Are you snowed in or what? Thanks for this excellent bit of history.
Best,
Leland
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From: The listserv where the buildings do the talking [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 2:31 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [BP] what is "Baltimore brick"?
I think that it probably is literally brick from Balmer.
The brick kilns were in several places to the East and Southwest of the
city. I am especially familiar with the clay pits along Rt. 40 in the
White Marsh area. The bricks made in the Baltimore area were all clay
bricks, as opposed to bricks made from shale. The distinction is
microscopically easy to recognize. A less-accurate method, but an
excellent clue, is that the brick may contain pieces of well-rounded
quartz gravel. In the deposits, gravel is interbedded with the brick
clay.
BTW, Wikipedia is very wrong about nearly everything in the paragraph
that you cited. I know, I grew up in a god damnned Balmer rowhouse;
ancestors going back three generations lived in them too.
First, while the "older" houses have marble steps, they actually date
from construction post about 1905. There are many earlier houses,
specifically in the Fells Point area, with still older houses. Most of
those always had wood steps, or were at street level. The wood steps
rotted. As people moved up and out from that area, they tried to use
materials that were more durable, hence the marble steps. Also, the
next phase of rowhouse construction was in hilly areas where steps were
required.
I found the statement "harbinger of "yuppification"" hilarious, lol.
It was Yuppification, but of course Yuppies are passe. Before Yuppies,
it was "urban renewal". Now it is something else, perhaps Beamer
a-holes living in B-hole, at least to me. Not that I have a social
opinion on this matter.
In the "urban renewal" era, you could buy a house in Fells Point from
the city for $1, and a contract to spend some larger amount more
($10K-$20K) to make it actually livable and less prone to collapse. The
last owner of the house prior to city ownership was usually an stada
baba in her 90's who died in the place. But some Germans and
Lithuanians also lived there. The houses were rotten, smelly, roach
fire traps with 110 V services, poor plumbing, outdoor toilets, and a
host of other ills, including ground rent to Lord Baltimore or his
assignees. When you bought the house from the city, you immediately
owned the ground too, which saved about $34/year.
Yes, Baltimore, specifically East Baltimore, has Formstone. I've also
seen it in Philly, West Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and
other places.
There were several different types of formstone, largely distinguished
by asthetics. The best appearing was well carved and had several types
of embedded granules of rocks and minerals. For those who are not
familiar with Formstone, it is a variety of stucco, with the better
varieties being a colored, essentially pebble-dash stucco. I was in
B'more about a month ago and looked at some of the Formstone. Somewhat
disturbingly, the really crappy material seems to have survived, while
most of the good stuff is gone.
Rowhouse owners didn't have Formstone applied because the bricks
deteriorated, or needed to be painted to prevent deterioration. The
quality and durability of the exterior bricks is excellent. (Some of
the yuphoos who reused brick from buildings torn down in the last 40
years did not apparently know the difference between interior and
exterior bricks, with the expected consequence.) Formstone was applied
for reasons other than brick deterioration. But, let's talk about
painted brick buildings first.
Brick buildings were painted to look like old narrow joint brick,
usually with a running bond pattern. The color was usually a darker
red, often a purplish red. Sometimes, a building was painted bright
red, or brown. Those who painted theyr buildings brown usually heard
about it until they had their buildings painted with a better, less
sh**ty color. Brick buildings were painted to look like brick for
these reasons; 1) to cover up an advertisement, perhaps for soap or
Coke, 2) to make an end wall with bricked-in windows have a uniform
appearance, 3) to hide a sloppy pointing job (especially common on the
oldest buildings with narrow joints), 4) to hide repairs to the knee
wall, 5) to brighten up the neighborhood, and, 6) to keep up with the
Liturskis.
Formstone was often applied because it was more durable, and therefore
less expensive "in the long run", than repainting, if in fact a peeling
paint job was the issue. I seem to recall that Formstone cost about
50% more than a single paint job with mortar lines. A typical
Formstone scenerio didn't include deteriorated brick or peeling paint.
The Formstone contractor was a one-stop service because he would deal
with some of the other very real problems in the typical brick
Baltimore rowhouse: rotten wooden window sills and leaky metal
cornices. These were issues that painters wouldn't touch, which made
them lose a job that cost more than their bid.
The statement that Formstone was an icon of status disgusts me, but it
is at least in part true, especially with the same argument that
aluminum or vinyl siding is a step up from peeling paint and water
running in along the windows. Usually just something needed to be
done, and Formstone was what was done. A nicer icon of status was a
bay window, a stained glass transom, or a painted screen. Not to
mention a new car that allowed one to leave the damn stinky city.
Steve Stokowski
ex. 439 Cornwall St.
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Mon, Feb 15, 2010 11:06 pm
Subject: Re: [BP] what is "Baltimore brick"?
I wonder if it is literally brick from Baltimore?
Wikipedia notes the following:
"Baltimore is noted for its near-omnipresent rowhouses. Rowhouses have
been a feature of Baltimore architecture since the 1790s, with early
examples of the style still standing in the Federal Hill and Fells
Point neighborhoods. Older houses may retain some of their original
features, such as marble doorsteps, widely considered to be Baltimore
icons in themselves. Later rowhouses dating from the 1800s-1900s can be
found in Union Square and throughout the city in various states of
repair. They are a popular renovation property in neighborhoods that
are undergoing urban renewal, although the practice is viewed warily by
some as a harbinger of "yuppification." Elsewhere in the city,
rowhouses can be found abandoned, boarded-up, and reflective of
Baltimore's inner-city blight.[
A tour through many of Baltimore's rowhouse neighborhoods will reveal a
façade style not found in many other cities, Formstone. Introduced in
the 1950s, Formstone was a modern day solution to early Baltimore brick
that was so poor it needed frequent painting to keep it from
deteriorating. But soon Formstone became an icon of status for many
homeowners."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Baltimore#Formstone
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