2027-2041 E. Monument Street-East Monument Historic District - Baltimore MD - NRHP Historic Districts - Contributing Buildings on Waymarking.com

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

The East Monument Historic District is historically significant for its association with the history of Bohemian immigration to Baltimore in the late 19th and early 20th century. The district is the center of the city’s Bohemian immigrant community and is home to the Bohemian National Parish of the Roman Catholic Church, St. Wenceslaus.

Not only did most of the Bohemian immigrants to Baltimore settle here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but many of the typical two-story Neoclassical-style brick rowhouses that fill the blocks of the district were built by Bohemian-born builders, most notably Frank Novak (1877-1945). Novak’s family settled in this area and he began his building career by apprenticing to other local Bohemian-born builders. By 1914 he was building on his own, continuing to fill blocks in the district to the city’s eastern boundary line at East Avenue. He later became the city’s most prolific builder of reasonably priced two-story houses, concentrating his efforts in the eastern and southeastern sections of the city as industrial expansion brought even more jobs to this area. Throughout his career, most of his clients were first- and second-generation Eastern European immigrants.

The district thus derives additional architectural significance as a relatively pristine example of a type of working class neighborhood that characterized Baltimore in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although a number of blocks on the western edge of the district contain late Italianate-style houses of the 1880s, by far the largest majority of housing in the entire district was built in the Neoclassical style popular in the early years of the 20th century. The first efforts to provide housing for the influx of Bohemian immigrants to the district began in 1867; construction in the neighborhood was essentially completed in 1926.

Johns Hopkins Federal Credit Union 2027-41 E. Monument Street-Page 6 and 30. (The building has a bronze plaque stating that his was formerly the State Movie Theatre)

Page 6-The commercial E. Monument St. corridor runs through the center of the East Monument Historic District. It is anchored by the North Eastern Market, located at the southeast corner of E. Monument and N. Chester St. The current market is a modern replacement structure and is not considered a contributing resource. East of the market, many original two- and three-story, Italianate-style storefront buildings line E. Monument St., but no original storefronts survive. There are also two large Neoclassical-style buildings—one a former furniture store on the north side of the street, east of N. Duncan St.; the other, now serving as the Johns Hopkins Credit Union, is located on the south side of E. Monument, east of N. Castle St. These blocks of E. Monument St. once served as a flourishing local business district. As development proceeded to the east in the early years of the 20th century, developers planned their blocks of housing to include corner stores, to serve as groceries, butcher shops, bakeries, saloons, etc.

Page 30-East of N. Castle St., the Johns Hopkins Federal Credit Union (2027-41 E. Monument St.) is housed in a three-story, seven-bay-wide Renaissance-Revival-style building, whose first floor facades have been modernized. The main floor, or piano nobile, on the westernmost six bays has tall arched windows capped with triangular pediments; the wide bay at the eastern end of the building has three tall round-arched windows framed by fluted columns. The flat roofline has a stone balustrade and a dentil cornice, which sits above a row of square attic windows that extends across the entire façade.

Name of Historic District (as listed on the NRHP): East Monument Historic District Link to nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com page with the Historic District: [Web Link] Address: 2027 E. Monument St, Baltimore MD 21205 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

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   09/02/2021 Don.Morfe visited it