The Panama Canal vs. 97 Feet of the Bolgiano Seed House

Ninety-seven feet of brick wall, in fact, the whole west side of the Bolgiano seed building in 1917, was about to be acquired by eminent domain by the City of Baltimore to clear the way for the new Key Highway project!
Key, as in Francis Scott.

Having to remove the side wall of your business is a real bummer.

The Key Highway was needed to serve the increased movement of goods due to the Panama Canal, when it opened, increasing the shipping to the port of Baltimore.
When oceans embrace, of what consequence is 97 feet of brick?


But, there is a happy ending...



Below is a map showing the old grid of streets before the highway project, and the location of Bolgiano's property (maybe).

More on the canal at the bottom of this post.


Mentioned before but worth a look if you haven't already is http://www.kilduffs.com/Harbor.html

Here is Baltimore's argument for taking the wall...and the compromise.

From Wikipedia: The road was laid out to a width of 160 feet (50 m) from Light Street to Locust Point in the early 1910s, providing better access to the new city-owned piers in preparation for increased trade via the Panama Canal and existing steamship lines to Europe. It was named Key Highway because it was originally planned to extend to Fort McHenry, near where Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner." However, the extension of the road to the fort was never built. A rail line ran the length of Key Highway, connecting to the tracks in Pratt Street via Light Street. A two-lane extension of the highway and rail line was built in 1930, branching off the old route east of Ludlow Street and running south under Fort Avenue to McComas Street. The short portion of the old road east of the extension is now East Key Highway; the rail tracks have been removed.

from http://www.czbrats.com/Builders/cucaracha.htm:

The Canal Record - October 9, 1907

Notes of Progress.
The Cucaracha Slide at its Old Tricks.
Owing to the heavy rainfalls of the past few weeks, the Cucaracha slide, which remains quiet during the dry season, has again begun to move.  This slide is on the east side of the Canal about half a mile south of Gold Hill, and first began to move in 1884 or 1885, during the time of the old French company.  It gave this company a good deal of trouble during the entire time that operations were in progress in this vicinity; but its movement ceased soon after the failure of the old company in 1889.  It remained practically quiescent during the entire period of  control by the new French company, the reason being that no operations in the Canal in this vicinity were carried on by that company.  With the resumption of work by the United States in 1905, the slide again began to move, and has continued to give more or less trouble during every wet season since.  The total amount of material in movement is estimated at about 500,000 cubic yards.  The plan pursued heretofore has been to attack the slide during the dry season with steam shovels, cutting as wide a berm as possible in the material outside of the limits of the prism, so that, during the wet season, the moving material would be caught on the berms and would not get into the Canal.   The movement during the present season has been more rapid than usual and the berms have been filled up, permitting a part of the material to get into the Canal prism.  Shovel No. 223 was caught by the moving mass of material on October 4, and was extricated unimpaired on October 6.  Shovel No. 109 was also caught, but was pulled out by the wrecking train on October 5.

1904 Data Recovery: J. Bolgiano & Son Seed Company's Sad Story

With all the news of hackers infiltrating large businesses and stealing sensitive information I think many of us have forgotten how in the early years our first concerns of other people holding our data was about backups - did they have sufficient safely placed redundancy to repair data destroyed by "acts of god"?.  

Here is a 20th century seed story that just makes you quietly shake your head at the complexity of data recovery.

from http://www.shorpy.com/node/10096
http://www.shorpy.com/user/1678

American Poultry Advocate, 1904

It is more than probable that every reader of this paper has heard of the wonderfully disastrous fire which so recently burned the heart out of the city of Baltimore. Unless you just happened to know some one who was living or doing business in Baltimore, it is likely that you gave the fire hardly more than a passing thought. But what do you think it means to the people of Baltimore? What do you thing it means for instance, to J. Bolgiano & Sons,

the seedsmen who have for eighty-seven years been doing business In the fated city? In all that long period they have never before suffered from fire. Indeed, they felt perfectly safe this time, for when the fire first started it was more than ten city squares away from them. Later, and when they thought they were endangered — though the fire was still six squares from them — they employed two hundred hands and fifty drays and began the removal of their large retail seed stock to one of their warehouses a long distance from the fire, and where they felt everything would be safe. It transpired, however, that by a shifting of the winds the fire ate relentlessly away until both retail stores, offices, packing rooms and warehouses were destroyed. Bolgianos made a brave fight to save the orders and seeds for their thousands of customers, but fate was against them. The orders already booked and the lists of names of multiplied thousands of customers all over the world were lost in the twinkle of an eye.

With absolutely nothing to work with, nothing to aid them except their fair name and excellent reputation, the Bolgianos have set to work with firm hands and brave hearts to rebuild their business. They have already laid in a large stock of the very best farm and garden seeds, notwithstanding the short seed crop of the past season, and will be able to fill orders as usual. Since all their advance orders and names of customers are burned, they have very little to begin on. Will those of our readers who ordered from Bolgiano & Sons write a postal card at once, simply giving your name and post office address? Do this whether you are an old or new customer of theirs. Send them your name anyhow, so that they may send you their catalogue another season. Simply address the card to J. Bolgiano & Sons, Baltimore, Md.

Links:

• Baltimore Sun...go here
• http://www.mdch.org/fire/
• http://www.formstonecastle.com/?p=498 following photo from there...more to see

J. Bolgiano & Son of Baltimore, and the Wharves

Before the real world of elementary school end-of-the-year-crazy-scheduling took over my life, I was exploring Baltimore, looking in my files for something to start in on.  By chance I picked a mediocre firm (seed story wise) to start with, Sinclair and Moore, as their name had just popped up in an unrelated search.  Cool postcards resulted from their post though!  And, in turn, those nutty surreal postcards came from that - and filled the days when I could not get to my computer to blog.

However, now that the art show is over, with all the children marveling at how wonderful their work looks, the giant box-made elephant standing in all its colorful patchwork glory (kindergarten decorated him with shapes and stars...many glued on his belly as it was fun to crouch under an elephant), the folding display walls dragged away for next year - now I have time to bring out the big Baltimore gun.  Bolgiano & Son.

Today just immerse yourself in the detail of this wonderful engraving of the waterfront.  The energy of the Baltimore wharves pulses from this work.  A larger detail follows this full bill of sale.

I need a sound effect button here.  You know, whistles, chugging, men yelling, rumbling of barrels and steel wheeled hand trucks.  And a stink button!- horse dung, wharf pilings, coal smoke, bilge refuse and people.

Montgomery Street doesn't seem to have changed much!!  What a lovely street! That is Federal Hill Park at the end.  And cobblestones!

Below is a view from Federal Hill before the city expanded.

http://www.kilduffs.com/Harbor.html

Another Charming New Yorker Cover and Some Squished Bugs

The seeds that Mother Nature has scattered are always popping up in perfectly lovely combinations. I expect this cover seems a familiar pose to most anyone reading this now :-)

Here are two photos for which I recently assumed the lady-photographer-in-spring-pose to honor my garden which planted itself.  The violets are spreading near the side porch stoop.  Three years ago the yellow violets arrived from nowhere.   The lily have decided to line the walk to the front door. They are awfully tall things, over 6 feet, so you feel like you have shrunk when you walk there.  

My spring hobby is to crush the scarlet lily beetles and scrape off their eggs! 

I must say I am very good at it and the tiger lilies appreciate my care.

When they first arrived some 5 years ago, I thought they were so pretty.

Then they destroyed my lilies the next season.

Since then I have gotten my search and destroy moves down 

so I can sweep through the troops quickly.

When I am retired I can take the time to recycle their wing cases as something.  

Seems an awful waste of a great red!

Potted Babies

What seed did this nursery plant?  Note the late to sprout one in the lower right...

The end of school rush is on for me with the art show coming up.  I've been out of  blogging time for the last few days so I have been posting fun oddball stuff that creeps into my files. This image of potted babies is so riveting I couldn't not collect it.  

I did a search for "surreal french postcards" and found quite a few, though only 3 or so related to horticulture.  Quite a few naked ladies in charming poses in surreal settings, too!

I'm throwing this postcard in because it is too odd to waste.  I might use it with my third graders who are learning about perspective tricks...this one in particular - "stuff far away looks smaller, and you place it higher on the paper" :-)

Ye Gods... More Beet and Carrot Shenanigans!!

  Carousing root vegetables.  Carrot cupids.  Who knew?

Actually, lots of people knew as these show up all over the web once you look for them.

Hoe Down of Root Vegetables

I did not know what to think when this turned up.  I still don't.

There seems to be a fine line for anthropomorphized vegetables where they go from being a simple amusement, something cute, to being something that starts to engage thought. For me, this one is beyond cute into something else.  What, I'm not sure.  I start looking at vegetable genitals, and I wonder if the faces were friends or enemies of the artist :-)