Five Minute Histories: The Latrobe Building

Johns Hopkins has the best, unexagerrated Baltimore accent. I miss my hometown!

Amazing. My favorite videos are the ones where you really connect the dots. Great research. Another one of my favorites was the one where I learned about the power drill. With this video obviously I can’t help but think of the name, Latrobe and beer but obviously there’s no connection or you would’ve mentioned it.

Thank you Johns for stating the correct information about Benjamin Latrobe and the U.S. Capitol- he was not the first architect- that was Dr. William Thornton, who was a brilliant amateur, but not a professional architect. There was a virtual parade of architects involved in the Capitol before the enlargement by Thomas Ustic Walter! Eager to see the new hotel interior.

Two great aunts of mine, Rosa and Augusta Klotz, lived in the Latrobe Apartments for decades. Both “maiden ladies”, one was a teacher in the city schools while the other stayed home to care for their elderly widowed mother. The sisters ultimately lived out their long lives at Keswick, one living to 98, the other, 104.

Yes, "suitable for bachelors" meant that they were small apartments, often just a studio, with no kitchen. Bachelors were assumed to not know how to cook! Plus, I bet the this building had a full scale restaurant. I read a book about the history of apartment buildings in Washington, DC called The Best Addresses and learned a lot. In some of the earliest ones before 1910, no apartment had a kitchen! The servants had kitchens in the basement they used to cook to keep the smells and mess away from the wealthy family.

After his father's death in 1820, John HB Latrobe monitored the remaining work on the Baltimore Cathedral, assuring that the proch and towers conform to his father's design.

These Baltimore Heritage Five Minute Histories are so informative. Thank you for all you do. Keep up the good work!! 👍🏿

I think there's a statute of Major Latrobe on Broadway between Baltimore Street and Fairmount!!

This part "40 years president of the American colonization society that wanted Black Americans to migrate to Africa" important to share that it was in direct opposition to freedom movements at the time. An organization that more than gently nudged Black people to give up on the prospect of living peacefully and freely here (thr country they were born in labored in and had kinship ties in) and instead go across the Atlantic to a colonized African state for freedom.

good work here. If we are learning about the histories and the patents. Lets make sure all the patents are genuine when they were helped by citizens of diversity. We know that African Americans couldn't get their own patents due to the laws of the times. I don't know about this particular stove but I am speaking in general since the right hands/helpers were folks of color.

Love this Baltimore history!

Ash Bar, inside Hotel Ulysses, has been named one of Esquire's 2023 "Best Bars in America."