Tall tales at Sagamore Pendry

Let's begin with tall tales about Fell's Point, where fish stories, sweet talk and whoppers have a life of their own. Here's a myth about the area:

The new Pendry Hotel that just opened last week is on the site where Baltimore welcomed the second highest number of immigrants to the USA.  They ended their ocean journey and stepped on American soil at Fell's Point, Baltimore City.  Their Welcome to America sign was "Thames Street," in the building known by Baltimore natives as the Rec Center.

The uniformed Pendry employee who told me those tall tales was standing outside the fancy new hotel, and eager to share the building's history. When I asked for the source of his knowledge, he said, " The Preservation Society across the street sent someone to teach the hotel's employees."

Well now, what to do?  It was clear that anything I said to him would go over like a lead balloon. If he's been taught by someone the hotel chose, then:
(1) I am upset that they didn't chose me to teach local history and
(2) I want to know which person at the Fell's Point Visitors Center is mis-informed?

So I went home and thought about it, and next day, I went to the hotel and hung around until I saw the Director of Guest Services  at Pendry, who said that he does not know how that employee got his information. No one has come to the hotel to teach local history. 

Part 2 of this story is that I would like to teach our history to the hotel's employees.

Full disclosure:  I was born and raised in Baltimore City and studied local history at the University of Baltimore with 2 of the finest professors of Baltimore history who ever walked these streets. It was my idea in 1982 to lead walks through Baltimore neighborhoods, and I was the first leader to take tour groups outside the bubble, site of the usual tourist attractions. I was leading historic walks in Fell's Point before a water taxi docked there.
Local history is my passion.
I have 35 years experience studying Baltimore history, leading tours, and in 1989 Baltimore Magazine chose me BEST TOUR GUIDE in the city.

Here is some accurate data on the hotel: (1) It was never a site for immigrant arrivals.  In 1914, the year the Rec Center opened, immigration to the USA slowed to a crawl due to the start of World War 2.

(2)  The original building includes a huge ballroom.  Who would design a building for immigration that included a ballroom?  Were the immigrants ballroom dancers?

(3)  Immigration is handled by the Federal government.  Why would a city bear construction costs for a building for the federal government? Was Baltimore City rolling in money it did not need?  I doubt it.

Here's some of the Baltimore immigrant story:
The immigrants who came to Baltimore got off ships in Locust Point, on the other side of the river from Fell's Point, where the ships docked close to the B&O Railroad piers. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad had an agreement with the North German LLoyd shipping line out of Bremen, Germany. Immigrants bought tickets for the ship and the train, which took them west without even setting foot on Baltimore soil. 

Those who settled in Locust Point took a local ferry across the Patapsco to the foot of Broadway to shop at the markets. Unlike the sole market building selling mostly fast food that remains on Broadway and Aliceanna today, 19th century markets sold freshly grown food and freshly-slaughtered animals from local farms east of the city.

The Recreation Center was built for a dual purpose.  In 1914, kids played up on the second floor, out on the pier in good weather and inside in winter.  Their mothers were likely working at the cannery buildings close by, their fathers as mates on tug boats or stevedores loading and unloading cargos.  The first floor of the Rec Center gave access to the pier at the far end, near deeper water.  As ships grew larger, they required deeper drafts in the early 20th century, before deeper dredging of the harbor. In 1914 it was likely that horses and wagons were still on the streets and they turned off Thames and went down under the building to the end of the pier to load and un-load goods.

More tall tales abound in Fell's Point, like the one about Edgar A. Poe at the Horse You Came In On, and the one about Wallis Warfield Simpson staying at the Waterfront Hotel.   Take them all with a grain of salt until you can find a Historian with a capital H, like me, who knows what really happened in Fell's Point.
Zippy Larson

Winner: Best Tours of BALTIMORE by Baltimore Magazine - 1989Winner: Best Tour Guide in BALTIMORE by CITY PAPER - 2005

zippytours@gmail.com

    410 - 522 - 7334

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