Baltimore Polytechnic Institute

B.P.I. was founded in 1883, after Baltimorean Joshua Plaskitt petitioned the Baltimore municipal and school authorities to establish a school for instruction in engineering. The original school was named the Baltimore Manual Training School, and its first class was made up of about sixty students, all of them male. The official name of the new high school was changed a decade later in 1893 to "The Baltimore Polytechnic Institute" by the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners of the Baltimore City Public Schools. The first principals at the B.M.T.S. were Dr. Richard Grady, followed by two American naval officers, Lieutenant John D. Ford (U.S.N.), and Lieutenant William King (U.S.N.). Lt. King had such long lasting beginning influence on the new technical high school's academic rigor and traditions giving the school a naval flavor in its early decades. Because of this seminal influence, the connecting structure at the new 1967 campus at Cold Spring and Falls (with a distinctive outside stone facade and engraving with the school name) between the two new building wings of the academic and engineering halls (future also renamed "Dehuff" and "Burkert Halls") which contains the hallowed Memorial Corridor filled with Poly historical and biographical wall plaques, displays and glass exhibit floor cabinets along with at the west end of the stained glass window, statue head bust and B.P.I. bronze seal imbedded in the floor (all imported from the old North Avenue building of 1913–1967) is situated here. This wing was renamed after him as "King Memorial Hall" as one of the three new main 1967 campus structures along with the others in the 1980s after the Institute's centennial celebration. The first building location designated in 1883 for the new manual training / technical school was located in part of a former grammar (elementary) school building on the earlier former site of the old central City Spring and small surrounding pocket park from colonial era days of old Baltimore Town on now disappeared Courtland Street just north of East Saratoga Street. This area was three blocks northwest of the Baltimore City Courthouse and the adjacent historic Battle Monument square (commemorating from the British naval and land attack in the famous Battle of Baltimore and bombardment of Fort McHenry in the War of 1812 in September 1814). It was unfortunately later contained in Baltimore's first "urban renewal" plan with the tearing down of five square blocks in this then northern reaches of Downtown Baltimore of what today would be architecturally significant and historic residential townhouses along old Courtland Street and the original Saint Paul Street (which paralleled it to the west), between Calvert Street to the east and Charles Street up the hill to the west. This major demolition project was to permit the construction of new terraced "Preston Gardens" and adjacent Saint Paul Place which ran from East Centre Street in the north to East Lexington Street in the south occurred at the end of the mayoral administration of James H. Preston in 1919–1920. It was occupied by numerous African American black professionals and commercial offices in this downtown district and the razing and creation of the terraced gardens was to protect the nearby wealthy cultural Mount Vernon-Belvedere neighborhood on the heights to the west and north around the historic Washington Monument from any unwanted racial encroachment. The old Courtland Street was wiped out and replaced by the terraced gardens and a landscaped St. Paul Place in the five blocks. The former B.M.T.S. / B.P.I. building was on the east side (and earlier elementary school structure it occupied dating back to the 1840s) after the high school moved further north to East North Avenue and North Calvert Street in 1912–1913. Two decades later by 1935 it became home to the newly established Baltimore City Department of Public Welfare (now renamed Social Services Department) during the famous economic collapse of the Great Depression era and continued there for three decades. The Courtland / St. Paul Street / Place structures complex was later purchased / annexed by neighboring Mercy Hospital, (which was formerly named "Baltimore City Hospital"), for its westward expansion located originally one block to the east on North Calvert and East Saratoga Streets, on the northwest corner since the 1840s and its reorganization in the early 1870s. These old 19th century Poly / Public Welfare buildings were then later torn down in the early 1960s for construction of their first modern hospital tower (now renamed McCauley Building) in 1964. It recently also supplemented by additional major construction of the adjacent high-rise Bunting Tower hospital facilities in the 2010s. In 1983, at the technology high school's centennial observation and celebration, a large historical bronze plaque was placed and dedicated with ceremonies of City officials, B.C.P.S. staff and B.P.I. administration / faculty / students and alumni in the St. Paul Place West lobby of the Mercy Hospital complex commemorating that earlier first home of the Manual Training School for 30 years, later to become "Poly". It just so happened in an amazing coincidence, that these original Poly buildings were and situated across the same street of Courtland 44 years later, (almost a half-century) after their long-time arch-rival public high school, The Baltimore City College, (then known only as "The High School" for its first five years) was earlier established facing the same street in a rented small two-story rowhouse with pitched roof and dormer attic window in October 1839 where it remained for only a few short years to 1843, also on the same now vanished narrow alley-like Courtland Street!!. Both schools began on the same street a short distance from each other separated by a near half-century of time. from c. 1866 still standing) in its second of three geographic locations / buildings. On the north side of the 200 block of East North Avenue (formerly known as Boundary Avenue), occupied here 1913 to 1967. Additional replacement center wing and auditorium . gymnasium wing to the east constructed 1931. This structure complex later renamed after B.P.I. moved to Cold Spring Lane and Falls Road in 1967 and served 17 more years in the Baltimore City Public Schools system for various school facilities and renamed as the "Calvert Educational Center". It was partially razed and underwent major renovations / reconstruction in the mid-1980s to become the B.C.P.S. "Alice Pinderhughes Administrative Headquarters" (nicknamed "North Avenue"), on the site between North Calvert Street to the west and Guilford Avenue to the east. Relocation Due to continued growth of the student population of the City's Public Schools system in the early 20th century and especially in the growing demand for higher secondary education at high schools like at the B.P.I.and the rival B.C.C. and the two girls high schools of Eastern and Western, the City's technical school relocated after a long public campaign for larger better facilities ten blocks further north from downtown in 1913 to Calvert Street and North Avenue (formerly known as Boundary Avenue, of the old City / County line of 1818–1888. The former old 1860s era converted mansion of French Second Empire style architecture of the former Maryland School for the Blind was purchased. It was sitting on a slight hill above the avenue in a then rural / suburban setting. Two additional massive three-story wings on the east and west sides of the center mansion were constructed and added by the City with a Greek Revival architecture with Classical style columns on the front facade. Now for the first time in its 30 years history "Tech" had a suitable building expansive enough to handle both its academic and technical education requirements. But the growth of "The Institute" was so much that in only a decade and a half by 1930, the old original central wing of "The Mansion" from the Blind School was razed after only 17 years and replaced by a simpler center three-story wing between the two flanking earlier 1913 structures with an additional large enormous auditorium / gymnasium in a further east wing facing North Avenue and towards adjacent Guilford Avenue were constructed. This massive assembly hall and physical education building with swimming pool was the largest built at the time in the city and the auditorium served many secular / civic / cultural occasions and events in town for decades into the mid-1980s. While at this location, the high school expanded both its academic, technical and athletic programs under the extensive longtime leadership of legendary Dr. Wilmer Dehuff, who was the fourth principal from 1921 to 1958. Principal Dehuff despite his many accomplishments in his long educational career and his devotion and love of Poly, unfortunately in his view opposed and reluctantly (see below) oversaw the racial integration of the technology high school in September 1952, the first instance in the American Upper South region with the City of Baltimore public schools admitting African-American – then called "Negro" / "Colored" students. The Baltimore City Public Schools (founded 1829), had maintained racially segregated schools since first beginning public education for its black minority in Baltimore in 1870. The nationally famous precedent occurred two years before the rest of the nation took up this serious issue of inequality and discrimination addressed finally by the Supreme Court of the United States in May 1954 in the famous case of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Previous black students in Baltimore City (and from adjacent Baltimore County also) had attended the Frederick Douglass High School (formerly named the "Colored High School" up to 1923 – second oldest in the nation – founded the same year as Poly – 1883) on the westside of town and the later opening Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in East Baltimore. Dr. Dehuff later after his retirement in 1958 and his 37 years career at the Polytechnic Institute, became the president and dean of faculty at the then private institution, the University of Baltimore on Mount Royal Avenue. Integration/desegregation Most Baltimore City public schools since 1870 were not integrated until after the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of May 1954 in the following September / Fall semester. B.P.I. since the 1920s had an unusually advanced and difficult college-level mathematics, engineering and technology oriented "A" Course, the "Advanced College Preparatory Curriculum" instituted back in the 1920s as part of then Public Schools reform and improvement program. It included calculus, analytical chemistry, electricity, mechanics and surveying; these subjects were not offered at the black high schools in the city before 1952. But a parallel "A" Course centered on the humanities / social studies / liberal arts was also longtime since the '20s offered at arch-rival City College with a similar degree of rigorous quality. But its focus was in different fields. Other "A" Courses were similarly available at the two also all-white and all-girls Eastern and Western High Schools, both founded 1844. B.P.I. was a whites-only school but supported by municipal taxes on the general population. No black schools in the city (black students could not attend whites-only schools) offered such courses, nor did they have classrooms, labs, libraries or teachers comparable to those at B.P.I. or at the similar level of The Baltimore City College. Because of this, a group of 16 Baltimoreans African American students, with help and support from their parents, along with the Baltimore Urban League, and the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) applied for the mathematics / engineering "A" Course at the Poly; the applications were initially denied and so the students sued in local Maryland state circuit court. The subsequent trial began on June 16, 1952. The NAACP's intentions were to end segregation at the 70-year-old public high school. In the B.P.I. case they argued that BPI's offerings of specialized engineering courses violated the "separate but equal" clause because these courses were not offered in high schools for black students. To avoid integration, an out-of-court proposal was made to the Baltimore School Board to start an equivalent "A" Course at the "colored" (for non-whites) of Frederick Douglass High School. This hearing on the "Douglass" plan lasted for hours, with longtime Poly Principal Dehuff and others arguing that separate but equal "A" Courses would satisfy constitutional requirements and NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall (soon to be later famous appointed Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967), arguing that the plan was a gamble and additional cost that the city should not take. By a vote of 5–3, the board decided that a separate "A" course would not provide the same educational opportunities for African American students, and that, starting that fall, African American students could attend Poly. The vote vindicated the NAACP national strategy of raising the economic cost of 'separate but equal' schools beyond what taxpayers and their government bureaucracy were willing to pay. Thirteen African American students, Leonard Cephas, Carl Clark, William Clark, Milton Cornish, Clarence Daly, Victor Dates, Alvin Giles, Bucky Hawkins, Linwood Jones, Edward Savage, Everett Sherman, Robert Young, and Silas Young, finally entered the Polytechnic Institute that fall. They were unfortunately faced daily with racial epithets, threats of violence and isolation from many of the more than 2,000 fellow students then at the school on North Avenue. But they endured, kept their cool and composure, knowing what was at stake. The first of those students to graduate from Poly was Dr. Carl O. Clark in June 1955. Dr. Clark went on to become the first African-American to graduate from the University of South Carolina with a degree in physics in 1976. Modern campus (1960s–present) In September 1967, after a multi-year planning and construction project, then-fifth principal Claude Burkert (1958–1969) oversaw the relocation of his school after 54 years at North Avenue and Calvert Street to its current location at 1400 West Cold Spring Lane, a fifty-three-acre tract of land bordering the Jones Falls stream to the west (and adjacent elevated Jones Falls Expressway (Interstate 83) and with Falls Road (Maryland Route 25} and the heights of the Roland Park residential planned community from the 1890s to the east along Cold Spring Lane, and to the south is the Hampden and Woodberry neighborhoods. Further to the north along Falls Road is the Village of Cross Keys shopping mall and planned residential community also developed during the 1960s by the noted James Rouse. At the time of the 1965–1967 building of the "New Poly-Western", it was considered one of the largest and most expensive school construction projects in the nation up to that time. A century before, this site along the Jones Falls was occupied by earthworks fortifications for the Union Army, then militarily occupying Southern-sympathizing Baltimore City during the American Civil War. Also occupying this site on its east side facing Falls Road is the new Western High School, an all-girls school founded in 1844. Notable buildings on the B.P.I. campus include Dehuff Hall, also known formerly as the Academic Hall building, named for the longtime fourth principal where students attend normal classes, and Burkert Hall, also previously called the Engineering Hall building, remembering the fifth principal, where students attend classes in the Willard Hackerman Engineering Program. (Hackerman, a noted Poly alumnus and local / regional engineering / construction firm founder). Both Western High girls and Poly students make use of the auditorium/cafeteria complex in-between the two high schools, and likewise share the swimming pool and sports fields. Although the two schools share these facilities, their respective academic programs and classrooms are completely separate from one another. In 1974 after some controversy and a local court case, the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute officially became coeducational when it began admitting female students for the first time in almost 90 years. The first female to enroll and successfully graduate from the "A" Course was an African-American named Cindy White (1974–1978). Coincidentally five years later, rival Baltimore City College, also with an all-boys student body since its founding in 1839, also admitted girls, becoming co-educational in 1979 after undergoing a major two-years long $10 million dollars renovation / reconstruction project and academic reorganization and revitalization program at its landmark "Castle on the Hill" 1922–1928 edifice on "Collegian Hill" at 33rd Street and The Alameda. In the late 1980s the title "principal" of the Polytechnic Institute was changed to "director." After the retirement of Director John Dohler in 1990, Barbara Stricklin became the first woman to head the "magnet" high school, as she accepted the title of Interim Director. During Director Ian Cohen's tenure (1994–2003), Poly's curriculum was again expanded when it began offering Advanced placement (A.P.) classes. During the 2001–2002 school year, Poly was recognized by the Maryland State Department of Education when it was named a "Blue Ribbon School of Excellence." In 2011, Poly was ranked 1552 nationally and 44 in Maryland as a "Silver Medal School" by U.S. News & World Report magazine. In 2004, Dr. Barney Wilson, a 1976 Poly graduate, became Baltimore Polytechnic Institute's first African-American director. Following his six years tenure in August 2010, assistant principal Matthew Woolston, was appointed interim director. Later on during that academic year, Jacqueline Williams was appointed as interim director for the subsequent 2011–2012 school year. By the end of that term – and after a parallel two-year, nationwide search – Williams became the first female director of the Polytechnic Institute. Williams had worked her way through the Poly ranks from student (Class of 1981), to faculty as teacher, then department head, to assistant principal, and to dean of students, before appointment to her position as B.P.I. director. Recently during the 2022–2023 school year, it was announced that Ms. Williams would be retiring after 12 years as Poly's academic head. In June 2023, another Poly alum, Mark Sawyer was named director, a position he holds to this day. == Academics ==