Baltimore Evening Sun, February 20, 1946 Page 40
“What is impossible for the enthusiastic and patriotic Baltimorean?”
That question was posed 42 years ago by a forward looking architect who soon found the answer.
Scarcely more than a month after the great fire of February 7, 1904, the architect, Paul E. Burkhard, presented in a small brochure his idea fir a beautiful new Baltimore to be built on the ruins of the burnt district.
He would have made the basin and its surrounding area an aesthetic center, comparable in beauty to the Alster basin at Hamburg, the graceful lake-shore landscapes of Zurich, Luzerne and Geneva, the panorama of Naples and its bay.
But “enthusiastic and patriotic” Baltimoreans were lackadaisical about the plan, and the marble columns and park trees somehow became wharves and warehouses.
Here is the idea that Baltimore let get away.
The architect proposed to skip the “petty improvements, such as widening a few streets and locating here and there miniature so-called parks – in reality mere squares with a few trees,” because these changes would not perceptibly improve the general appearance of the city.
Instead he suggested, “All effort and expenditure are to be concentrated on one point with a view to creating there an aesthetic center that will tend to make Baltimore one of the most beautiful cities of the world.”
First all the docks and wharves west of the power house were to be removed from the basin. The earth and rubbish from the docks and the burnt district were to be used in widening Light street, Pratt streets and the proposed extension of Frederick street along the water side to provide for two or four rows of shade trees with ample walks between and outside the rows.
The first row of blocks north of the basin (from Light street to Frederick street) were to be entirely reserved for public buildings.
In this first row of blocks on all sides of the basin no high buildings or skyscrapers were to be permitted, all structures were limited to a maximum height of five or six stories.
The erection of tall buildings was to be permitted in the next and succeeding blocks to give the appearance of a “city of terraces.”
“Greeting the spectator standing on Federal Hill or on some pleasure craft in the basin, they would present one of the greatest architectural panoramas of the world,” Burkhard wrote in his brochure.
South and Gay streets were not to be carried through to Pratt street in order to avoid marring the beauty of the water front by cutting it into too many small parts.
The entrance to the basin was to be used exclusively as a starting point for pleasure and sporting craft and marked by two architectural monuments surmounted with statues and facing each other.
North Charles street, as the main promenade street, was to be connected with the water front park by a public square in the diagonal of the basin.
Finally, the architect wrote, “all minor and less radical changes and improvements, however desirable they may appear, are if necessary to be sacrificed to the one great idea: to make the City of Baltimore what it ought to be.
“Aside from its aesthetic and educational influence upon our citizens, and especially the rising generation, its product of civic pride, patriotism and loyal citizenship. It will be as good a business investment as any city of earth ever made.
“For Baltimore will thenceforth engage the attention of travelers of all nations – as a spot where the beauty of nature and the beauty of architectural art and – last, but not least the famed beauty of Baltimore’s women all unite to form an aesthetic and recreation center of extraordinary charm.
“Can Baltimore afford to shoulder the responsibility of not taking advantage of the profound natural advantages that God has given her?”
That was written in 1904.
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