Dental School Details

A dear friend of mine, Jerome Gray, is a talented watercolorist, and he recently shared a picture he'd done of one of the buildings where the Baltimore School of Dentistry was located. 

From its initial location at Lexington and Calvert Streets where it was founded in 1839 by Horace Hayden, the dental school moved four more times until it finally became part of the University of Maryland in 1915. 

The Dental School originally met in the homes and offices of its founders and professors before it moved to Lexington Street. From Lexington and Calvert Streets where it shared space with Newton University, the school moved to Lombard and Hanover Streets, which was also the location of the New Assembly Rooms. As it grew, the School moved to an adjacent building where there was more space. Next, the School moved to an 1870's mansard-roofed building at Eutaw and Lexington Street.

Finally, in 1881, the Dental School moved into the first building it had actually owned - the one at Franklin and Eutaw Streets. It never moved very far! 

From the report comes this detailed description of the building:

The Baltimore College of Dental Surgery building, constructed in 1881 on the southeast corner of North Eutaw and West Franklin Streets in Baltimore, is a three-story pressed-brick commercial building. Each of the street facades is three bays wide; the bays are articulated by projecting brick pilasters, and the three stories are defined by granite belt courses. Windows on the second level are tall, paired 2/2 sash with peaked granite hoods decorated with incised, Eastlake-influenced designs; the third story is lighted by triple 1/1 windows, with round-arched granite heads. A projecting bracketed wooden cornice caps the flat-roofed building. A narrow projecting bay between the center and south bays on the west facade defines the original entrance location. The first story has always been given to commercial use; it now features a Streamline Moderne storefront of etched black glass and aluminum, added c. 1942 when the entire building was adapted for use as a department store. The interior of the upper floors (the spaces used by the College and called Infirmary Hall) remains almost entirely intact, retaining the original stair and balustrade, door and window architraves, plaster cornices and medallions; the only alteration consists of the insertion of a mezzanine in the north room of the second floor, which is reversible and was accomplished without significant disruption of original fabric. The building retains a high level of integrity.

Jerome kindly included the Maryland Historic Trust's survey of the last building the Dental School occupied before it became part of UM. It is now called the Charles Fish building and it's always been one of my favorites!