After city and state, Hackerman biggest donor to Washington Monument project
A sizable crowd gathered for the restoration ribbon-cutting and found that new rules limiting the number who could climb up meant long lines
Above: About 70 people stood in line Saturday waiting for a chance to climb up Baltimore’s newly restored Washington Monument.
Shortly before he died in 2014, Baltimore developer and contractor Willard Hackerman donated $1 million to help restore Baltimore’s Washington Monument, which reopened July 4.
In remarks during the ribbon cutting ceremony Saturday, Mount Vernon Place Conservancy chairman Henry Hopkins acknowledged Hackerman as one of the three largest financial supporters of the $5.5 million project, along with the City of Baltimore and the State of Maryland.
In addition, a plaque inside the monument’s base cites Hackerman and the Whiting Turner Contracting Company, the firm he headed.
Outside the monument, a sign told visitors that the opening day event drew a robust crowd:
“Monument Climb is Full for Today,” it read. The same sign was posted by the late Sunday afternoon.
On the first day of operation, about 600 to 700 people at least stepped inside the base of the monument, restoration committee chairman Lance Humphries said. About 15 people an hour made the climb to the top, Humphries reported.
(Under new rules imposed as part of the renovation, only five people can go up at a time, and the next five can’t go up until the previous five have come down. Only 50 people at a time can be in the base.)
Contractor an Early Supporter
The conservancy led the restoration effort in partnership with the City of Baltimore, which owns the 200-year-old monument.
After the ceremony, Hopkins said conservancy capital campaign co-chair Constance Caplan called Hackerman seeking support for the monument restoration, and he responded right away.
“One call from Connie Caplan, and we got a check two days later,” Hopkins said. “That’s what I call efficient fundraising.”
Hackerman was a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University. Whiting Turner built many of Baltimore’s downtown landmarks, including Harborplace and the National Aquarium.
Hackerman supported a number of philanthropic causes during his lifetime, from the Hackerman House of the Walters Art Museum to Rodney Carroll’s statue of William Donald Schaefer on the Inner Harbor shoreline. He was 95 when he died.
Other top donors to the restoration effort, according to the plaque inside the monument, are: the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company; Constance R, Caplan; the France-Merrick Foundation; Nancy and Henry Hopkins; M&T Bank; the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority; the Middendorf Foundation; PNC Foundation; Mr. and Mrs. J. Duncan Smith & Family, and the Dorothy Wagner Walls Charitable Trust.
Hackerman’s donation gave the monument project a much needed vote of confidence early in the fundraising effort, said Lance Humphries, restoration committee chairman for the conservancy.
“He was a strong supporter of Mount Vernon Place,” Humphries said.