THEN: A biplane flies over opening day at the Maryland Yacht Club on the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River in 1939. (A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore Sun, 1939)
NOW: Heavy vegetation covers much the shoreline of the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River behind Harbor Hospital. The Maryland Yacht Club moved from this location to Fairview Beach Road in Pasadena in 1945. (Jerry Jackson, Baltimore Sun, 2016)
THEN: The 800 block of Howard Street in the 1940s was strictly businesses, a block of well-established firms including the A.T. Jones costume house, Smith's books, Independent Beef, American Window Shade, a handful of antique shops and the Harris Auction Gallery. (A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore Sun, 1944)
NOW: Some of the buildings may be gone and businesses shuttered, but the 800 block of Howard Street is still home to Baltimore's Antique Row in 2016. (Caitlin Faw, Baltimore Sun, 2016)
Click here for a gallery of 100+ more now-and-then pictures from around Baltimore.
New book chronicles history of Baltimore Streetcar Museum
The Baltimore Streetcar Museum on Falls Road in 1968, the year the museum opened. (Richard Stacks, Baltimore Sun files, 1968)
There are a lot of civic treasures we take for granted in Baltimore, one of which is the Baltimore Streetcar Museum, whose collection of vintage streetcars can be seen Sunday afternoons swaying down its Falls Road trackage with clanging bells and happy riders.
Mary Sue Schab lends a hand as the trolleys roll at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum in 1970.(Baltimore Sun files, 1970)
But the museum as we know it today nearly didn’t happen. James E. Dalmas, in his recently published book “The Early History of the Baltimore Streetcar Museum, 1966-1980,” chronicles its struggles after a failed joint attempt with the National Capitol Museum of Transportation to locate a museum at Robert E. Lee Park near Lake Roland. The two organizations went their separate ways.
It was the support and help of Baltimore Mayor Theodore Roosevelt McKeldin, who in 1965 proposed locating the museum on the grounds of the former Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad as part of the proposed Jones Valley Park, that made today’s Baltimore Streetcar Museum a reality.
Dalmas, a founding member of the museum, described McKeldin’s involvement as a “turning point.”
Elaborately illustrated, his book shows members who literally built the museum from the ground up, grading the right-of-way, laying track and stringing overhead wire.
In 1968, the car house had been completed, which meant the historic collection of 16 cars were now under roof and out of the weather. Cars began operation in 1970 and, eight years later, a brick visitors’ center opened.
THEN: The Baltimore Trust Company Building (now known as 10 Light Street), right, dominates the downtown skyline in this image taken from the Washington Monument in Mount Vernon in 1933. (A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore Sun, 1933)
NOW: The Mercy Hospital complex and downtown skyline are seen from the Washington Monument in Mount Vernon in 2016. (Kim Hairston, Baltimore Sun, 2016)
THEN: A broken window (lower right) at the Hubert Humphrey campaign headquarters on Charles Street is the only evidence of a demonstration the day before, on Aug. 28, 1968. Slogans had been pasted on headquarters and 10 were arrested. (William H. Mortimer, Baltimore Sun, 1968)
NOW: The historic townhouse at 409 N. Charles St. is now An die Musik, a concert venue for classical, jazz and world music. (Jerry Jackson, Baltimore Sun, 2016)
Now-and-then pictures: Cold Spring Lane and Falls Road
THEN: Traffic was at a standstill after and accident at the intersection of Cold Spring Lane and Falls Road in 1947. (Albert D. Cochran, Baltimore Sun, 1947)
NOW: An Exxon station now stands where the Esso station once was on the southwest corner of Falls Road and Cold Spring Lane. (Kim Hairston, Baltimore Sun, 2016)