700-720 Baker Street - NW corner of Baker and Carey Streets

Members of Baltimore's African-American elite had been able to secure secondary educations in city schools since the opening of the 'Colored High School of Baltimore' in 1901 in a building at Nos. 1201-1215 Pennsylvania Avenue [g.v.] but by 1920 that building was almost 30 years old and, additionally, was bulging at the seems as more and more Americans of all races acknowledged the importance of a high-school education. As Baltimore's first Republican mayor in over a decade William F. Broening (1870- 1953) recognized his debt to the city's then-solidly Republican African American community, and was willing to provide a new school facility for its children, but this required a good deal of horse-trading with the Democratic majority on the Baltimore City Council. A deal was finally reached: the city would build a new high-school for white students on the city's east side [Lake Clifton High School] while simultaneously building a new facility for black high schoolers on the east side. The latter originally was scheduled to bear the traditional name of 'the Colored High School,' but by the time construction was begun, a less generic name had been adopted, honoring an African American activist closely associated with the Chesapeake region.

Architect Spencer E. Sisco was retained by the city's Board of Education to work with what had been the site of the state-owned 'House of Refuge' complex at Nos. 700-702 Baker Street [q.v.] and in the fall of 1926 Sisco's u-shaped three-story concrete 'School No. 450' finally opened. Later incidents in its history will be found on the cards in this file covering Nos. 700-702 Baker Street.

MCHC's online photograph database has October, 1953 of Baker Street facade of School #450 as seen from Pennsylvania Avenue as Resource 5212.