The Peale Center, also once Baltimore’s City Hall and Colored School #1 and then a temporary Water Engineer’s office. Then the Municipal Museum and then a vacant…am I missing anything? It has been a lot of things since 1814 and I am really glad it is being restored to a museum. 

View from across the street, at the Municipal Building – where the water engineers are now located. Workers had to move their scaffold out of the way so we could get in.

A walk out back. I think I would have placed this lamp elsewhere instead of in front of the relief.

Another gas lamp.

Back inside to await the history talk. Here is an artist rendition of what the Peale will look like when completed. 

A nice model of the proposed renovations.

Holy H.G. Wells! A freakin’ time machine. Damn, still under construction!

Hum Bug!!

More bugs.

And the real reason for my visit – a talk by Peter Manseau on his book “The Apparitionist”. It was a really good talk. One thing that kind of stuck in my head was when he said, “There are about 50,000 deceased persons on Facebook. Still being visited by family and friends.” It is like a modern day seance in the electronic social media age. People get to see their departed loved ones, just like the photographs taken by 19th century photographers of dead people posing. But Peter’s book goes more into ghost being seen in glass plate images. I can’t wait to read his book…