Baltimore’s historic Congress Hotel will be auctioned off on Tuesday
The legendary “Marble Bar,” below the Congress, has hosted amazing performers, from Ginger Rogers to Iggy Pop . . .
Above: Once, the place for punk in Baltimore, the Congress Hotel’s Marble Bar is now just basement storage.
There’s only one venue in Baltimore and possibly the world that has hosted performances by both Charlie Chaplin and the Ramones and on Tuesday, that Baltimore legend, the Congress Hotel, will be put up for sale.
Located on the struggling west side of Baltimore’s downtown, on West Franklin St., the 105-year-old building designed by Philadelphia architect John Allen has survived many lives: hotel, theater hangout, luxury apartment building, rock club, high society event space, and hotel (again).
It is also a treasure chest of cultural history.* Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers once danced in the Congress’ 8,000-sq.-foot subterranean Marble Bar, which is currently being used as a storage space.
The ornate entrance of Baltimore's Congress Hotel. (Photo by Fern Shen.)
During Prohibition, it was an ice cream parlor. Years later, director Terry Gilliam shot a scene for 12 Monkeys at the hotel, and in the 70s and 80s, the bar became a CBGB-esque rock and punk den, hosting bands like R.E.M., Sonic Youth, Iggy Pop and the Ramones.
Later in ‘80s, the bar-cum-rock club featured more hardcore bands like the Butthole Surfers. This 1998 City Paper article even says that there were tunnels connecting the hotel to a swimming pool and Turkish bath beneath the adjacent theater.
After countless incarnations and as many changing of the ownership guards, the Congress is currently being rented out as offices and residential apartments and on Tuesday will be auctioned off on the steps of the Clarence M. Mitchell Courthouse, destined to be reincarnated once again.
Marble steps leading down to the basement "Marble Bar." The chipped edges, a guard said, are from dollys used to bring in heavy beer kegs. (Photo by Fern Shen.)
* This 2000 City Paper article gives a rich and thorough time line of the Marble Bar’s musical history.