Preservation Maryland Conference

Last week, I had an opportunity to attend the annual Preservation Maryland conference, as it was hosted here in Baltimore. I've attended once before a few years ago, and while it's a little different in focus and scope than what we do at the Museum, I find it to be relevant and fascinating. This year, I had the opportunity to tour some of Baltimore's historic churches (including one with a link to Lloyd Street Synagogue), participate in a workshop on documenting and recording historic structures, listen to a case study of African-American archaeology, and attend a workshop on preserving cemeteries.

During the tour of historic churches, we visited St. Alphonsus, which was - like the Lloyd Street Synagogue - designed by architect Robert Carey Long, Jr. It even opened in 1845 - the same year as LSS! Not only that, but St. John the Baptist, the Lithuanian parish that occupied LSS from 1889 - 1905, moved to St. Alphonsus in the 1910s. I couldn't get over how different the building was from ours. Whereas LSS is Greek Revival in architectural style, this is truly German Neo-Gothic at its finest. Such opulence. I can understand why Long was a popular architect if he could swing back and forth in styles so easily.






I'll post more later today or tomorrow.