Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association Building- Baltimore MD - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form

Built in 1930, the Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association Building fulfilled the long-sought aspirations for unity and prominence of the Baltimore Jewish Community. Baltimore Jews first joined together in 1854 as the Hebrew Young Men's Literary Association. As the “first" Jewish 'Y' in America it represented the beginning of a community center movement which now includes 350 centers throughout the country.

Prominent leaders of Baltimore civic and commercial life founded the 1854 Association. Firmly entrenched in Baltimore's establishment, these German immigrants prospered and moved "uptown." In the 1880s an influx of Russian Jews fleeing pogroms settled in East Baltimore, in many of the homes vacated by upwardly mobile and assimilated German Jews. A divisive tension developed between the two immigrant groups. Issues of assimilation, culture and financial importance separated them. The "downtown" Russian Jews formed independent societies to compete with the "uptown" Jews. With the realization that the future of Baltimore Jewry lay in the investment to its youth, community leaders began to take notice of neglected social dilemmas.

In a 1926 brochure entitled "Reasons Y," the National Jewish Welfare Board argued the cases for demanding a combined and strengthened YM & YWHA to replace the inadequate facilities of the separate groups. Juvenile delinquencies, Jewish membership in Christian organizations and a shortage of space for educational, religious and social gatherings formed the argument for a state-wide fund-raising campaign.

During the week of February 28 to March 8, 1926, $530,000 was raised in an impressive show of strength and solidarity. Both Jewish settlements were represented in the contributions to the future of a unified wholesome community. Located precisely between the "Downtown" and "Uptown" settlements, the Monument Street building is landmark to this united effort. Not only would the new building unite the two disparate cultural communities, but it also would join, for the first time nationally, the two sexes into one facility.

The building also achieves significance as an excellent example of Jewish institutional architecture of the second quarter of the twentieth century. The distinctive characteristic of these buildings of which few stand in the inner core of Baltimore is a general classical design in the symmetry of the facade and the use of brick with stone trim (lintels, belt courses, foundation walls, etc.) with Mo

Dedicated on October 19, 1930, the Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association (YM & YWHA) remained for over 25 years the heart of Baltimore's Jewish Community. In 1960, the building was sold to an AFL-CIO Trade Union Local,

Street address: 305--311 W. Monument Street Baltimore, MD United States 21201 County / Borough / Parish: Baltimore (Independent City) Year listed: 1985 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Event, Architecture/Engineering Periods of significance: 1925-1949 Historic function: Social Current function: Apartment Building Privately owned?: yes Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Secondary Website 1: [Web Link] Season start / Season finish: Not listed Hours of operation: Not listed Secondary Website 2: Not listed National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   09/10/2021 Don.Morfe visited it