Such is the case with the empty Peale Municipal Museum Building in Baltimore, which reopened after major renovations in 1981 before closing permanently in 1997 despite its significance.
Neglected and abandoned, the building has stood vacant since 1998, with the exception of squatters who have occasionally caused fires on the premises.
Although the Baltimore History Center at the Peale Inc. has pledged to finance the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) improvements by matching $250,000 in state bonds, more funding is needed to complete repairs and to staff the building, according to John Carroll Byrnes, chairman of the Baltimore History Center at the Peale, the site’s nominator.
The Peale building was the first structure commissioned in America for museum purposes, in 1813, by artist Rembrandt Peale and his brother Rubens. (Rembrandt founded the first gas energy company—now Constellation Energy—explains Byrnes, a circuit court judge emeritus.) The Peale (proposed to become the Baltimore History Center at the Peale) was the first building in the city, and among the first in America, to have gas lighting.
According to Byrnes, who founded the Baltimore City Historical Society in 1988, the Peale also served as City Hall from 1830 to 1878 before becoming one of the earliest "colored schools" (1878-1889) and transforming into Baltimore's only municipal museum for 65 years (1931-1996).
Byrnes is among many excited by the possibility of reversing the Peale’s image as a “continuing cultural-economic blemish on the city's reputation.
“What serious city in America, in the world, for that matter, has no central history center? As much as I enjoy the Ravens and the Orioles, they should not be our only public identity. Our history is as important, and the Peale is a major symbol of that history.”
For more information, email JohnCB39@aol.com.
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