Photo Essay: Cycling through an industrial time machine
Above: May Day rollers stop to pay their respects to the old Labor Lyceum on East Baltimore St.
Yesterday was May Day, and The Brew celebrated “international workers’ day” by conducting a cycling tour of industrial landmarks of this once factory-studded city, co-sponsored by Baltimore Bicycle Works.
During four hours of relaxed pedaling, our group of 45 heard a fascinating account about abolitionist Elisha Tyson, founder of a grain mill in the Jones Falls Valley, and cruised through soot-streaked buildings in Greektown where workmen once forged 40 billion bottecaps a year.
In-between were stops at Red Emma’s Bookstore in Mt. Vernon, the former Labor Lyceum in Oldtown, the alley houses built by ex-slave Frederick Douglass, and the site (now demolished) of a 1937 confrontation by striking seamen.
Needless to say, there were impromptu halts to pick up an earful of local lore by stoop sitters and a barroom denizen outdoors for a smoke.
Pedaling along streets mostly vacant of the weekday distractions of cars and trucks, several participants commented on how well cycling fits into the 19th-century scale of Baltimore.
“I forgot how much I like biking in the city,” said Patrick Ward, a computer software entrepreneur. Patrick’s dad, retired Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Thomas Ward, happily pointed out some of the now-restored buildings he helped save from the wrecking ball as a former member of the City Council.
Tam Davis, who blogged about the trip, commented that while the sun never succeeded in peeking out of the clouds, “the ride was so interesting and fun that I didn’t miss it.”
“The greyness of the sky actually contributed an appropriately gritty atmosphere for this tour of industrial B’more,” she wrote.
Here’s a sampling of the photographs emailed to us by people on the trip.
Our thanks to them, to Meredith Mitchell and Josh Keogh at BBW, and to Xenos and Ted Kohilas, whose Ikaros Restaurant restored us with spinach pie, stuffed grape leaves, mousaka, galaktoboureko, kataifi and other Greek delicacies at trail’s end.
Fittingly enough, our trip began at Baltimore Bicycle Works, the only worker-owned bike shop in Baltimore, located in the former offices of the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad below the Howard St. Bridge. (Photo by Tam Davis)
First stop was the old Mt. Vernon Mills, onetime producer of cotton duck used for ship sails, tents, etc. Brew writer Mark Reutter points out the company houses above the mill and company store to his left. (Photo by Stacy Spaulding)
Mark Thistel gave us a rousing sketch of Elisha Tyson, founder of the Mt. Vernon mill and an ardent abolitionist. "When he died in 1824," Thistel said, "10,000 African-Americans came out into the streets of Baltimore to memorialize him, the biggest public gathering in the city to that date." (Photo by Greg Krauss)
We passed by Pothouse Alley without much comment, but the intersection of High and Low streets in Oldtown was irresistible to this shutter bug. (Photo by Tam Davis)
Detail from the East Baltimore St. building next to the former Labor Lyceum, an educational and organizing center for immigrant Jews who worked in the garment trades. (Photo by Tam Davis)
On our way down Eastern Ave. we stopped to exchange greetings with Fells Point sculptor and raconteur Kevin Donnelly. (Photo by Stacy Spaulding)
On Dallas St. we stopped to see "Douglass Place," a group of alley houses built by Frederick Douglass to mark his years in Fells Point as a slave on loan to Thomas Auld. Despite the hardships, Douglass wrote in his famous "Narrative" that cosmopolitan Baltimore gave him hope to escape slavery, which he eventually did. (Photo by David Brown)
Garbage can at "Douglass Place." (Photo by Tam Davis)
Riding through the Crown Cork & Seal complex in Greektown is an eerie experience. The onetime largest bottlecap factory in the world was closed in 1958, but remains strangely intact as parts of the complex are recycled into small woodworking and machine shops. (Photo by Stacy Spaulding)
Detail from the Eastern Ave. entrance to the Crown Cork complex dating from the 1930s. (Photo by David Brown)
Film noir at its best: former loading docks of the Crown complex, now filled in with dirt and used by contractors. At its height, the factory filled 24 railway boxcars a day with bottlecaps. (Photo by Tam Davis)
Pausing inside this empty building, we thought about the sweating workmen who tended giant steel-mill rolling machines which manufactured "crown shells" for bottlecaps here. (Photo by Meredith Mitchell)
Bon voyage to the Crown complex and on to a hearty repast at Ikaros Restaurant. (Photo by Meredith Mitchell)