About this column:
A look at Towson landmarks, what they looked like in year's past and how they became what they are today."Only two things that money can't buy/That's true love & homegrown tomatoes." This saying has been around for ages, and I have no idea where it initially came from —an old-timey country music person like Ralph Stanley? Not Pinetop Perkins because he mostly just played the piano. Patch found it in the lyrics of a Guy Clark song. In any event, it is a truism which is demonstrated over and over again afresh with each new spring and summer growing season in these parts. Wilma and I can’t wait until the farmers’ market in Towson starts stocking local produce in June, and other markets including …
Growing up in Stoneleigh in the 1940s meant riding the streetcar on the no. 8 line for virtually everything. At the time, I was attending Stoneleigh Elementary School and needed to get to the Peabody Conservatory, Preparatory Department, on Mt. Vernon Square for weekday piano lessons as well as weekend collateral stuff like chorus, “ear training” and percussion classes, which were the most fun—learning to play percussion instruments under the tutelage of Dr. William Hart who was then principal percussionist with the BSO. During the “war years,” folks didn’t have two cars -- we were lucky…
Would you believe that a Stoneleigh football team won what turned out to be the first recreation league championship game in Maryland? Eat your hearts out, Ravens! Here's the story, courtesy of Mitzi Tyrie of Stoneleigh Road. "In 1971, the Stoneleigh Tigers little league football team had an undefeated season. Ocean City newspapers were extolling their victorious record, so our coach challenged them to a post season game. "We rented 2 townhouses to accommodate the team, coaches and some parents. On the way down, our car-full of boys was so excited that they began clapping and chanting…
In 1790, Charles Ridgely (yes, of those Ridgelys) built a lovely, two-story mansion on a hill overlooking what was then acres of farmland. In 1836, lightning struck the house, burning it down. A servant named Martha died in the flames. The mansion was rebuilt the next year. It switched hands over the years to other families then to Sheppard Pratt and finally to what was Towson State College in 1971. It's now office space for Towson University's athletic department. But depending who you ask, Martha didn't exactly leave. Every now and then, people say the lights flicker and things shake. …
Before Lida Lee Tall was demolished in 2007, and before it turned over to University use in 1990, the building (not Lida Lee Tall Hall or any other misnomers bestowed upon it over the years), was a state elementary school. Who was Lida Lee Tall? She was principal of Maryland State Normal School from 1920 to 1934 and then served as president until 1938 as it transitioned to Maryland State Teachers College. Under the watch of this Baltimore native, Towson gained a student government, an honor society and a newspaper. From 1960 to 1991, the Lida Lee Tall Learning Resource Center was a laboratory…
In the early years of the Baltimore County Police Department, the small, historic Towson Station served as the department's headquarters when it was built in 1927. The building, only one story tall until a 1940s expansion, may sound cramped, but the department was much smaller then. When Baltimore City annexed some of the county in 1918, the county lost 34 of its 43 officers. But the county's population soon grew back. A new headquarters building opened on Kenilworth Drive in 1961. That building was demolished four decades later to make way for an expansion to the Baltimore County Detention …
Department store chain Hutzler's, a true Baltimore original, opened its location in Towson in 1952. It was the place to go for families for nearly 40 years. But social change and competition from other chains—especially in Towson as Towson Town Center grew next door—soon doomed Hutzler's. The store was the chain's last to close in 1990 and the building stayed mostly dormant for the next decade until popular anchors like Trader Joe's, Pier 1 Imports and Barnes and Noble moved in. Thanks to the Baltimore County Public Library for helping us find these photos and make this great new feature …
