A shout-out for a Greek temple that needs help
Above: Lanae Marable, Taylen Bingham and Zenora Martin express their feelings about the McKim Community Center.
As they say on TV’s Dancing with the Stars, you must vote if you want your candidate to win.
Yesterday, two dozen students from East Baltimore gave a shout-out to the McKim Community Center in its bid to win $25,000 in cash from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Vying against 100 other historic places around the country, the group is trying to drum up online votes for a building that has a long tradition of uplifting the community.
With its distinctive Greek Revival architecture (based on the Temple of Haephaestus in Athens), the McKim building was constructed in 1833 by Baltimore merchant John McKim. It boasts a number of firsts, including the first school in Baltimore to educate “indigent youths” and the first to establish a free kindergarten in the city.
Since then, the center has served thousands of kids, first Jewish, Italian and Polish immigrants and later black youth living in nearby public housing projects, executive director Dwight S. Warren said yesterday.
The colonnaded Doric portico is a striking feature of the building, at 1120 East Baltimore St., which has helped inner-city youth for more than 175 years. (Photo by Baltimore Heritage)
Warren himself is a McKim alumnus, who lived in Lafayette Courts and won two championships in the Maryland Junior Wrestling League as a member of the McKim wrestling team.
That was more than 40 years ago, after the Society of Friends and Presbyterian Church reorganized the center as a safe haven for children managed by the Quaker philosophy of “Structure, Discipline and Love.”
In 1972, faced by rising costs, the Friends donated the building to the city, which maintains the facility while the association pays for daily upkeep, heat and lighting.
Leaking Roof
In addition to wrestling, offerings at the center include baseball and lacrosse, computer skills, arts and crafts, homework assistance, peer counseling and tutoring in math and reading.
“We have some urgent physical needs,” Warren said, standing near the building’s striking entrance of six Doric columns. “The masonry and windows need fixing to stop water damage. Our biggest challenge is to repair the roof that’s leaking.”
The building was recently placed on Maryland’s list of “most endangered” historic places.
McKim Center in the 1940s, when the No. 19 trolley line curved around the building. (Baltimore Heritage)
To secure funds to stabilize and restore the structure, the group has teamed up with Baltimore Heritage and Preservation Maryland. “The McKim building is one of our most important landmarks with deep roots in the city’s history,” Johns Hopkins, executive director of Baltimore Heritage, said yesterday.
Its namesake, John McKim, was a powerful figure in early Baltimore history. During the War of 1812, he gave $50,000 to the city to aid in its defense, served as a state senator and was twice elected to Congress.
The structure – designed by William Howard, son of Revolutionary War hero John Eager Howard – needs about $1.5 million for a top-to-bottom restoration.
Warren hopes to raise $200,000 from private donations and from winning the National Historic Trust’s “This Place Matters Community Challenge.”
Competition is stiff, so every vote counts. Here’s how you register online. The deadline for voting is June 30.