Project Updates
Scott shared a facsimile of the Franklin Square Historic sign. Once the sign has been final reviewed the sign will be ordered.
Will Brockman shared about the history of the Church of the 14 Holy Martyrs (the one with the double spires), which is in Union Square. The neighborhood association had been looking into grants for historic church renovation but hasn’t been able to make much progress. There is a concern that the church could fall into disrepair because of neglect–it’s not known the current congregation’s capacity for doing repairs etc.
http://www.baltimoremd.com/remember/gkeys.html
https://www.germanmarylanders.org/churches/church-of-the-fourteen-holy-martyrs
1401 and 1403 will be acquired before the receivership process by the SWP who will find resources to do the structural work that needs to be done so that the buildings can be saved. Much of the original material has been preserved. Will is working on acquiring the connecting buildings and is interested in helping out in the preservation where he can be helpful.
SWP has been working with UMBC on the Stories from Sowebo projects–UMBC has been awarded a grant to support a Baltimore Field School which will allow for an expansion of the project including increased storytelling projects and the story maps. This semester the class will be focused on Poppleton, have identified 13 sites inside the neighborhood for students to research.
The Field School grant will allow for community fellows–have a budget for five community members who would like to be part of developing placemaking projects that will preserve the culture of the community. Project has re-started in January 2021, application for Fellows will be open in February 2021. There are opportunities for community members to be involved in the planning of the project. Community members will be referred through the SWP to UMBC who will be reviewing the applications.
Website Development
Committee discussed how community members could interact with the storytelling that has been done and other histories.
Committee would like to use funding received from UMBC for the Field School project for a website redesign that would host the Stories from Sowebo project.
We do have the capacity for community members to submit blog post/stories–Curtis will make a separate link and share with the committee. Curtis suggested sending out an automatic email to committee members encouraging them to share their stories.
Committee would be needed to identify the key sites and stories and help to provide the content.
How does the website interact with other websites that are areas of interest? Committee discussed mapping and ways to show that various sites are connected to each other.
Scott would like to focus on getting the infrastructure in place, and then develop the content. Scott suggested looking at Baltimore Heritage as an example website.
Curtis suggested giving assignments and having committee members report back monthly. Scott suggested making a project plan and sharing with the Committee.
Elizabeth will share existing content, would be great to get sense from Committee members of websites that they use that they find useful and engaging especially in terms of folks in storytelling
Elizabeth and Curtis will meet next week to work out a plan for moving forward
Announcements
Sonia Eaddy asked if the Committee would be interested in doing a walkthrough of the properties on the 300 block of N Carrolton St to show that they were worthy of preservation vs demolition. UMBC students had shot footage of the houses on the 300 block of N Carrollton. Committee is supportive but needs to figure out how to best facilitate it.
