Mount Vernon Cultural District

Mount Vernon has been associated with the arts since the founding of the Peabody Institute in 1857, fulfilling George Peabody's vision of Baltimore citizens attending lectures, listening to music, viewing art, and using a research library. Nationally and internationally renowned museums, theaters, colleges, libraries, concert halls, symphony orchestras, and religious shrines stand alongside newer institutions in one of the nation's most beautiful urban areas, centered on Mount Vernon Place. George Washington overlooks the neighborhood from a 178-foot marble pillar, the nation's first monument to him, begun in 1815, with four European-style parks around it and stylish nineteenth-century townhouses built by Baltimore's elite nearby. Behind these mansions stand alley houses where freed black and immigrant servants lived and back houses that often housed slaves before the Civil War, reflecting the area's long social diversity, which continues today as Mount Vernon remains home to people of many classes, races, and nationalities. Its historic structures house major cultural institutions including the Walters Art Museum, the Maryland Historical Society, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Opera Company, Center Stage, the Peabody Institute, and the Maryland Institute College of Art, while restaurants, shops, galleries, and nightlife add to the district's lively character. The area also includes historic churches, libraries, mansions, and important African American sites linked to Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, Reverend Hiram Rhodes Revels, the Afro-American newspaper, the Arena Players, and Dr. Lillie Carroll Jackson.

Baltimore, Maryland · United States