Set 7
Sense of the Scene: Though Spath's house was pulled down in 1985, the lot's distinctive front wall lived on. In 1997, Roland Park resident David F. Tufaro took a number of photos of the neighborhood, including this shot of the then vacant 4700 block of Falls Road. The steps visible at the far right of Tufaro's photo are those shown in the 1973 photo as leading up to Spath's house.
Scene: Here, the photographer is looking east at the 4700 block of Falls Road. Upon this site now stands the ManorCare facility. The older building shown here was demolished in 1985, though as late as 1997 its handsome fieldstone wall still stood (see photo above).
Commentary: Something called the Falls Road Office Complex was erected on this lot once Spath's house had been pulled down. There are no known pictures of it. It lasted less than a decade before being bought by ManorCare, which erected this building in the late 1990s.
Set 8
Mapped Scene: Even a century or so after the devising of this 1915 map, the scene is quite recognizable. The Baltimore Country Club's clubhouse is the yellow rectangle with a dot on it. Hard against Falls Road (next to the word "road") is the old tennis clubhouse, demolished in December 2008. Roland Park developer Edward H. Bouton's Rusty Rocks home — his third in Roland Park — is just to the south of the BCC clubhouse.
Scene: Looking south along Falls Road from a place about a quarter of a mile north of the intersection with Hillside Road. The houses on Hillside can be seen beyond the buggy; they were built between 1902 and 1904. The no. 25 streetcar line is to the left. This line began at Camden Station downtown and terminated at Gwynn Oak Junction on the west side of town. The flat-topped mound east of Falls and north of Hillside is visible in this old photo; in 1906 it will soon be home to the country club's tennis courts.
Commentary: This is the same scene today (2010), though these days, even in winter, neither the Hillside Roadhouses nor the tennis-court mound can be made out because of the dense trees that have grown up around the mound (the slope of which is just visible to the left of the cars).
Set 9
Scene: Looking south along Falls Road from a spot approximately opposite the junction of Falls and Harvest roads, which is to say about 100 yards north of the viewpoint of the previous photo (set 8). The Harvest Road intersection is back over the photographer's left shoulder. Beyond the trolley and mostly hidden by trees is 1st green of the Baltimore Country Club course. On the left of the photo, just ahead of the trolley, is the 17th fairway, which straddled Falls Road. The tee was on the west side of the road and the green the east side.
Commentary: In the half-century since the closing of the golf course a number of trees have grown up, such that it would no longer be possible, even absent traffic and chain-link fences, to play the 17th fairway. Apart from the added trees, however, the scene is more or less as it was.
Set 10
Mapped Scene: The Falls Road Carhouse (or carbarn) is shown in pink on this 1915 map. Opposite, the western part of the golf course is still shown as Roland Park Co. land because at this stage the BCC stilll eased the land from the company (having by this time only bought the land east of Falls Road, not the west).
Scene: The photographer is standing on the eastern edge of what in a year or two will be main part of the Roland Park golf course, which was west of Falls Road: fairways 2 through 16 and part of 17. (Fairways 1 and 18, and part of 17, were east of Falls Road.) In this photo, Falls Roads runs right to left beyond the fence. The Baltimore and Northern Railway Co. carhouse — later the no. 25 streetcar line carhouse — was built in 1897. The car barn was shut in 1936 and sold a decade later, after which point it was demolished for an apartment building.
Commentary: It is not known exactly when the Robert E. Lee apartment building was constructed, but presumably the late 1940s. The owner, The General Lee, Inc., turned the building into condominiums in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The complex is at 5203 Falls Road, the developer being the same one as developed the old carhouse on Upland Road in the center of Roland Park.
Set 11a
Mapped Scene: Described on the 1898 Bromley map as the Oakland farm, the Harper estate and its outhouse are plainly shown just east of the carbarn. The spring house is the sounthernmost of the outhouses.
Scene: This is the west-facing facade of the Harper spring and dairy house. The latter term is more accurate, as the stream did not actually emanate from within the building. Rather, it passed through and under it. The source of the stream was a pond on the Dohme estate, the present-day site of the Roland Park Country School (about a quarter of a mile to the east). The flow of fresh water through the building kept stored dairy products cool. This graceful structure was built in 1815, designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe. The estate buildings were destroyed by fire in the early 20th century. For many years the spring house stood forlornly by itself as a reminder of what had once been, before being removed for preservation at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1932, where it still stands.
Commentary: To give some context to this image, the modern photographer stood further away from the site of the dairy house than did the photographer of the old photo. The dairy house was situated about where the utility pole in the background is, just beyond the southeast corrner of the Robert E. Lee apartment building. The middle-distance stream crossing the concrete footpath is that which once flowed through the dairy house.
Set 11b
Plan: This architectural drawing of the Harper spring house appeared in the July 1926 edition of the Architectural Forum journal, formerly The Bricklayer journal.
Commentary: Beautifully preserved, the Harper spring house stands today, as it has since 1932, on the grounds of the Baltimore Museum or Art, just to the west of the main museum building.
Set 12
Scene: Looking north up Falls Road from the eastern end of the Mt. Washington streetcar viaduct. The viaduct was built in 1896, carrying the Baltimore & Northern trolley line over the Jones Falls and the Northern Central Railroad and on through Mt. Washington (the B&N was later the no. 25 line). Though both ran east/west, the viaduct did not follow the same route as the later and still extant Kelly Avenue bridge, built in 1926. The trolley viaduct was a little to the north of the Kelly Avenue bridge. It was built on iron trestles and ran above the south bank of the westward flowing Western Run, a tributary of the Jones Falls. The Mt. Washington streetcar stop was on Sulgrave Avenue (at the time called North Avenue), where the Village Vet animal hospital now stands.
Commentary: The old photo above was shot from a point nowadays right in the middle of the Falls Road/KellyAvenue intersection. The photographer was standing more or less where in this modern image there is a the worn away bit on the vertical white stripe on the right. The viaduct peeled off to the left just this side of the white square sign in the middle distance. There is now no trace whatsoever of the old viaduct. Today an upscale shopping center, the mill in the background by outward appearances is little changed. Its water tower is still in place, as is its chimney (if now a little shorter and adorned with a Starbucks logo).
Set 13
Mapped Scene: This map predates the historic photo by about 15 years. It is likely that the purple bakery building is the southernmost one shown on the left side of Falls Road, third down from the Lake intersection (opposite the Roche property).
Scene: Looking north up Falls Road from a point just south of the Lake Avenue/Falls Road intersection.
Commentary: Though by now (2010) only one building survives from the old photo (the purple one), the scene is nevertheless instantly recognizable for some reason. The purple building, 6070 Falls Road, is currently a French-style bakery.
Along the Tracks to Mt. Washington
Set 14
Mapped Scene: The Mt. Washington Club field is clearly marked on the 1915 Bromley map. The three club buildings visible in the photo all appear on the map. The Mt. Washington Mill, currently an upmarket shopping center with an organic supermarket, is shown in pink at the top.
Scene: Looking north up the Northern Central Railroad (NCRR) tracks about 1915-1920 from a point about a quarter of a mile north of Belvedere Avenue (Northern Parkway). Beyond the tracks is Norris Field, at the time owned by the Mt. Washington Club. Until 1903, the land had been owned and used by the Baltimore Cricket Club, but in that year the cricket club merged with the Baltimore Country Club (formerly the Roland Park Golf Club) and from then on played its matches at the country club. At this point, the Mt. Washington Club was created, buying Norris Field and using it for various sporting activities. The land was sold to the Bryn Mawr School in 1999.
Commentary: Because of, nowadays, the presence of the JFX between the Light Rail tracks and what is left of Norris field, it is not possible to replicate the old photo at left. This modern shot, taken from the northbound JFX entry ramp from Northern Parkway, is about as close as one can get. Here, the photographer is about 100 yards east and 300 yards south of the position of the photographer of the historic photo. In fact, much of the old Norris field was bulldozed to make way for the JFX. The two more prominent buildings in the historic photo both sat on land now part of the highway.
Set 15
Mapped Scene: Both Mount Saint Agnes College and the coal trestle shown at right are marked on the 1935 Matthews map. The trestle is the short length of track furthest left immediately north of the Kelly Avenue bridge. Oddly, the Mt. Washington Station is not marked, though its shunting spur is, just to the left of Forge Avenue.
Scene: Looking north toward the Mt. Washington rail station. The old station building is in the middle background, to the left of the NCRR rails. It was built in 1875 and demolished in the late 1950s. The single, raised-track construction at the left foreground is a coal trestle, from which coal cars dropped their contents though open-bottomed tracks into bunkers below. Though this photo is said to have been taken in the 1890s, in fact it must post-date this by three or four decades. The Kelly Avenue bridge was not built until 1926. Given the similarity of this vintage photo and the new one at right, this shot obviously was taken from the bridge (for that is where the modern photo was taken from). This makes 1926 the earliest possible date. Moreoever, in this old photo there is no sign of the old Mt. Washington streetcar viaduct. Erected in 1896, the iron trestle viaduct crossed from right to left above the NCRR tracks and the coal trestle just this side of the white, three-story house (i.e., at the foot of Sulgrave Avenue). It is not known when the streetcar viaduct was pulled down. When the Kelly Avenue bridge was opened in 1926, the no. 25 trolley line was rerouted onto that, obviating the need to retain the viaduct. The viaduct appears on neither 1935 Matthews map nor the 1938 U.S. Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service aerial photos, both reproduced on this site's main page. Presumably, it was demolished the late 1920s.
Commentary: As viewed today from the 1926-built Kelly Avenue bridge, the tracks themselves appear unchanged (though they are in fact new), but nothing else of the old photo remains. The building on the hill in the distance is the former Mount Saint Agnes College, which closed in 1972 and is now conference center. The college, opened in 1890 and operated by the Sisters of Mercy, is faintly visible in the old shot too, and is prominently shown on the Matthews map.
Set 16
Scene: This is a close up of the Mt. Washington train station, which is also plainly visible in the middle distance of the set above. The photographer is on the east side of the tracks, looking northwest.
Commentary: Local train transit, in a sense, returned to Baltimore in 1992 with the opening of the Light Rail from Timonium to Camden Yards, later extended southwest to the Thurgood Marshall Baltimore/Washington International Airport. The Light Rail uses much of the old NCRR right-of-way, upon which tracks were relaid in the early 1990s. This scene shows the Mt. Washington Light Rail station, which is on the site of the old NCRR Mt. Washington station, though there is nothing whatsoever left of the buildings associated with the latter.
Set 17
Mapped Scene: As shown on this segment of the 1876 Hopkins map, in the later part of the 19th century the Kelly Avenue bridge from Falls Road to Mt. Washington did not exist. The Smith Avenue bridge was the only route. Then, as now, the Smith Avenue bridge passed slightly to the north of the church. The 1876 Hopkins map was to all intents and purposes identical to the 1877 Hopkins map mentioned in the original caption of the historic photo.
Scene: Looking west at the Mt. Washington United Methodist Church. Though this old photo is sadly damaged, the Methodist church at 5800 Cottonworth Avenue is fairly easy to make out. The vantage point is Clark's Hill, which is east of, and more or less parallel to, Falls Road. The Jones Falls can been seen running diagonally from mid-right to bottom left of the picture. More difficult to make out is Falls Road itself, which is in the immediate foreground, this side of what looks to be hanging laundry. The distant buildings beyond and to the right of the church are those of the Mt. Washington Mill.
Commentary: It is not possible exactly to replicate the vantage point of the historic photo, for its view of the church is now obscured by buildings. This new photo was taken from a position perhaps 30 yards north of the earlier photographer's position. Though modernized, the Methodist church is still in the same place. The Mt. Washington Mill, now an upscale shopping center, is to the right, out of the picture. The 1926-built Kelly Avenue bridge, seen on the left of this modern photo, did not exist when the historic photo was taken. The 1880s vintage photo is too old, indeed, to show even the Mt. Washington streetcar viaduct, constructed in 1896. Demolished in the late 1920s, the viaduct ran more or less parallel to the Kelly Avenue bridge, but on the north side of the church. In other words, for the few years both the bridge and the viaduct existed together, the church was sandwiched between them.
On the Links
Set 18
Historic Scene: This is the only known photo of the January 5, 1931 fire that destroyed the BCC clubhouse. This shows the fire spreading across the upper floor of the south wing.
Scene: The photographer has his back to Edgevale Road, near the 18th green, and is looking south toward the Baltimore Country Club clubhouse. The Roland Park Golf Club, later the BCC, was founded in 1896. The land that would become the course was sold to the club by the Roland Park Co. in separate parcels in the early 20th century, the first 20 acres being bought by the BCC in 1901 for $60,000. Fairways 1, 18 and part of 17 were east of Falls Road; the rest were west of it. (The original plan to have fairways 13 and 14 straddle Falls Road a little furthernorth did not materialize.) The clubhouse's semi-circular veranda was immediately behind and above the 1st tee, and from it could be had a spectacular view of the Jones Falls valley. The Jones Falls could spell trouble, however, periodically flooding the course. This, coupled with the prospect of sharply higher taxes after the city annexation of Roland Park at midnight Dec. 31-Jan. 1, 1918/1919 caused the club to consider an alternative county campus. This became the Five Farms course at Timonium, which was to become the club's mainstay. The Roland Park course was closed in 1962, with the bulk of it sold to the Rouse Company for development into the modern Village of Cross Keys.
Commentary: The 1896 Roland Park Golf Club was reorganized as the Baltimore Country Club in 1898, and the club's presence, according to James F. Waesche, "would guarantee Roland Park's ascendancy as Baltimore's premiere suburb." The Roland Park Co.'s Edward Bouton, president, took a gamble on the club. The company in some respects bankrolled the conversion of the modest golf club to the prestigious country club. In return for a club guarantee of substantial membership, says Moudry, the Roland Park Co. built the first clubhouse (above) and leased it, and the land for the golf course, to the club a modest rates for a fixed term — enough time for the club to get itself established. Even the eventual sale of the course's land to the club resulted in no direct profit to the company. However, the company was represented on the club's board of directors, and, as Bouton had hoped, the success of the country club had the ripple effect of substantially increasing lot sales by the company. Designed by the local architectural firm, Wyatt & Nolting, the first, shingle-style clubhouse was very much in keeping with early Roland Park styles. It was, however, sadly fire prone, suffering varying degrees of fire damage in 1905, 1912 and 1930. On January 5, 1931, a devastating fire burned the clubhouse to the ground. (See photo at top of set.) This handsome Federal style replacement building, constructed on the same site, was opened in 1933.
Set 19
Historic Scene: When the BCC clubhouse was first built in the very early 20th century, it lacked the iconic semi-circular veranda later added. Instead, this first-floor flat porch surmounted by a second-floor enclosed balcony overlooked the 1st tee. From these, members looked down to the view at right. This photo was taken in January 1902.
Scene: This is the view from the BCC clubhouse veranda, looking northwest down on the 1st tee and, beyond, the Jones Falls valley.
Commentary: Taken in summer 2008, this photo shows the plaque marking the site of the BCC's former 1st tee. The fairway itself is remarkably little changed. However, beyond the trees grown up at its foot, Falls Road is now a major thoroughfare. The tall building at the top right of the picture is part of the Village Cross Keys development that in the 1960s was built over the northern half of the course after its closure in 1962.
Set 20
Mapped Scene: The BCC's 1st fairway is shown on the 1935 Matthews map. Interestingly, this map, though published two years after the opening of the flat-fronted new BCC clubhouse, still plainly shows the semi-circular veranda of the pre-1931 clubhouse.
Scene: The photographer is standing about halfway along the 1st fairway, looking back up (east) at the front of the pre-1931 clubhouse building, whose semi-circular veranda is wonderfully portrayed here. The scene shows the begining of an important game held April 29, 1928. The match featured B. Warren Corkran and Roland MacKenzie playing against Bobby Jones and Watts Gunn, all of them famous amateur golfers of the period. The game was put onto raise funds for the 1928 Olympics. These spectators are running down the fairway from the tee toward the green.
Commentary: This photo was taken from slightly further west and south than the historic photo, but it nonetheless captures the scene adequately for comparison purposes. The dignified front of the 1933 BCC clubhouse is nicely shown.
Set 21
Scene: The photo was taken, looking north, from the bottom of the 1st fairway hill (shown in the two sets above). In fact the ridge shown here at the left in the middle distance is visible in the photo two sets above, too. This ridge and various traps constituted the obstacles before the 1st green, which is to the left and just out of the picture. Visible in the distance are the backs of the houses on the Harvest Road.
Commentary: After the 1962 closure of BCC's Roland Park course, those portions east of Falls Road remained more or less frozen time time, as this photo shows. Despite the passage of four and a half decades between this and the older photo to the left, the scene is virtually identical.
Set 22
Mapped Scene: The map shows anearly plan for the BCC's course, one that never entirely materialized (the 13th and 14th fairways never ended up straddling Falls Road). However, the rest of the course was approximately as shown here. The red circle is drawn around the 2nd tee, which is the scene shown to the right. The water conduit is marked on this BCC plan.
Scene: The photographer is looking south at two players on the 2nd tee, which was west of Falls Road. Falls Road itself, with its streetcar utility poles, can been seen to the left. This shot's vantage point is almost that same as that of the 1906 photo at set 8, above, except that here we are on the course side of the fence instead of the road side. It is immediately apparent that the Hillside Road houses so prominent in the 1906 photo are absent here. These houses were built between 1902 and 1904. This photo is dated 1898. As the BCC did not start buying its land until 1901, this photo was taken during the period when it simply leased land from the Roland Park Company.
Commentary: Many people today assume that the slope between Falls Road and the Poly/Western schools' grounds has something to do with the leveling of the land for the schools' playing fields. This is only partially true. In fact, the feature was evident over a century ago, too, though in those days the conduit berm sloped back down to road level on the far side as well, which it no longer does. Under the berm is the old conduit for water to the Hampden reservoir from Lake Roland. The stretch of land was deeded to the city — after a court case — by Charlotte Harper in April 1858. When the vintage photo was taken, beyond the slope (west) stretched the rest of the golf course. Today, ahead and to the west lie Poly and Western and their grounds. Back over the photographer's right shoulder, on the northern 68 acres of the old BCC course, are the buildings of the modern Village of Cross Keys. Ahead and on the other side of Falls Road can been seen the lower slopes of the BCC's flat-topped, manmade tennis court "plateau." Note that this is absent in the historic photo, left, this area instead just being a gently rolling meadow.
Set 23
Scene: This photo was taken on the berm above the 2nd tee of the BCC course. The steps shown beyond the golfer here are the same ones as those shown in the previous set. As can readily be seen here, a century ago the ground dropped off to the west (right) of the berm. In modern times, it has been raised to the level of the berm (see the modern picture at right). This photo is undated but came with a number others dated 1902, which likely is when this was taken also.
Commentary: In order to get a better persepctive of how much the land to the right of the berm has been raised in recent times, the photographer of this modern photo stood rather to the north of the position of the antique image's photographer, by perhaps 50 yards or so. As can be seen here, the land for the Poly/Western playing fields has been raised to the level of the top of the berm over an area of several acres.
Set 24
Mapped Scene: In the photo at right, it is difficult to tell exactly which fairway Fusting and his caddy are on. They appear to be about 300 yards from the mound in the background. The mound is shown at the bottom of this diagram, and 300 yards would put these two a little south of the 7th fairway. The canalizing of the Jones Falls had the effect of straightening the river from about the 8th green to the 3rd tee.
Scene: We are looking south from a point somewhere toward the southern end of the golf course. Snaking southward into the distance is the brand-new Jones Falls Expressway (I-83). This stretch of the JFX was opened on November 2, 1962, so this autumnal scene must have been shot just after that. The northbound entry ramp kinks back to the left onto Cold Spring Lane, which at this point was a little further south than is its modern namesake. (A small part of it lives on in the Medfield neighborhood as Old Cold Spring Lane.) The straight white streak above the player on the right is a canalized Jones Falls. The dark patch of land just this side of the canal is fill material covering the old riverbed of the Jones Falls, which had previously meandered in and out of the golf course. The prominent mound in the distance was partly leveled in the mid-1960s to provide the site for the Poly/Western school complex and the new Cold Spring Lane route. Much of Poly sits now atop this mound's remains.
Commentary: Very little is recognizable in this scene. The JFX and the canalized Jones Falls visible in the old photo are here hidden behind the spectator seating stands, built on what in the old photo is the dark dirt filling in the former Jones Falls river bed. The once undulating land of the golf course has been flattened to make a football field. The trees in the background mark the western slope of the mound whose top was leveled to permit the building of Poly's two principal buildings in the late 1960s.
Set 25
Mapped Scene: The red circle shows the approximate position of the photographer, some two thirds of the way up the 10th fairway. The entrance to the modern Village of Cross Keys is about where on this course diagram the stream next to the scale flows east to west across Falls Road.
Scene: The photographer is looking south from a point near the 10th green. The modern Village of Cross Keys shopping center is more or less where the lone tree stands in the middle of the picture. The (now partly leveled) mound where presently stand the Poly and Western schools can been seen in the distance toward the right. The houses on the far left are those along Falls Road Terrace.
Commentary: This photo was taken looking south from Hamlet Hill Road in the Village of Cross Keys. From this point, the 10th green would have been back over the photographer's right shoulder.
Set 26
Historic Scene: In the aerial shot at far right, there appear in more or less middle of the photo eight dark squares nestled between the Jones Falls and the Northern Central Railroad. These are the Roland Park sewage sand filters shown close up above. In the above view, the photographer is looking eastward over the filter beds toward Roland Park. The distant houses facing the photographer are those on Falls Road Terrace. Sand filters purifed liquid waste by draining it through sand, while solid waste dried atop the sand, then to be periodically removed. The Roland Park system was designed by Hering & Fuller, engineers, in 1901. The site occupied 3.5 acres and was tended by two employees.
Scene: The photographer is standing in about the same place as the photographer of the clubhouse shot, above (set 18). In the latter, the photographer was looking south at the building; here, he is looking northwest down the 18th fairway toward the Jones Falls valley. The curved road in the middle distance, to the right, is Edgevale Road. The trap at the narrowest part between the road and the trees is the bunker at the 17th green. This scene being relatively little changed today (2010), we have at right shown an aerial view of the course in 1953 instead of a modern photo of the 18th fairway.
Along Edgevale Road
Set 27
Scene: Looking up at 12 Edgevale from Edgevale Road; the photographer has his back to the golf course.
Commentary: The house itself is remarkably little changed, though the landscaped area in the immediate foreground is now a little overgrown.
Set 28
Scene: This house, 119 Beechdale, sits at the intersection of Beechdale and Edgevale roads.
Commentary: The rubble gutters along the roadside have gone but, apart from that, the scene is reassuringly similar— virtually identical, indeed.
Set 29
Mapped Scene: The house at 100 Edgevale Road is shown on the 1915 Bromley map occupying two lots.
Scene: Looking south along Edgevale Road; the intersection with Beechdale is ahead and to the left. This Edgevale Road scene is largely unchanged today (right). Other than the addition of shutters, the same goes for the house.
This vintage photo graced the cover of the first issue of the Roland Park Civic League's newsletter, Roland Park Review, October 1908. The Review was a monthly publication, issued through November 1916. Typical editions contained articles on the political issues of the day, real estate, gardening tips, Civic League accomplishments and other morsels of local interest. In 1916, the Review went under, superseded by the Roland Park Co.'s official organ, Gardens, Houses and People.
Though initially not incorporated, the Civic League was formed in 1895 to serve as a fund-raising entity for the Roland Park volunteer fire company. The league's standing Fire Board and Police Board were, essentially, the neighborhood's public-safety oversight committees. The league also promoted civic involvement in the social and political issues of the day by sponsoring public lectures and the like. In this respect, the league mirrored the activities of the 1896-founded Roland Park Woman's Club (the latter an organization necessary because women were not initially allowed to join the league; not until November 1908 were women permitted in the league).
Commentary: In the early 20th century, the Civic League did not have the semi-homeowners' association role it has today and, given its public-safety responsibilities, its boundaries were larger than is the case today: the 1888 city line to the south (which ran east to west across University Parkway), Falls Road to the west, Lake Avenue to the north, and Charles Street to the east. There was at this time no Roland Park Roads & Maintenance Corp., the current responsibilities of which were then undertaken by the Roland Park Co.
At this early stage, the three then developed plats had their own homeowners' associations: the Property Holders' Conference of Plat No. 1, the Oakland Club (Plat 2), and the Plat 3 Organization. These were often at odds with the Civic League and with each other. (Plats 4, 5 and 6 had not yet been developed.) Roland Park at this time was not the cohesive community it is today and the various plats for many years thought of themselves as distinct neighborhoods within the larger Roland Park project.
The Civic League was eventually incorporated in 1907, 12 years after it 1895 founding, with a charter giving it responsibility for certain maintenance and restrictions matters. Even so, until 1909 real power rested with the Roland Park Co., which was not bound by the decisions of the league. By this time, most lots in plats 1, 2 and 3 had been sold and Roland Park Co. President E.H. Bouton wished to offload maintenance responsibilities onto residents. Though initially ferociously opposed, Roland Parkers finally consented to the creation of a new entity, the Roland Park Roads & Maintenance Corp., to accept these responsibilities. R&M was duly incorporated, and on July 26, 1909 ownership of roads and public spaces was transferred to it from the Roland Park Co.
By the early 1910s, membership of and voting rights to the Civic League were open to all Roland Parkers (plats 1-6), including women. In contrast, R&M office holding and voting were restricted to residents of plats 1, 2 and 3, because only in these plats had the Roland Park Co. surrended its public-land ownership rights.
Set 30
Scene: The photographer is on the 200 block of Edgevale, looking back at the intersection of Harvest Road (coming in from the right) with the 100 block of Edgevale Road.
Commentary: The trees along Edgevale now largely obscure the view of the houses. The latter are, however, little changed in appearance as compared to the Simmons shot above. The road triangle is certainly more disciplined in appearance than was once the case.
Set 31
Scene: Here the photographer is standing on or next to the road triangle featured in the set above, at the Edgevale and Harvest intersection, and is looking west down Harvest Road. At the bottom of the road is a trolley stop shelter on Falls Road. The extraordinary gallows-like affair halfway down Harvest is a street light.
Commentary: Though largely hidden by trees these days, the Harvest Road houses are much as they were a century ago. Even the bus shelter in the distance is reminiscent of the old streetcar shelter visible in the old photo. The Harvest/Edgevale intersection is at the very heart of lower Plat 3. In this plat, the Roland Park Co. left behind it the conservatism of Plat 1 and the grandiosity of Plat 2 in favor of experimentation with elements of the back-to-basics Arts & Crafts movement, as evidenced here.
Set 32
Scene: This is 315 Edgevale Road. The Plat 3 architects' enthusiasm for the Arts & Crafts style is very evident here in this chalet perched high above the road on the hillside topped by Longwood Road.
Commentary: The bare hillside photographed by Simmons is now so grown over that a precise replication of the angle of the historic photo at left is impossible. However, moving a little further around the hill gives a decent view of 315 Edgevale as it now looks.
Through Plat 6
Set 33
Scene: Looking east up Deepdene Road toward Roland Avenue. Note the person riding a horse in the distance.
Commentary: The only major difference between now and a century ago appears to be that modern Deepdene is paved. There is a concrete path on the north (left) side of the road today where previously there was none. But the drystone wall on the left is little changed and the riprap on the right, though now ivy covered, it still in place.
Set 34
Mapped Scene: The red circle shows the position of the photographer, at the intersection of Deepdene and Edgevale roads.
Scene: Looking east up Deepdene Road from Edvevale Road, a point further down the hill (west) than the vantage point of the previous set.
Commentary: What a tiny difference a century makes! The utility pole on the right, though not literally the same one, is still in the same place. The ivy-covered riprap is much as the Roland Park Co. installed it. The wall on the left, plain concrete in Simmons' day, has of late been improved with facing stones.
Set 35
Mapped Scene: In the photo below, the photographer has moved about 100 yards north along Edgevale as compared to his position in set 34. He is near the intersection of Edgevale and Englewood roads and is looking south.
Scene: The concrete wall prominent in the previous set can be seen here too, on the left, so the photographer is standing about 100 yards north of his previous position. He is looking southward from Edgevale and Englewood at the Longwood Road ridge, which towers above Deepdene Road. The houses on the hill are those at the western end of Longwood, 220 (left) and 222. The chalet halfway down the slope is 315 Edgevale.
Commentary: Unfortunately, the foreground evergreen almost completely obscures today's view of the Longwood ridge from this spot. The chalet can just be seen through the boughs of the tree, and 220 atop the ridge is partially visible to its left. At the very end of Longwood, 222 is wholly hidden.
Set 36
Mapped Scene: To take the vintage photo below, George Simmons stood looking south from either lot 167 or 168 of Plat 6, the latter not yet developed in 1911. He was looking toward Plat 3, which had already been built by 1911 and whose boundary with Plat 6 was Elmwood Road, coming in from the left of the historic photo.
Scene: Looking south from a point near Edgevale and Elmwood roads. Edgevale is the road running up and left from the middle right across the photo. Elmwood can be seen coming in from the left. The vacant land in the foreground now has houses upon it. The photographer is standing in the as-yet undeveloped Plat 6, looking at houses in the already-completed Plat 3.
Commentary: The old photo above cannot be replicated precisely because a house now stands upon the spot it was shot from. However, this new photo approximates the old one. The house in the middle distance here is that shown exactly in the middle of the historic photo, on the southwest corner of Edgevale and Elmwood.
Set 37
Mapped Scene: This map is architect Edward L. Palmer's plan for Edgevale Park. The inner park is wholly enclosed by the private lots that make up Edgevale Park; there is no access other than through the surrounding houses or their yards.
Scene: Looking east along Englewood Road toward Edgevale Road. Falls Road is 100 yards or so behind the photographer. The houses shown, mostly duplexes, form the southern flank of Edgevale Park, a mini-development that surrounds its own private park.
Commentary: Edgevale Park is thematically similar to Merryman Court in Plat 5. Though architecturally different from each other, both these enclaves allowed Roland Park Co. President Edward Bouton and company architect Edward L. Palmer, Jr. to experiment with the notion of a community within a community. As can readily be discerned here, Englewood Road has changed virtually none in a century. Palmer's influence in Roland Park was substantial. He designed Edgevale Park, shown here. He did not of course design all the buildings in Roland Park; nevertheless, as company architect from 1905 to 1918, he did review all designs.
Set 38
Mapped Scene: Largely an area of vacant lots in 1911, by the time of the 1915 Bromley map, Merrymount Road was mostly developed, as shown here. For the 1911 photo, Simmons stood in what was then the empty lot 91.
Scene: The photographer is looking south down Merrymount Road. The steep, winding road has been graded and graveled, but, at least along this lower stretch, no houses have yet been built. In the distance, 220 and 222 Longwood Road are in plain view on the ridge. Below them, Englewood Road may been seen coming in from theright.
Commentary: It is today not possible to get as high on the hill as Simmons was in 1911 because a house now stands on the spot where he stood. Nonetheless, even from a location about 30 feet lower down the slope, the similarity between the old and new scenes is apparent. The shape of the background tree line is just about identical and the tight first curve on Merrymount is immediately recognizable.
Set 39
Mapped Scene: The photographer, Simmons, is looking southeast from the top of Merrymount Road. The house on the left in the vintage photo is that shown on the map as being owned by H.W. Seymour.
Scene: To take this photo, Simmons stood at the highest point on Merrymount Road and faced southeast, looking back down the hill. The houses shown are 21 (left) and 19 Merrymount — which were then, in 1911, brand new.
Commentary: The road is now paved, as it was not in 1911, and there are now sidewalks on either side, not just on the west side. No. 14 Merrymount, just visible above at the far right of this photo, had not yet been built at the time of Simmons' 1911 shot. However, 19 and 21 Merrymount are very little changed.
Set 40
Scene: For this photo, Simmons stood in front of 21 Merrymount and looked east at 19, the house shown.
Commentary: At least in terms of its exterior appearance, 19 Merrymount Road is virtually unchanged vis-à-vis its historic photo at left, though its original side porch has been enclosed and turned into a room. Visible in the background on the right in the modern shot above is 15 Merrymount, which did not exist when Simmons was photographing this area. (There is no number 17 Merrymount Road.)
Set 41
Scene: This is a fascinating photo on two counts. It was taken from the porch of 21 Merrymount looking southwest down the hill. First, this is the only confirmed photo of the photographer himself, George Simmons, a local realtor and later the vice president of the Roland Park Montebello Co. Simmons' Book of Pictures in Roland Park is one of the best records we have of early 20th century Roland Park. In many of the Simmons photos featured on this web site there appears discreetly in the background a man wearing a boater hat. If these other photos were taken using a timer, itis possible that the boater-hatted figure is Simmons too, but this is not known with certainty. Second, the photo shows us how quickly early Roland Park houses were completed.
For his Book of Pictures, Simmons took two sets of photos — one set in March 1911 and one set in June. (Many of these photos are featured on this website.) The March photos show bare, winter landscapes, while the June set shows the lush, sylvan Roland Park residents know and love a century later. The photo above is obviously one of the March shots. What is interesting is that there is little sign of landscaping down the hill in the front yard of 19 Merrymount, shown in the two sets above, which were photographed in June 1911. Observant readers will notice some construction detritus beyond Simmons' left shoulder in this photo, but number 19's garden is obviously incomplete and its two sets of front steps — see set 40 — are absent.
Commentary: When Simmons took his Merrymount Road photos in March and June 1911, the development was far from complete. In those days, without houses to block the view, the few Merrymount residents enjoyed, at least in winter, a spectacular vista of the golf course (plainly in view in the old photo at left). The scene today is attractive but, in addition to foliage, the addition of numbers 14 (right) and 19 and 15 (left) Merrymount Road obscure any view down to what today is the Village of Cross Keys. (In this modern photo, 19 is out of view and 15 is hiden by foliage, while 14 is visible on the right.) When Simmons' photo was taken, 14 and 15 had yet to be built. This new photo was taken by one of the the current (2010) owners of 21 Merrymount Road; the seated figure is the other owner.
Set 42
Mapped Scene: The photographer's position is shown by the red circle.
Scene: This is another Simmons photo, taken from Roland Park's northwestern extremity, where Edgevale Road meets Falls Road. Simmons is looking east at the Dutch colonial-style 602 Edgevale Road, on the northern side of the road. Note the right-hand-drive car approaching, perhaps imported from Britain.
Commentary: Number 602 Edgevale is not terribly different in appearance from its 1911 look. As with many Roland Park houses, its porch — prominent in the 1911 photo — has been enclosed to make a sunroom. The house still retains cedar roofing shingles, a common roofing material in early Roland Park, now replaced on many houses with asphalt shingles.
Set 43
Scene: This is a Simmons photo of the doorway of 602 Edgevale. From the shadow of the leafless, winter tree limbs across the front of the house, the shot can with some certainty be said to be one of Simmons' March 1911 batch of photos.
Commentary: The Simmons photo at left was presumably taken before 602 Edgevale was quite finished. Above the door, a wire protrudes but there is no light fixture. One has by now been added, of course. Apart from that, very little seems to have changed. Even the doorbell button looks to be the original.