In September, Baltimore will be the subject of a free walking tour series that will highlight nearly two dozen of its parks, gardens and open spaces.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation of Washington, D. C., a champion and protector of urban and natural landscapes around the country, has selected Baltimore to be the location for its next series of expert-led tours that feature the chosen area’s “landscape legacy.”
“What’s Out There Weekend Baltimore” is the name of the event, which will take place Sept. 21 and 22. The tours are designed to enable people to discover the design history of places they may pass every day but don’t necessarily know much about, with expert guides providing stories, personal anecdotes and observations about the places they visit.
The foundation chooses one or two cities a year to build tours around, and Baltimore was chosen for 2024. Previous tour locations have included Rhinebeck and the mid-Hudson Valley in New York; Long Island, New York; St. Louis and the Missouri River Valley; Washington, D. C.; Cleveland; Boston; Minneapolis; San Francisco; San Diego; San Antonio; Nashville and many others. This is the first time Baltimore has been chosen.
“We are thrilled that The Cultural Landscape Foundation will spotlight Baltimore City in their upcoming ‘What’s Out There Weekend’ tour series, which will include some of our most cherished parks like Druid Hill Park, Patterson Park, and Clifton Park, as well as our city’s treasures like Rawlings Conservatory and Cylburn Arboretum,” said Reginald Moore, Director of Baltimore’s Department of Recreation and Parks. The department “looks forward to offering residents and visitors an insider’s look at our city’s beautiful open spaces.”
Why Baltimore?
“Baltimore is at an exciting crossroads with ambitious projects on the boards for legacy sites like Druid Hill Park and Harborplace,” said foundation president and CEO Charles Birnbaum, in a statement. “It’s the perfect time to draw attention to those cultural landscapes that tell us where we came from to inform where we’re going.”
In preparation for the weekend, the foundation enlists expert guides to lead the tours, provide information and answer questions pertaining to landscape architecture, garden design and other subjects. All of the tours are free, but attendance is limited and registration is required. The tours fill up quickly.
The tours planned for Baltimore will cover a wide range of parks, cultural institutions, historic sites and neighborhoods, including Carroll Park, Druid Hill Park, the Fells Point Historic District, Pearlstone Park and Mount Vernon, and many others.
In addition to in-person tours, the foundation will produce a printed What’s Out There Baltimore guidebook that will include all of the tour sites and will be available for purchase and free as a downloadable PDF.
Made possible by The Brick Industry Association, the guidebook will supplement a digital resource, the What’s Out There Cultural Landscapes Guide to Baltimore, which is produced in partnership with the National Park Service and maintained by the cultural landscapes foundation. The digital guide includes an illustrated history of the city’s cultural landscape heritage, 55 individual site entries, and 49 biographies of designers who collectively shaped the landscapes that people in Baltimore move through every day.
Research gathered for the tours will become part of the foundation’s permanent What’s Out There database of more than 2,600 sites across North America, 1,200 designer profiles and 13,000 images.
Here is a schedule of the 22 tours that are now open for registration:
Saturday September 21
- Green Mount Cemetery, 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Led by Pat Hawthorne of Baltimore Heritage.
- Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood campus, 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Led by landscape architect Michael Vergason of Michael Vergason Landscape Architects and Jonathan Ceci of Jonathan Ceci Landscape Architects.
- Carroll Park, 10 a.m. to noon. Led by Krista D. Green of the Mount Clare Museum.
- Fells Point Historic District, 10 a.m. to noon. Led by architect David Gleason, President of The Society for the Preservation of Federal Hill and Fell’s Point.
- Druid Hill Park: Druid Lake, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Led by Nick Glase of Unknown Studio and Jennifer Dowdell of Biohabitats.
- Druid Hill Park, 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Led by Larissa Torres of Baltimore’s Department of Recreation and Parks.
- Druid Hill Park: Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory, 2 p.m. to 3 p,m. Led by Sandy Simmons of the Conservatory.
- Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park, 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Led by Michael Vergason.
- Patterson Park, 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Led by Jennifer Robinson of The Friends of Patterson Park.
- West Shore Park at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Led by Om M. Khurjekar of Hord Coplan Macht.
- Jones Falls and Woodberry Historic District, 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Led by historian Nathan Dennies
Sunday September 22
- Federal Hill Park, 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Led by Dave Schenning of Baltimore Heritage.
- Cylburn Arboretum, 10 a.m. to noon. Led by Brent Figlestahler of the Cylburn Arboretum Friends.
- Clifton Park, 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Led by John Ciekot, Charlie Schlauch and Janet Felsten of Civic Works.
- Baltimore Museum of Art: Ryda and Robert H. Levi Sculpture Garden, 11 a.m. to noon. Led by Philip Dugdale of Sasaki.
- Latrobe Park, noon to 1:30 p.m. Led by Cheryl Duffey (Parks and Beautification Committee of Locust Point Civic Association)
- Wyman Park and Wyman Park Dell, 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Led by Sandy Sparks from the Friends of Maryland’s Olmsted Parks & Landscapes and the Charles Village Civic Association.
- Roland Park, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Led by Judy Dobbs of the Friends of Maryland’s Olmsted Parks & Landscapes) and Kathy Hudson from the Roland Park Civic League.
- Sudbrook Park Historic District, 1 p.m. to 2: 30 p.m. Led by Melanie Anson, Deane Rundell and Deana Karras from Sudbrook Park, Inc.
- Pearlstone Park and Mount Vernon — LGBTQ+ History of Baltimore, 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. Led by Max Dickson of Olin.
- Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine Perimeter, 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Led by a National Park Service Ranger
- Historic Sharp Leadenhall Community, 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Led by community resident Betty Bland Thomas
“What’s Out There Weekend Baltimore” is made possible by lead sponsors The Brick Industry Association and ASLA Maryland; and presenting sponsors Baltimore Recreation and Parks; Baltimore Heritage; Friends of Patterson Park; JMI Equity and Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, along with many supporting sponsors and friends.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit founded in 1998 with a mission of “connecting people to places.” The foundation educates and engages the public to make everyone’s shared landscape heritage more visible, identify its value, and empower its stewards. Through its website, publishing, lectures and other events, the foundation broadens support and understanding for cultural landscapes. It is also home to the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize.
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