MD Architectural Rescue

OPEN THIS FRIDAY AND SATURDAY!

I am taking advantage of the beautiful weather and will be working at the warehouse this FRIDAY November 1st and SATURDAY November 2nd if anyone would like to stop by. I will be there from at least 11 till 2 each day.

If you've been trying to get in there but timing has not been working out, this could be your weekend!

Time Flies when you're having fun! I've been concentrating so much on working on the building that I forgot to remind everybody.............

Its THAT time of the Month Again! You are AL Cordially invited to our SECOND SATURDAY OPEN HOUSE this coming Saturday October 12th from 10 until 3.

MD Architectural Rescue is located at the Baltimore Traction Company Building, 2480 Druid Hill Ave in Baltimore.

Hope to see y'all!

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Well since the weather finally broke, I finally came out of hiding and started picking things up again. 95 degrees outside plus humidity can equal 120+ degrees inside a stifling building with no power when you're wearing full safety equipment. I'm just too old for all of that.

It was a sad sad day that we had to go and start picking stuff up from our friend Saul who started in the business over 20 years ago with the BRASS K**B in Washington DC and inherited the business from his boss Ron when Ron retired a few years back. Just like so many businesses like ours, Rent prices just caused hard decisions to be made . I have actually had to reinvent myself twice in the 28 years I have been doing this and was lucky enough to get my building or I quite frankly could not afford to do this. Anyway, If anyone ever needs Radiators, Saul has moved to Damascus and is specializing in Hardware and Radiators . I would be happy to share his contact info if anyone needs it. He is still liquidatind doors and millwork until the end of the month at: VINTAGE HOUSE PARTS and RADIATORS in Hyattsville MD. Don't wait around if you need vintage doors. He is having a sale and what is left will be going way out of state. He is the last place in 100 miles of DC with a wide selection of Antique doors. We wish him luck at his new venture!

I did pick up some fantastic Fireplace mantles and Pottery sinks from him as you will see as well as some other goodies that have popped up.

Oh yeah ......................... Everyone is Cordially invited to our SECOND SATURDAY OPEN HOUSE on SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 14th. MD Architectural Rescue is located at the BALTIMORE TRACTION COMPANY, 2480 DRUID HILL AVE in Baltimore.

Hope to see U!

Time Flies! You are ALL Cordially invited to our Second Saturday Open House this coming Saturday from 10 until 3.

Hope to see U!

We've been cleaning up and shuffling around so I figured I would send some our current inventory pics.

Hope to see y'all on Saturday at the open house!

We will be working at the warehouse tomorrow from 10 till 2 tomorrow if anybody wants to pop in to look around. Our next day will be our Second Saturday Open House On July 13th from 10 till 3.

Hope to See y'all!

Its that time of the month again! You are ALL Cordially invited to our Second Saturday OPEN HOUSE this coming Saturday June 8th from 10 until 3. I hope to see Y'all!

We have been dodging the weather to try to get the last few spots of the roof finished before it gets too hot to go up there. I think we have everything done except for the rubber so it will be nice to get that finally off of my plate so that I can get back to work finding JUNK. We have been sorting and cleaning and fixing though so theres new stuff to see. Get it Before its HOT!

I'm going to be at the warehouse to load a few things up , so I will be unofficially OPEN SUNDAY MAY 26th from 11 till at least 1. It may not be a long time but if you want to stop in, Feel free to come by. Happy Holidaze!

Its that time again! You are ALL Cordially invited to our Second Saturday Open House. Saturday May 11th from 10 AM until 3 PM. Hope to see y'all!

We will be OPEN for business on Friday April 26th and Saturday April 27th if anyone would like to stop by.

I hope to see y'all!

Second Saturday Open House Tomorrow!

Just a few more things that will be around tomorrow. Mostly new but a few have been hiding in corners. I hope y'all choose to caome out.

You are cordially invited to our SECOND SATURDAY OPEN HOUSE on Saturday March 9th 2024 from 10 until 3. We are located at the Baltimore Traction Company, 2480 Druid Hill ave just below the park in Baltimore.

We just finished the college and are still cleaning and processing material. If you have not been in for a while, theres alot of cool stuff. It would be great to see you!

I guess I missed a couple of things that we got in recently. They will be at the Second Saturday Open House tomorrow. The building is Dry, Lit and its going to be a beautiful day.

I hope to see you!

Miracles DO Happen!

You are cordially invited to our SECOND SATURDAY OPEN HOUSE on Saturday February 10th 2024. We are located at the Baltimore Traction Company, 2480 Druid Hill ave just below the park in Baltimore.

The building is mostly dry . Its 2500% better than it was but we are still chasing drips here and there. Electrician should be giving us light Thursday and Friday since we no longer have our 6000 sq ft light and water feature. I literally only decided yesterday that I could open at least for Saturday. It's shaping up but it will honestly still be a bit of a disaster as far as cleaning goes.

The GOOD news is that we have been out on a few interesting projects and are bringing in AMAZING STUFF (as y'all expect by now). We are getting ready to start a foundry in PA next month and just finished a 55 year old Million sq ft office building in the area. What you see mainly is the Science building of a very well known local college that we have been working on for a week. Demolition waits for no one so we are there full time and probably will be for a month. As I told the contractor ............ We plan on picking the carcass dry then chewing on the bones. What we are able to salvage comes down to customer interest of course. There are plenty of oak lab cabinets : wall mounted , desks, counters, and standing glass display cases. The desks and counters have the acid resistant resin tops. Most of that stuff will not be saved unfortunately due to space limitations unless there is interest. Theres just too much of it. Please PM me if you would like more information and I will post more photos next week.

Hope to see y'all Saturday!

You are cordially invited to our Second Saturday Open House. We will be open this coming Saturday September 9th from 10 AM PM until 3.

We are still working on the roof but are taking a little breather while we wait for the heat to break before starting to place the joists and sheet the roof. I've still had time to drag some cool stuff in and pull some old stuff out. The coolest new spot we went to has got to be a print shop called BINDAGRAPHICS. Its a modern facility but the former owner was an awesome packrat and he had his own private museum. That included a couple of hundred Lithography Stones from ART LITHO which was a local Baltimore Lithographer who closed down in the 1980's. Lots of local history there.

We are located at 2480 Druid Hill ave in Baltimore. Hope to See Y'all!

OPEN on FRIDAY AUGUST 18th from 10 till 2!

I have picked up a few things and have cleaned up others. One of the coolest things in my mind is a lot of Lithography Stones that have been stored for 40 years at a local print shop. They originally came from a local company called ART LITHO and they stored them with another print shop at a point when they were downsizing around 1980 and just never came back. I got a call from a gentleman who is retiring and these things are just FULL of local history. I have only been through 2 pallets and pictured are just some of the ones that I have cleaned up. IF you like Rocks and you like Art .................... these are PERFECT for you. The stones range from 50 to 100 bucks each based on decoration and subject matter. If you have not been in for a while and are free Friday, u should pop in. The place is a wreck, but if you've been in before, you''re used to it.

OPEN on FRIDAY AUGUST 18th from 10 till 2!
I'll post some photos this evening!

Has anybody ever heard of a WITCH BOTTLE?

I am still working on the building but cleaning up and clearing stuff out as I go along. I came across something that I got about 25 years ago on a job site. I always would stop by buildings where I saw a construction dumpster. That particular day in 1998 or 1999 the row house was in Fells Point around Bond st I believe. I would always ask about Beer Cans and Bottles and the laborer working told me the only old thing they found was this bottle that was hanging from a cord in a chimney that they demolished. I thought it was wierd since it was recorked but knew it was a bottle from just after the civil war most likely. When you look inside under a heavy light, you can see hair and plants and hair pins and it looks like maybe a tooth. It was 20 years before I saw one on Antiques Roadshow to tell me what it was.

This is what wikipedia says:

"A white witch or folk healer would prepare the witch's bottle. Historically, the witch's bottle contained the victim's (the person who believed they had a spell put on them, for example) urine, hair or nail clippings, or red thread from sprite traps. Later witch bottles were filled with rosemary, needles and pins, and red wine. Historically and currently, the bottle is then buried at the farthest corner of the property, beneath the house hearth, or placed in an inconspicuous spot in the house. It is believed that after being buried, the bottle captures evil which is impaled on the pins and needles, drowned by the wine, and sent away by the rosemary.

Sometimes sea water or earth are used instead. Other types of witch bottles may contain sand, stones, knotted threads, feathers, shells, herbs, flowers, salt, vinegar, oil, coins, or ashes. A similar magical device is the "lemon and pins" charm.

Another variation is within the disposal of the bottle. Some witch's bottles were thrown into a fire and when they exploded, the spell was broken or the witch supposedly killed.

The witch bottle was believed to be active as long as the bottle remained hidden and unbroken. People did go through a lot of trouble in hiding their witch bottles – those buried underneath fireplaces have been found only after the rest of the building has been torn down or otherwise disappeared. The origins of this tradition have been dated at least to the 16th century. In ancient times the bottles were made of stone and originally contained rusty nails, urine, thorns, hair, menstrual blood, and pieces of glass, wood, and bone. "

"To date, less than a dozen possible witch bottles have been identified in the United States.[7] Archaeologist Marshall Becker was the first to identify an American witch bottle in an archaeological context.[8] Known as the Essington witch bottle, the artifact was recovered during excavations on Great Tinicum Island in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. A mid-19th to early 20th-century slave or tenant site in Dorchester County, Maryland yielded a buried witch bottle whose cork stopper was bristling with straight pins.[9] In 2016, a bottle filled with nails was excavated from the hearth of a Civil War site in Virginia and appears to be a witch bottle.[10]"

A friend I went to High school with is a ................ fan of Wiccan culture lets say and was kind of freaked out over it. Nothing I have been able to find about these seemed negative. Its a protective amulet to ward away evil spirits and witchcraft. COuld it have caught a witch and I have it trapped in here like a Genie? Well the funny thing is, if you look closely at the shots of the bottom of the bottle below the mineralization, I swear I see the top halves of faces in there. Needless to say, I'm not popping the cork.

A semi recent article in Smithsonian Magazine says that only a dozen of these are known to have been found in the US which makes it extremely RARE ( which is a word thats very overused unfortunately) . I'm not sure what I am going to do with it , other than not open it, but I would be open to Ridiculous offers. Couold it buy me a Bathroom at the building? That sure would be more useful that this bottle. I've had it long enough, Maybe its someone elses turn to enjoy it.