The Cab Calloway House
With Calloway house teardown looming, an activist laments the lack of leadership that let it happen
“This demolition will be remembered as a calamity for African American culture and for the city of Baltimore”
Above: Blooming Bradford pear trees create a glowing archway over the 2200 block of Druid Hill Avenue. (Marti Pitrelli)
I came prepared for battle, but now I am feeling defeated.
Since late 2018, I have been working to preserve the 2200 block of Druid Hill Avenue, which I discovered includes the childhood home of Baltimore’s Cab Calloway.
Peter Brooks, Cab Calloway’s grandson, became actively involved in the effort to save what was his grandfather’s home in the early 1920s. Peter and I joined forces and worked together to preserve his family’s legacy.
Since then, both Peter and I have been referred to as liars, carpetbaggers, racists and devil worshipers. We have been spit on, accosted, pushed, cursed at and threatened.
I can’t make people care if they do not, and I can’t make officials be real leaders if they are afraid to stand up for something they believe in.
Demolition by Neglect
Peter, his family and I have appealed in writing or in person to every major leader, preservation group and nearby community organization in the city.
We did not receive the support I would have expected from those appointed to be guardians of Baltimore’s landmarks – the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation (CHAP). For months, CHAP denied that Cab Calloway ever lived at 2216 Druid Hill Avenue. My historic research was put in question.
Others to whom we appealed to no avail include the following:
• Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle
• Druid Heights Community Development Corporation
• Marble Hill Community Association
• Madison Park Community Association
• Bolton Hill Community Association
• Reservoir Hill Community Association
• Upton Planning Commission
• North Avenue Rising
• Mayor Jack Young
• City Council President Brandon Scott
• Councilman Leon Pinkett
• Councilman Eric Costello
• Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke
• Governor Larry Hogan
• Lt. Governor Boyd Rutherford
• State Delegate Nick Mosby
• State Senator Antonio Hayes
• Tom Liebel, Larry Gibson and all CHAP Commissioners
• Housing Commissioner Michael Braverman
• Director of Planning Chris Ryer
• Baltimore Heritage
• Preservation Maryland
• National Historic Trust
• NAACP
K.O. Simms, a painter from Wilmington, Delaware, captures in watercolor the Calloway house, which has deteriorated markedly after it was purchased by the city in 2016. (Marti Pitrelli)
Support Elsewhere
We received supportive responses from thousands of people and organizations from all over the world, including the Nina Simone Foundation, Felicia Chappelle Jones, Tupac Shakur Foundation, actor/producer Bill Duke, author Dennis Halpin, saxophonist James Carter and other names recognizable in the music industry.
Several hundred people in Baltimore signed our petition or sent letters to CHAP to save the Calloway House. They included James Hamlin of Avenue Bakery, filmmaker John Waters, Shauntee Daniels, Kathleen Mitchell, Marc Steiner, members of the Arch Social Club and Lou Fields.
The Maryland Historic Trust has been supportive of our efforts to nominate the Calloway house to the Maryland Historic Inventory.
Peter Brooks is turned away from a Druid Heights CDC meeting when he tried to present a petition signed by over 2,000 people in favor of saving the Calloway house. Marti Pitrelli is to his left. (Mark Reutter)
Welcomed, then Spurned
The Druid Heights community where Cab Calloway and his sister Blanche spent their formative childhood years is now largely vacant and overrun by drug dealers and prostitution.
The Druid Heights Community Development Corporation initially welcomed Peter Brooks into the design process, then shut him out after they realized that he wanted his grandfather’s house to be saved.
DHCDC wants their proposed park to be larger. Thus far, the park lacks $10 million in funding to be built. And if built, it is likely to become a maintenance problem for the city and could fail without homeownership in the immediate vicinity.
The homeowners and renters who do live nearby lack cohesion and offer inadequate resistance to DHCDC’s destruction of Druid Height’s architectural assets.
The loss of the jazz clubs and theaters on Pennsylvania Avenue in the 1970-80 era was nothing short of a national tragedy. The same mistakes are being made with the planned demolition of the 2200 block of Druid Hill Avenue.
This street is one of the most historic corridors of America’s civil rights and women suffrage movement. Every house under threat of demolition is a potential landmark.
CHAP did do historical research on the connection of 2216 Druid Hill Avenue with the Calloways, but the rest of the 2200 block has never been surveyed.
Cab Calloway greets young fans in Baltimore in the 1970s. (Courtesy of Peter Brooks)
Two Neighborhoods, Two Outcomes
CHAP feels the Calloway house is not worthy of landmarking and claims they are too understaffed to survey the rest of the block at this time.
This is not acceptable. CHAP’s response to the demolition of two nameless houses in North Baltimore’s Woodberry was swift and decisive – to champion a new historic district to protect other stone houses from destruction and to take steps to safeguard the Tractor Building from alteration.
Druid Heights CDC is a developer, not a volunteer-based community association. Its role in the decisionmaking process is a blatant conflict of interest.
In comparison, CHAP was ineffective in recognizing and intervening in Druid Heights, an African-American community. Both CHAP and the city housing department claim that demolition is what “the community” wants. But is it the community or the developer to whom they are listening?
Druid Heights CDC is a developer, not a volunteer-based community association. Its role in the decisionmaking process is a blatant conflict of interest.
The marquee is all that’s left of the Royal Theatre, the venue of choice for Cab Calloway when he and his band performed on Pennsylvania Avenue before and after World War II. (Mark Reutter)
A Path for Renewal
The Calloway family’s hope was to create a visitors center and music studio at 2216 Druid Hill Avenue. The house is a block outside of the new Black Arts and Entertainment District, which will create various tax incentives to encourage redevelopment and renewal of Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Calloway family foundation planned to seek African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund grants from the National Trust for Historic Preservation to help accomplish this.
We also wanted to encourage developers to purchase the remaining houses on the even side of the 2200 block of Druid Hill Avenue and renovate them into market-rate houses for African-American homeownership.
It was 2216 Druid Hill Avenue where Cab and Blanche lived the longest in Baltimore and which had the most influence on the trajectory of their careers. Two other nearby homes where they lived for shorter periods have long been demolished.
I have no doubt that Baltimore will receive another black eye for this demolition.
The preservation of the 2200 block is an opportunity to capitalize on historic assets for the city and especially for the people of Druid Heights.
I have no doubt that Baltimore will receive another black eye for this demolition.
We received national attention for allowing the Lillie Carroll Jackson Freedom House to be destroyed by Bethel AME Church for a parking lot. I think these demolitions will be remembered as a calamity for African-American culture and for the city of Baltimore.
It is discouraging to volunteer my time and energy in something that I know is vitally important – only to be ignored by the officials I helped elect, the nonprofits that I support, and the preservation commission in which I have served.
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Marti Pitrelli is a Druid Hill Avenue resident who has a bachelor’s degree in architecture and environmental design. She is the former CHAP liaison and architectural review chairwoman for the Marble Hill Historic District and the founder of the Friends of Henry Highland Garnet Park.