The New Music Hall

Now, I know that you’re thinking, why is she talking about a music hall when this is a medical archives blog, but stick with me for a moment. When I was searching the pre-1900 Maryland Medical Journals, I came across an advertisement for the AMA Conference which was being held in Baltimore in 1895. It advertised the event as taking place in the New Music Hall, and was illustrated with this sketch.

Hmmm, I thought, that looks vaguely familiar, especially the tower in the background. So, I dropped the picture onto Facebook and let others do the research for me.

Within minutes, I had some answers. This building is currently the Lyric Theatre, and the tower in the background is the tower at Mount Royal Station. Apparently, the rounded section was never built, but if you look at the lines of the building, you can see the Lyric before the most recent renovations.

From my architect friend Eric, came this explanatory sketch.

Although the angle is wrong, this is from the corner of Maryland & Mount Royal, you can see the vestiges of the original building.

And this picture was posted, where you can see the end section with the columned façade, but without the rounded portion.

The advertisements for the AMA meeting were posted in the April 1895 MMJ, and the meeting was to take place in May of that year. So while they were advertising the meeting in the rounded building, it didn’t actually exist.

Nor, apparently, did this building. Amazing this building DID exist!

This sketch, from the Architectural Review, really makes it look like a stunning building. It is right around the corner, literally, from our current offices, but we didn’t build the building until 1909.

Here’s a section of an 1897 map that shows the Music Hall and the Exhibition Hall from the Bromley 1896 Map of Baltimore. I’ve added names to clearly show the streets, and noted where MedChi is now located. (It was a wagon works!)

Any thoughts or suggestions on these buildings are much appreciated!