National Register of Historic Places- 4/15/1982

Description

The Little Montgomery Street Historic District is a residential area located in South Baltimore a few blocks to the southwest of the Inner Harbor area. It is composed of approximately fifteen nineteenth century brick houses, some of which are double, that line the 100 block of West Montgomery Street and the northwestern portion of the 800 block of Leadenhall Street. The district is located in the present Ward 22 of Baltimore city and includes parts of blocks 896, 902, and 903. Immediately to the north of the district is vacant land along both sides of Hughes Street with the Otterbein Homesteading area further north. To the west of the district is more vacant land that is to be developed as single family townhouses. Bordering the south side of the district on the west side of Leadenhall Street is a mid twentieth century industrial structure. To the east of Leadenhall Street south of the district is a parking lot for the new St. Martini Lutheran Church at Hanover and Henrietta Streets. Immediately to the east of the Little Montgomery Street Historic District is a concrete block commercial building and related parking area, both of which front on Hanover Street. 

Significance 

The Little Montgomery Street Historic District draws significance from two sources. First, as the earliest and only coherent remnant of the Sharp-Leadenhall neighborhood in South Baltimore, the Little Montgomery Street Historic District is associated with a working class urban community where,.. throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Baltimore's native poor, struggling German and Irish immigrants, and freed southern blacks lived side by side competing for the same space and the same railroad and port-related jobs. By the 1890s, the twenty-four blocks of SharpLeadenhall were a thriving residential-industrial community with three chruches, three public schools, a police station, and dozens of major and minor manufactories. Secondly, the Little Montgomery Street Historic District also achieves significance through the collection of buildings which are examples of a type of early and midnineteenth century vernacular architecture in Baltimore. All the buildings are small in scale and of brick construction, about the sidewalks, are closely spaced, and are generally two to three stories high with two bay facades.