Craftsmen's Club-Riverside Historic District - Baltimore MD - NRHP Historic Districts - Contributing Buildings on Waymarking.com

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

The Riverside Historic District is a 52-block area in the southern part of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. It is bounded on the west and south by a railroad line, established in the mid-nineteenth century when the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad decided to build a branch line to connect its Camden Station on Pratt Street to its new deep water terminal on Locust Point.

A key event for the history of the neighborhood was the 1868 opening of an immigration pier at Locust Point, the result of an agreement between the president of the B&O Railroad and the North-German Lloyd line, headquartered in Bremen. Although many of the German immigrants bought through train passage to the Middle West, many also stayed and settled in the neighborhoods near the docks either in Locust Point or Riverside. The many German-language churches in the district are a testament to this phenomenon. Finally, the district is significant under Criterion C for its architecture, which is representative of the full range of domestic and ecclesiastical building type’s characteristic of Baltimore neighborhoods during the period from the mid-19th century through the first decade of the twentieth.

Craftsman Club-Photo 10
(now occupied by Delia Foley's Pub and Eatery)

The large building at the northeast corner of S. Charles and Fort Avenue, 1437 S. Charles Street, is three-stories tall, three bays wide (24'), and ten bays deep. The cornice is marked by a central, highly decorated sheet metal triangular pediment, with the words "Craftsmen's Club" set beneath the peak of the gable. The large end brackets on either side of the pediment have large balls at their tops. The now painted façade is decorated with terra cotta panels and each segmental-arched window lintel is framed by a terra cotta band with a keystone depicting a classical head. The ornamental terra cotta band continues across the façade between the windows. Builder Louis C. Smith leased the building to the Mechanics Exchange Stock Company of Baltimore City in 1887, but the date "1919" decorates the Fort Avenue façade near the top of the building and undoubtedly refers to the period the Craftsmen's Club took residence.

Name of Historic District (as listed on the NRHP): Riverside Historic District Link to nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com page with the Historic District: [Web Link] Address: 1437 S. Charles Street, Baltimore MD 21230 How did you determine the building to be a contributing structure?: Narrative found on the internet (Link provided below) Optional link to narrative or database: [Web Link] NRHP Historic District Waymark (Optional): Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   09/29/2021 Don.Morfe visited it