The Cathedral Hill Historic District - Baltimore MD - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form

The Cathedral Hill Historic District is a concentration of commercial, religious, and institutional buildings covering approximately 10 blocks in downtown Baltimore that are linked historically and architecturally. Its general boundaries are Hamilton Street on the north, St. Paul Place on the east, Saratoga Street on the south, and Cathedral Street and Park Avenue on the west.

The buildings are mostly commercial in use, with the exception of four large churches, dominated by the Catholic Basilica of the Assumption or "the Cathedral," and several large institutional buildings, most of which have been converted to commercial use.

The District originally was mostly rowhouses, which began to be converted to combined residential and commercial use about the middle of the 19th century. By the time of the Baltimore Fire of 1904, the District was mostly commercial and the rowhouses had been largely altered by the addition of plate glass display windows and projecting bays. The Fire caused massive relocations of businesses and shops into the District with increasing remodeling of existing buildings and construction of new buildings.

The second building type which distinguishes the Cathedral Hill District is the social or fraternal organization building. The most important architectural examples of this type are the 1867 Masonic Temple at 221-229 North Charles Street, a Classical Revival building given a Renaissance Revival roofline by several alterations; the Renaissance Revival Old YMCA Building of 1873 at 300 North Charles Street, and the Romanesque Revival Odd Fellows Hall of 1891 at 300 Cathedral Street.

In addition to these, the Old YMCA Central Building at 24 West Franklin Street and the YWCA Building at 128 West Franklin Street represent the Beaux-Arts Classicism of the early 20th century. Two of the organizations, the Masons and the YWCA, still occupy their original buildings, further supporting the active nature of the building type in the Cathedral Hill District.

St. Paul’s House 309 Cathedral Street

A charitable residence, was St. Paul's House, built by Old St. Paul's Church at 309 Cathedral Street in 1885 and has now been adapted for commercial office space. Many of the large social and fraternal buildings which are a unique feature of the Cathedral Hill District have been remodeled for other uses.

Street address: 309 Cathedral Street Baltimore, MD United States 21201 County / Borough / Parish: Baltimore (Independent City) Year listed: 1987 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Event, Architecture/Engineering Periods of significance: 1925-1949, 1900-1924, 1875-1899, 1850-1874, 1825-1849, 1800-1824, 1750-1799 Historic function: Commerce/Trade,Domestic,Religion,Social Current function: Commerce/Trade, Religion, Social 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

Visit Instructions:
Please give the date and brief account of your visit. Include any additional observations or information that you may have, particularly about the current condition of the site. Additional photos are highly encouraged, but not mandatory.

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   08/30/2021 Don.Morfe visited it 08/01/2010 Searcher28 visited it

View all visits/logs