Chapter 3: Roland Avenue, the Grand Thoroughfare
Roland Avenue from Hoes Heights (left) to Lakeside (right). Roland Park's main artery, this grand, tree-lined thoroughfare is one of the neighborhood's defining features. Once a country route called Maryland Avenue, Roland Avenue was greatly widened by the Roland Park Company in the early 1890s. It was designed with a wide median strip upon which were laid the tracks for the Lake Roland Elevated Railway, later the no. 10 streetcar line. The "El" was a major selling point for Roland Park boosters as, without it, new park residents would have been faced with a daunting hour-long horse-and-buggy ride to downtown. Today, Roland Park without Roland Avenue is almost unthinkable. (Source: Bromley map of Baltimore County, 1898.) Click photos for larger images.
South End
Set 1
Scene: Looking north up Roland Avenue from the Roland Water Tower, 1913. The houses on the right make up the bulk of Plat 1. The bright, white building in the middle of the picture is the Roland Park Woman's Club building at 4500 Roland Avenue. To its left we see an incomplete Plat 2. The boundary between plats 1 and 2 was and still is Long Lane, running northward behind - i.e., to the left of - the Woman's Club. (In other words, the houses on the immediate west side of Roland Avenue are part of Plat 1, contrary to popular belief). Just below the Woman's Club is the intersection of Roland Avenue and Cold Spring Lane, the latter truly still a lane at this point. Note that it is narrower than Ridgewood Road, which lies between it and the club. The road descending to the bottom left of the photo is Roland Heights Avenue. Coming east from Falls Road this now terminates at Evans Chapel Road, though in the early 20th century it continued to the Roland/Cold Spring intersection. Evans hapel Road itself is just visible at the very bottom left of the shot, just to the right of the lower left houses. It runs north to join the footpath extending from the southern end of Long Lane.
Commentary: This is the same scene today (2011). The modern photo was taken looking out from the north face of the towers cupola, while the histoic picture was probably taken looking from the northeast face, now fitted with a grille, precluding photography from it. In the foreground of the modern photo is the bulk of Roland Park's tiny Plat 4, not developed until after 1915.
Set 2
Scene: Looking south down Roland Avenue from the small park at the foot of the water tower. Destined for the Lakeside leisure park, near Lake Roland Dam, a northbound no. 24 trolley approaches the photographer. The photo is undated, but must be before June 22, 1947— after which date the no. 24 never ventured south of Lake Avenue.
Commentary: Today's view of the same location is instantly recognizable, primarily because the Chadford Apartments building on the left has changed almost none over the decades. Beyond the apartment building is the area known as Rolden, a portmanteau of Roland Park and Hampden (which neighborhoods it lies between).
Set 3
Scene: Looking north up Roland Avenue from opposite the water tower. A soon-to-be northbound no. 24 streetcar is boarding passengers in front of the tower, the southern terminus of this route. In other words, we are here looking at the back of the car. We can tell this because the passengers are at the other end of the vehicle and boarding was at the front. Moreover, the trolley pole is pointing back toward the photographer. Unlike some later models, streetcars such as this originally early 20th century Brill vehicle could travel in either direction. They had two poles, one at each end. On any given journey, the pole forward to the direction of travel would be lowered and the one at the back, relative to the travel direction, raised. The "trolley" itself was the grooved wheel at the end of the pole. This wheel ran along the underside of the overhead wire, transferring electricity to the car's traction motor. Observant readers will note that the pole at the far end of the car is up too. Having just raised the pole nearus, the motorman (driver) will now lower the pole at the other end. As with the photo at set 2, this one bears no date. Again, as with the set 2 image, we can say certainly that this picture pre-dates June 1947. Given the "Victory Rides on Rubber" poster on the car, the photo was almost certainly taken during World War II.
Commentary: As with the previous set, the apartment building in the background here makes this scene instantly recognizable. The 4300 Roland Avenue apartment building is now condominiums, but its experior appearance is little changed. In the vintage photo at left, there is just beyond the trolley a pale, columned structure. This appears in the photo to be part of the apartment building. In fact, this was a separate streetcar waiting shelter. I stood behind and to the right of the metalelectrical box visible in this modern shot.
Set 4
Bird's Eye View: A rather better idea of this busy intersection can be had from this bird's eye view, taken from one of the upper-floor windows of the apartment building at 909 W. University Parkway (the Chadford). This photo can with confidence be placed to about 1925: the Kirkleigh Villa building absent in the photo on the right is halfway built here (it was completed in 1926). The vantage point of the photographer of the shot at the right is where the truck is on the far left of this picture. Above the upper right arrow maybe seen the stately Georgian house demolished in 1962 to make way for the widening of Cold Spring Lane into the highway it is today.
Scene: Roland Avenue, southbound lane, looking north from the intersection of Roland and Somerset Road, which, though blocked by bollards at the trolley tracks, is coming in from the left. The minor cross street a couple of hundred yards up the road is Cold Spring Lane. A no. 10 or 29 trolley is heading south toward the camera. (Likecars, trolleycars drove on the right.) Though not visible here, just to the photographer's right, the 10 and 29 lines split, the former continuing south through Hampden and the latter turning southeast along University Parkway. The photo is undated, but the existence of Somerset Road puts it in the 1920s; Somerset Road was not extended westward to University until the early 1920s, previously dead-ending at what is now called Somerset Place. On the other hand, the Kirkleigh Villa building, at 4301 Roland Avenue, has not yet been started here, placing the shot before 1925, the latter the year building commenced. (It was completed in 1926 and opened as Kirkleigh Villa, a home for older women. It was operated as such by the Daughters of Charity until 1966, when the Marianist order bought it and used it as a members' retirement home through 2007.) In the bird's eye view of the same scene, the Marianist building is already under construction. (It was demolished in 2009. For more on the Kirkleigh/Marianist building, see the "south" section of this site.)
Commentary: In the macro sense, the scene is not all that changed: Roland Avenue is still Roland Avenue. In the micro sense there is, nonetheless, nothing in this modern photo instantly recognizable from the old. The Roland Avenue median strip is now far narrower than in its glory days when it carried streetcars, and the tracks themselves are of course gone. The avenue's paved thoroughfare is considerably wider than in the old shot. Even bare, the mature trees now hide most of the buildings that gave identity to the historic scene. The old side-of-road brick gutter visible at the left of the vintage picture is by the time of this modern photo a distant memory (though these old-style gutters survive ona number of the less-traveled Roland Park area roads)
Set 5
Scene: View northward of a southbound streetcar at the 4300 block of Roland Avenue. The photo is slightly blurred, making the trolleycar route number unreadable. A legible route number would have aided in dating this undated photo. However, judging by the look of the distant automobiles, suggesting a 1940s timeframe seems reasonable.
Commentary: This modern photo vividly illustrates how much narrower the Roland Avenue median strip is today than it was in the streetcar era. The strip today would be hard pushed to accommodate even a single trolley track, much less dual trackage. Beyond Roland Avenue in the middle distance is the bulk of Plat 4, the smallest of Roland Park's six plats. Strictly speaking called Plat 4A, this area originally comprised just the west side of the 4300 block of Roland Avenue (the biggest chunk of the plat), the Chadford Apartments, the westernmost 4½ lots on the north side of Univeristy Parkway, and the westernmost 6 lots on the north side of Somerset Road (westernmost 5 lots on the south side). The nearby watertower is not actually in Plat 4 and, accordingly, is not strictly speaking in Roland Park at all.
Set 6
Mapped Scene: The orphanage largely obscured in the photo at right dominates this map detail. By now (1915), Roland Heights Avenue, bottom left, terminates at Evans Chapel Road, instead of coming up to the Roland/Cold Spring intersection, as it still does in the 1913 photo at set 1 of this page. The red circle marks the photographer's position.
Scene: Roland Avenue, southbound lane, looking south from the 4500 block. The Roland Water Tower is prominent in the distance. Partially hidden by trees and the foreground utility pole is the now demolished St. Mary's Female Orphan Asylum. The comparatively insignificant cross street is Cold Spring Lane; this is what it looked like before its major widening in the early 1960s.
Commentary: The scene is certainly recognizable today, though this is in large measure thanks to the water tower. The formerly trolley-track-carrying median strip is far narrower than it once was, and the driving surface of Roland Avenue correspondingly wider (though it must be added that today's lack of utility poles along the median is an improvement). A minor road in the early photo, Cold Spring Lane is now — to the consternation of many area residents — a major thoroughfare. The caption to the historic photo is slightly off. This is not the view from Cold Spring Lane: it is the view from just south of Kenwood Road toward Cold Spring Lane.
Set 7
Mapped Scene: The curve in the tracks so obvious in the old photo is plain on this map detail too.
Scene: Median strip, Roland Avenue, looking south from a point just north of the intersection of Roland Avenue and Club Road. Though it cannot be seen here because of foliage, St. David's Church is ahead and to the right. During the streetcar era, the avenue's median strip was considerably wider than it is now. In the first iteration of this website, an inferior version of this shot was reproduced from Priscilla Miles' 1986 Four Walking Tours booklet. That publication dated the photo to 1903. The better version reproduced above is a scan of the original photo, which came onto the market in late 2011. This original is conveniently dated on its reverse side, 1915. The photo is one of a series of pictures taken by S.A. Douglas and J.W. Schaefer of municipal infrastructure between about 1910 and 1916.
Commentary: The vast quantity of foliage visible in the early photo precludes our using buildings as landmarks. However, a review of aerial photos of Roland Park reveals that there is only one place with this combination of cross street and curve. And that place is undoubtedly the intersection of Roland and Club, shown here as it looked in December 2021. In the historic photo, the crossing immediately in front of the photographer is Club, while the wider one in the distance is the Roland/Oakdale intersection. The degree of narrowing of the median is readily apparent here. All told, the old median, privet hedges included, must have been over twice the width of the present median. Priscilla Miles' caption for her rendition of this photo, though incorrectly dated, is nonetheless informative: "Privet hedge used to hide the tracks, 1903. The width of Roland Avenue is the same today as it was in [Roland Park Co. President Edward H.] Bouton's original plan. It was wetted down yearly with heavy oil brought east from California. There was a center strip, much wider in those days, which was carefully camouflaged by hedges so that the city suburban streetcar which began to operate in 1898 would not be seen." [The streetcar actually started operating in 1893. — Ed.]
Set 8
Mapped Scene: When this 1898 Bromley map was produced, Club Road had not yet been contemplated. There was no east/west street between Oakdale and Upland roads. The photographer's position was a few yards south of the present-day intersection of Roland Avenue and Club Road, though Club does not appear on this map.
Scene: Looking south down Roland Avenue near the junction with Oakdale Road. There is only one curve on Roland like this: the intersection with Oakdale Road, which undoubtedly is what is shown here at the top right of the photo. As for a date for this photo, we can give a narrow range, even if a date certain is beyond us. The other side of the road — the east side of Roland Avenue— is wholly undeveloped here. From the 1898 Bromley map we know that this block was largely built out by 1898, so this shot dates to well before that time. There are streetcar tracks. The trolley was in operation by May 1893, so this shot dates to at least approximately that time. The track-shielding privet hedges have not yet been planted, so this is certainly an early picture. The cross bars on the utility poles are more sophisticated than those shown on the pre-trolley 1891 photo immediately below (set 9), these new metal spars shown here at set 8 being for the streetcar overhead lines. But these are not the permanent spars we see in the 1903-dated set 7, above, and, most tellingly, they appear here not yet actually to have trolley overhead wires strung between them (the lines above are electricity power lines). In other words, this photo seems slightly to predate the actual initiation of the trolley service. Give all the above, my tentative date isearly spring 1893.
Commentary: On the other side of the road, the largely tree-bereft field of early spring 1893 (left) has given way to a far more verdant scene. On this side, despite the saplings planted by the Roland Park Co. (foreground, historic photo), oddly enough today the 4700 block of Roland has comparatively few trees. The intersection with Oakdale Road is at the crest of the curve in the distance. Club Road, non-existent in the 1890s, is just behind the modern photographer.
Set 9
Mapped Scene: To give a sense of the lack of development pre-Roland Park Co., I have here inserted a detail from the 1877 Hopkins map. If my placing of the old picture's photographer is about right, then the photo, we can tell from the map, shows the Warren estate to the left and the eastern tract of the Capron estate to the right. (Capron was a director of the Roland Park Co.)
Scene: Roland Avenue, probably looking north, between Club and Upland roads. It is impossible to place this photo precisely, in view of the fact that there are, by definition, no landmarks. In a 1949 Sun Magazine article, Alfred R.L. Dohme, then owner of the Chestnutwood estate that is now the Roland Park Country School, gave the location as being Roland Avenue between what are now the Gilman School and St. Mary's Seminary, in 1915. However, this cannot be. There is no sign of Gilman here, though it moved to its location in 1909. Nor are any trolley rails evident, though the Lakeside extension of the Lake Roland Elevated line was certainly in place by 1898 and quite possibly by 1893. Moreover, Roland Avenue at Gilman and St. Mary's has a pronounced curve to the right when looking north, absent here. Given how long, straight and level this section of proto-Roland Avenue is, I am inclined to place the photographer between what are now Club and Upland roads, the graded track coming in from the right being a proto-Upland Road. I am assuming that we are here looking north, there being small shadows behind and to the right of the objects. Looking north on a summer's day in the early afternoon would give this effect. The photo is undated. However, we know that this portion of Roland Avenue was completed in May 1892. Here, the road is clearly not complete, so it cannot be May '92. However, the trees are in leaf, so it cannot be winter 1892 either. My tentative date is late summer 1891.
Commentary: There are very few places on Roland Avenue as flat and straight as shown on the old scene to the left. The view immediately above is really the only place that fully fits. The photographer is looking northward from a point just south of Upland Road. I believe that the dirt road coming in from the right in the old photo is what will one day be Upland Road. The photo is the only historical photo I know of that shows Roland Avenue before the addition of streetcar tracks down its median strip. The building of the Lake Roland Elevated (LRE) line, which predated the no. 10 and 29 trolley service to Roland Park, was prolonged by bureaucratic battles — all eventually overcome. The line first ran on May 2, 1893, a year after Roland Avenue itself was completed. The LRE started downtown on Guilford Avenue and made its way via Hampden to Roland Park and (perhaps a little later) to Lakeside. It subsequently became the no. 10 streetcar line. When the no. 29 line was started in 1908, the LRE's track — by now the no. 10 line — was connected to it at the intersection of Roland Avenue and University Parkway.
Commercial Heart
Set 10a
Period Advertisement: A neighborhood fixture for decades, Morgan & Millard was a popular pharmacy and lunch counter operating out of the unit at the southern end of the lower level of the business block. This was Charles Morgan's and David Millard's second establishment. The original opened in 1905 at Baltimore and South streets (a MECU credit union occupies the site now). The pair expanded to Roland Park in 1906. The downtown location closed in 1970, though the Roland Park operation continued until 1981 (the pharmacy component closed in 1979). A successor restaurant, Morgan Millard Restaurant Gallery, operated until 2000. The Petit Louis French restaurant now occupies the Morgan & Millard unit. (Advertisement source: unknown.)
Scene: Looking northwest from Roland Avenue at the façade of the Roland Park shopping center at 4800 Roland Avenue. This location — Plat 1, Block 21 — was reserved for business usage by the Roland Park Co. as early as 1891. The company always referred to this as the "business block" and it was the only block in Roland Park proper where commercial activities were permitted. This is still the case. The company's own office was in this building, which was designed by Wyatt & Nolting. Construction started in December 1893, according to Waesche. The structure beyond the shopping center is the Roland Park trolley station. Roland Avenue northbound trolleys passed the shopping center, turned sharp left into the station just beyond the center, left onto Long Lane, and then left again onto Upland to get back to Roland Avenue. Morgan & Millard was in the unit at the lower left in this photo, with the sign saying "Drugs" above the door.
Commentary: On the national register of historic buildings, the Roland Park "business block" is sometimes said to have been the first purpose-built "strip mall" in the U.S., though Moudry dismisses this. Now occupied by a French restaurant (Petit Louis), the southern end of the building for decades housed one drugstore or another: Morgan & Millard's drugstore was in place for years and, later, Charles J. Nuen's establishment took over (retaining the Morgan & Millard name). Since that time, restaurants have occupied the spot, first one called Morgan Millard and, now (2010), Petit Louis. The extension on the left of the modern photo, which houses Petit Louis' main dining room, is a comparatively recent addition, absent in the historic photo. The extension was probably added in the 1920s. When the building first opened, an ice-cream parlor occupied the northernmost unit (to the right). Upon business-block completion, and for many decades thereafter, its driveway was a C shape, with entry from and exit to Roland Avenue. Now it is J shaped, with entry still from Roland, but exit now onto Upland. The C-shaped drive is seen in the aerial shot at set 10b.
Set 10b
Period Advertisement: Shown is another period advertisment for Morgan & Millard. The date is unknown. (Advertisement source: unknown.)
Scenes: This is an excellent aerial shot of the business block at 4800 Roland Avenue, showing the C-shaped old driveway, along with, behind, the carhouse and the fire station. The photo is said to date to 1945, but must be later. The carhouse is already unused and fenced off. Too, the median strip and its tracks are snow covered, meaning that the photo postdates the streetcar era. The scene is almost certainly winter 1947-48.
This is more or less the same view as at right, but taken about a year later. Shot in January 1949, this photo shows the carbarn now demolished and the Park Lynn apartment
building well on its way toward completion.
Set 11
Scene: Northbound trolley at Roland Avenue and Upland Road. This no. 29 trolley, having come up from downtown via University Parkway, is about to turn to its left (west) into the Roland Park streetcar station, now the overflow parking lot for the business block. From there, it will turn left again (south) onto Long Lane, and then left once more (east) onto Upland Road, before turning right at Roland and heading back down to the Inner Harbor.
Commentary: Despite the lack of trolley trackage, the scene today is not all that different from its look in the 1940s. The Roland Park Presbyterian church is visible at the far left of the photo (though the church's south facade has been considerably altered since then, this is not showing here anyway). The Italianate villa in the background, 4715 Roland, is very little changed.
Set 12
Mapped Scene: On this segment of the 1915 Bromley map, the shopping center is shown in pink on block 21. The trolley shelter is just north of it, on lot 5. The fire station is also pink, just behind the business block. And the carhouse is labeled United Railways & Electric Co.
Scene: Looking south at the north face of the shopping center, with the trolley station in the foreground. The Lake Roland Elevated Railway, later the no. 10 trolley line, opened on May 2, 1893, making its way to Roland Park from downtown through Hampden all the way up to Lake Roland. The no. 10 was later joined by the no. 29, which as of October 1908 came to Roland Park via University Parkway. At a date unknown, the no. 10 ceased to go all the way to Lakeside, stopping instead at the shopping center — at which point an initially unnamed line, ultimately designated the no. 24 line, took over the duty of taking passengers from Roland Park to the lake.
Commentary: Trolley service to Roland Park ended on June 22, 1947 when, that day, the no. 29 streetcar service was superseded by a bus line. (The no. 10 had already ceased to come further north than the Roland Water Tower, in 1940.) The no. 24 trolley struggled on for a couple of years, but only up at the Lakeside end of its line. It did not come as far south as Roland Park after June 1947. Soon thereafter, the Roland Park trolley shelter was demolished, its place taken by extra parking for the business block.
Set 13
Scene: The photographer has his back to Roland Avenue and is looking west along what is now the side parking lot at the business block. Beyond the roofed platform is a cold-weather waiting shelter, which can be better seen in the sets above and below. The sign says "To Number 10 Cars" (pointing to the right) and "To Number 28 — Lakeside Cars" (pointing left). This latter allows us to pinpoint the date of this photo with some precision. The caption gives 1930, which seems correct. The Lakeside line was only designated no. 28 from 1924 to 1929, previously having been the no. 11, and subsequently becoming the no. 24 line. Having said this, the photo cannot quite date to the late 1920s. The rear car on the left is a Peter Witt car, not acquired until 1930. Mostly likely, the shot was taken in 1930, with the sign is uncorrected from the previous year.
Commentary: Other than as shown in the set below, there is now no trace of the trolley stop. The gable-ended, shingle-sided trolley workshop, beyond the business block building, went on to become joined as a sort of addition to the latter. For many years, it functioned as part of a popular deli in this location. In late 2011, the owners of Petit Louis incorporated it into their new restaurant, Johnny's, at the north end of the business-block building.
Set 14
Scene Relic: The old streetcar tracks from the Roland Park trolley stop have been repurposed to make a crash barrier between Long Lane and Park Lynn apartment building immediately to the west.
Scene: PCC car turning south into Long Lane. Just below (west of) the trolley shelter, streetcars turned left (south) onto Long Lane, as shown here. The shelter and Roland Avenue are in the background. The photo is undated but must have been taken some time between the 1936 introduction of PCC (Presidents' Conference Committee) cars and the closure of the no. 29 trolley line in 1947.
Commentary: With the end of trolley service to Roland Park in 1947, the shelter was demolished and the space turned into a parking lot. There is, however, a vestige of the old streetcar era that survives. The trackage shown in the vintage photo at left was used to make a crash guardon the west side of Long Lane, a crash guard still very much in place. (See the photo at the top of this set.)
Set 15
Mapped Scene: The photographer of the vintage photo at right stood on the south side of Upland Road, facing north. On the 1915 Bromley map excerpted here, the alley between the firehouse and the business block has already been partially built over, so the photo must predate the map.
Scene: Looking north from Upland Road at the front of the Roland Park firehouse, said to be the oldest continuously used firehouse in Baltimore City. The station house was designed by Wyatt & Nolting, architects, and built in 1895. Though now staffed by professional Baltimore City firefighters, the station was originally manned by volunteer firemen, whose actions were governed by the Roland Park Civic League. In the 1890s, Roland Park was part of Baltimore County, whose nearest jail was in Towson. Accordingly, the firehouse had three cells incorporated at the rear of the first floor — just in case! Trials were conducted by Squire Albert Ebaugh, the mustached man fourth from right of the front (standing) row. ("Squire" was a title used in Baltimore County forpeople with positions analogous to justices of the peacetoday.) In the firehouse doorway is Duffy Rutledge, the county policeman that served the Roland Park area. The other men pictured are members of the volunteer fire company. Most lived in Evergreen. Their houses were equipped with electronically operated bells, the number of rings of which indicating a fire's location. The volunteer company's demise came about when Roland Park was annexed by Baltimore City in 1918.
Commentary: Built in 1895, a century-plus has left the firehouse remarkably unscathed. The two arched entrances have yielded to larger, flat-topped doors. Apart from this change, however, the exterior of the building is much as it was. In the very early shot, there is still an alley between the back of the business block (far right) and the firehouse. This alley is now built over by the shopping center's southern extension and various other out buildings. The alley was beginning to be built over as early as 1915 (see the Bromley map segment at far right). In 2010, the interior of the firehouse was modernized fairly extensively, in good part with funds raised in, or leveraged by, the Roland Park area community.
Set 16
Scene: An early Roland Park fire engine. The building in the background is the now obscured south façade of the shopping center, a better view of which may be seen in the old shot below, at set 17. The red pickup truck shown in the "now" shot at set 17 is parked in the same place as the old fire engine shown here (in set 16). This is almost certainly the Roland Park fire company's second engine, a motorized hook-and-ladder truck bought in 1911, which replaced the the horse-drawn affair shown in sets 15 and 17, above and below.
Commentary: Roland Park's current (2008), much loved engine no. 44.
Set 17
Sense of the Scene: The old photo at right becomes more intelligible when compared to this pull-back shot, rather than to the pure "now" photo at the bottom. Though the ground floor can no longer be seen, at the upper floors the building's old south face is still apparent.
Scene: The photographer's position is more or less the same as that of set 16, above, which is to say that he or she is looking north by northeast at the then exposed southern face of the shopping center. This is likely the fire company's first engine, described by Priscilla Miles as "a chemical engine [with] two horses to pull it." The photo is undated but the contraption also appears in the center of the old photo at set 15. As the latter was taken in 1902, this photo was probably taken at more or less the same time. The meaning of the cryptic "rented temporarily" in the original caption is a mystery. It may possibly mean that the horse-drawn engine was never owned, merely being rented until the purchase of the 1911 motorized engine shown in set 16.
Commentary: The scene today, at least when taken from the same angle as the vintage photo, bears little resemblance to the latter. This is because the old southern façade of the shopping center has for decades been hidden by the building addition that dominates in this new photo. The addition at present (2011) houses the main dining room and the kitchen of the Petit Louis restaurant. It is not known when the addition was constructed. It does not appear on the 1922 Baltimore City map of the area. However, it is clearly visible in the mid- to late 1920s shot below at set 22.
Set 18
Mapped Scene: The Roland Park loop around the shopping center, and the tracks to the carhouse, are shown on this map of northwest Baltimore lines as of 1945. The no. 10 line is not shown because it had converted to trackless trolley in 1940.
Scene: Brill streetcar emerging from the Upland Road carhouse, about to turn east onto Upland Road. The sign on the front of the car reads, "Johns Hopkins/5th Regiment Athletic Meet, Sat., Feb. 20th." Brill-manufactured cars were very common in Baltimore. Founded in 1868 In Philadelphia, the J.G. Brill Co. grew to be the largest manufacturer of buses and trolleys globally. In 1944, it merged with the American Car and Foundry Co. It folded in 1954, but not before having made some 45,000 public-transportation vehicles.
Commentary: The Park Lynn Apartments at 4 Upland Road have long since taken the place of the old carhouse, which closed in April 1946.
Set 19
Scene: View north up Long Lane from its intersection with Upland Road. The cars parked along Long Lane firmly place the photo in the 1940s. Moreover, careful scrutiny of the photo reveals that, beyond the white wooden box on the left, the entrance to the carhouse has already been fenced off. This means that the photo was taken after the April 1946 closure of the facility.
Commentary: Other than the crash guards made of old trolley rails on Long Lane (see set 13), there is little evidence now that this location was once a fairly major streetcar hub. The firehouse is little changed since the 1940s, though the Park Lynn Apartments now dominate on the left.
Set 20
Sense of the Scene: A no. 24 streetcar in the Roland Park carhouse, date unknown, but after the 1929 renaming of the no. 28 Lakeside line as the no. 29. A photo in Munro's Greater Roland Park (p. 79) book shows this same car, number 5389, at the northern end of the 24 route in a 1946 photo. This image probably dates to the same era, but before April of that year, when the carhouse was permanently closed.
Scene: The Roland Park carhouse after its April 1946 closure. The carbarn's last day of operation was April 20, 1946. After that, cars still ran to Roland Park for a while, but they were housed elsewhere. After closure, the barn was fenced off until its 1947 purchase by Robert L. Jackson. Jackson demolished the structure and replaced it in 1949 with the Park Lynn Apartments, which are still open. This photo is undated, but there are clues. The now unused tracks are fairly overgrown, and the fenced off entrance to the car yard to the left is very weed infested. Clearly several months have gone by, most likely dating the photo to late summer 1946.
Commentary: This is the main entrance to the Park Lynn Apartments. To help orient the viewer, the modern telephone pole in the center is in the same place as that in the vintage photo (though it is not literally the same pole).
Set 21
Scene: No. 29 streetcar in the yard between the carhouse and the Roland Park Apartments. The photo is unattributed. However, the Baltimore Streetcar Museum possesses a very similar picture of the same scene, but with a different car as the subject, plainly taken at the same time of year (late fall or winter). That BSM photo is credited to J.E. White, who may very well have been be the photographer of this image too.
Commentary: This modern photo shows the southwest corner of the Park Lynn Apartments. The complex's western wing is built atop part of the old car yard. The access road visible at the left sits where the yard's western most trackage used to be, the track upon which the cars are parked in the vintage photo.
Set 22
Architects: J.B. Noel Wyatt (1847-1926) and, right, his much younger partner, William G. Nolting (1867-1940). They were the architects of the shopping center and much else in Roland Park.
Scene: Streetcar rails on Upland at the side of the business block. After turning east up Upland Road from either the carhouse or from behind the shopping center, the streetcars then climbed up the rails prominent in the foreground of this photo. Upon reaching Roland Avenue, the nos. 10 and 29 turned south, while the no. 24 turned north. This photo is undated but, judging by the look of the autos, it was probably shot in the mid- to late 1920s. The extension at the south end of the shopping center is already in place. The rear part of the extension once housed a garage, whose door is now bricked up.
Commentary: The business block has survived remarkably unscathed, though foliage now hides much of the detail visible in the old photo. In the vintage shot, note that even as early as the mid-1920s, the firehouse's original double, arched doorways had been replaced by a single, flat-topped opening (retained to this day). In the old photo, the carhouse cannot been seen because it was set back from the street and is therefore hidden by the firehouse (this is very obvious in the first of the two aerial views at set 10b). Beyond the firehouse and the hidden carhouse, the pyramid-topped building is the Roland Park Condominium building, built as apartments in 1924.
North End
Set 23
Mapped Scene: On this 1915 map, neither the Roland Park public school nor the Roland Park Country School yet exists in this location (the latter in 1916 still being on the 4600 block of Roland Avenue). The land upon which now sits the RPCS is here still the Dohme "Chestnutwood" estate. The Tuxedo Park section of Deepdene Road is still called Linwood
Avenue.
Scene: Roland Avenue, looking north from Deepdene Road, World War I era, before annexation by Baltimore City. The vacant areas to right and left are now occupied by, respectively, (a) the Roland Park Elementary/Middle School and the Gilman School and (b) the Roland Park Country School.
Commentary: The embankment-retaining wall toward the top of the hill is instantly recognizable. The small bushes to its left, visible in the vintage photo, eventually grew into a vast hedge, some 20 feet high. This survived well into the 21st century before being cut down to make way for the iron fence seen here. Though hidden from view here by trees, the Roland Park Country School now occupies the land to the far left, while the bare land on the right in the historic picture now houses the Roland Park Elementary/Middle School and, further up the hill, the Gilman School.
Set 24
Mapped Scene: This detail from the 1935 Matthews map shows where the photographer stood for the photo: on the northweast corner of Belvedere Avenue, looking southwest toward the seminary.
Scene: This decades-old scene is instantly recognizable. The photographer is on the northeast corner of Belvedere Avenue, looking southwest toward St. Mary's Seminary, plainly visible at the right of the photo. The seminary was built in 1929. Belvedere Avenue was widened to make the present-day Northern Parkway in 1962. The photo is undated but must be after the renumbering of the no. 28 Lakeside line as no. 24, which took place in 1929.
Commentary: The scene today is fairly recognizable, but only fairly so. The trolley tracks are long gone, of course. Though it is not immediately apparent from this photo, the modern Nothern Parkway is far wider than the old Belvedere Avenue. The historic photographer stood on the northeast corner of Belvedere and Roland, while the modern photographer stood at the end of the median strip of Northern Parkway. The median strip is where the Belvedere Avenue's northern edge formerly was. A glimpse of the seminary may be had through the gap in the trees above the metal box on the right of the image.
Set 25
Mapped Scene: This detail from Bromley's 1915 map shows St. George's Road in its earlier incarnation as Lehr Road. Modern-day Normandy Place and Lombardy Placeoccupy the land once intended for the Academy of Visitation (which in fact ended up further north, on the 5700 block of Roland).
Scene: Roland Avenue, looking north from just above Belvedere Avenue (now Northern Parkway), WWI era, before annexation by Baltimore City. The vacant land to right and left is now occupied by the houses making up the lower portion of New North Roland Park/Poplar Hill. The turning to the left is what will one day be called St. George's Road, though which is still called Lehr Road at this point in time.
Commentary: Because there is so much building-obscuring foliage in this modern photo, the scene is in fact remarkably reminiscent of that shown in the earlier photo (which predates most of the development of New North Roland Park). Having said this, the scene in the old photo is not as bereft of development as it may initially seem. The road coming in from the right is the eastern section of St. George's Road, just visible in the old photo too. On the latter, between St. George's and the next road (Melrose Avenue), may been seen an ornamental hedge, marking the southern boundary of 5607 Roland Avenue, built in 1895 and still extant today.
Set 26
Mapped Scene: The map and the photo both date to about the same time, and it is apparent that in 1915-16 there was very little development this far north up Roland Avenue. The building in the distance in the vintage photo is the Norton house, with its prominent driveway.
Scene: Roland Avenue, looking north from just south of Bellemore Road (which is ahead on the left), WWI era, before annexation by Baltimore City. The vacant land to right and left is now occupied by the houses making up the upper portion of New North Roland Park. The turning to the left is Bellemore Road, which at this time was not a graded through-route all the way to Falls Road (its graded portion did not at the time extend that far west). The very visible driveway in the distance is that to the Norton house, formerly the Duval house, just north of the intersection of Roland and Lake avenues. Built in 1882, this house is now 800 W. Lake Avenue.
Commentary: As with set 25, this modern summer photo shows no buildings visible because of the tree frondescence. This in turn makes the scene appear more similar to that of the old photo than is perhaps really warranted. Buildings, mostly residential, now in fact line both sides of the road, albeit tastefully obscured by trees. Even though it was not in Roland Park proper, the northern part of Roland Avenue was in the early 20th century widened and landscaped by the Roland Park Co. with a view toward encouraging future high-end development.
Set 27
Mapped Scene: Both the map and the old photo date to 1915. The photographer's vantage point is what is now the edge of the front yard of 5900 Roland Avenue.
Scene: Looking south from the intersection of Lake and Roland avenues. An insignificant Lake Avenue is coming in from the left, just this side of the group of idling workmen. As the historic caption below says, the west (southbound) side of Roland Avenue is here being surfaced. (Note the paving machine in the middle distance.) The northbound carriageway of Roland Avenue is the muddy flat area to the immediate left of the tracks. This photo is one of the Schaefer/Douglas series of Baltimore infrastructure shots dating to 1910-1915.
Commentary: What a difference a century-plus makes! Orchards and mud have given way to houses, churches and asphalt. The grassy area at the right of this image is the edge of the front yard of 5900 Roland Avenue. The median strip toward the left occupies the space that was once the gap between the north- and southbound Lakeside line tracks.
Set 28
Mapped Scene: The 1898 Bromley map shows the photographer's position, standing just east of the trolley tracks and the G. Duval property, looking north toward the upper part of Michael Jenkins' "Woodglen" estate. Jenkins' northern out-buildings can be seen in the photo at right, beyond the meadow.
Scene: Looking north along the Lakeside streetcar tracks from a point about a fifth of a mile north of the Roland and Lake avenues T-junction, where the former used to dead-end onto the latter. A century ago, Roland did not extend north of Lake, so the only means of getting to Lakeside was via the trolley, as shown in this 1905 photo. This route eventually become the no. 24 line but, at this early turn-of-the-century stage, it operated as an unnamed "jerkwater" — i.e., minor — extension of the no. 10 line that went from Roland Park to downtown through Hampden. The open land beyond the tracks is a field or meadow of the Jenkins estate. The estate ultimately became the Boys' Latin school in 1960 upon the latter's relocation from downtown. From 1844 to 1960, the school was housed on Brevard Street in Bolton Hill. In those days, the school's gym was located at Cathedral and Preston streets, today the site of the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.
Commentary: The tracks visible in the historic photo were pulled up in early 1950 and Roland Avenue was subsequently extended northward, built over the old right-of-way to create a road to the then-new Elkridge Estates apartment complex. Shown here is what is now the 6000 block of Roland Avenue. The Jenkins meadow of the vintage shot is today the Boys' Latin football field (J. Duncan Smith Field). The brown, shingled building in the distance is a holdover from a century ago: it is visible in the old photo too. The trolley-stop platform prominent in the old picture was about where the Elkridge Estates sign is today.
Set 29
Scene: In this photo, the photographer is standing toward the south end of the Jenkins estate meadow, the same meadow visible beyond the trolley tracks in the set above (set 28). The barn visible in the distance in set 28 can more clearly be see here.
Commentary: The old Jenkins meadow is now the J.Duncan Smith Field. The modern photographer is looking north from a position slightly to the left (west) of the position of the vintage picture's photographer. In the early photo, a road can be seen running toward the barn, beyond the white fence, on a ridge. The road and lower part of the ridge have gone, but they were once more or less where the yardage lines shown above on the football field are.
Set 30
Scene: Here, the photographer has moved to the (north) top of the meadow, and is looking east by northeast at the west side of the Jenkins estate barn. The meadow is to the photographer's right. Note that the portico-style roof over the barn's south entrance — discernable in the two previous shots (sets 28 and 29) — is no longer present. It would have been above the doorway at the lower right of this photo.
Commentary: This is how how the barn looks now, just north of J. Duncan Smith’s Field on the Boys' Latin campus. Today it is the campus store and art classroom. It has been extensively remodeled since the days of the Jenkins estate.
Set 31
Mapped Scene: Jenkins' "Woodglen" house is clearly shown on the 1898 Bromley map.
Scene: This is the Jenkins mansion itself, taken in the early 20th century. The photographer is south of the southwest-facing building.
Commentary: The old Jenkins house is now the Boys' Latin Upper School main building, Williams Hall. The porch has been demolished and an external vestibule added. An extension has been added on the east (right) side of the building. Though it is not visible here because of the trees, there is also a vast modern extension on the west side. The second-floor bay window has gone, and the house's roof line has been considerably altered.