Former Ice Cream Factory in Baltimore Demolished 2024

Hendler Creamery, Baltimore Maryland

Date added: July 31, 2024

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Its original use as a cable-car powerhouse for the Baltimore City Passenger Railway Company from 1892 to 1898 played an important role in Baltimore's transportation history, with the development of the cable-car mass transit in Baltimore, which attempted to use a new mode of urban transportation in place of the horse-car. The building powered the run of cable from Gay Street to North Avenue, using steam engines which propelled a sheave that pulled a continuous loop of cable. When the electric trolley replaced the cable-car as the more economical means of mass transit, the building was used by Baltimore's trolley monopoly, United Railways and Electric Company, from 1899 to 1903.

The building's conversion to a theater from 1903 to 1912 links it to Baltimore's early 20^th century performing arts history, which includes melodrama, movies, opera, vaudeville and, most importantly, the Yiddish theater serving the largely Jewish immigrant population. A second floor was installed above the first-floor engine room containing an auditorium and dressing rooms by Baltimore's most famous theater impresario, James L. Kernan, who originally operated the venue as the Convention Hall Theater. Some of the city's earliest motion pictures were shown there by Kernan. It was also know as the Bijou, the Princess, and the Baltimore Theater. For most of its life, it operated as a Jewish theater putting on performances of melodrama, comedy, and musicals in the Yiddish language.

The building's most important and longest historical legacy came when it was purchased by the Hendler Ice Cream Company in 1912 and converted to the country's first fully automated ice cream factory. Besides producing one of Baltimore's most favorite brands of ice cream, it played a major role in the development of the nation's ice cream business. Many important pioneering industry innovations were developed over the next fifty years in this building, including new kinds of packaging, the blade sharpener, which produced smoother ice cream, and fast freezing, which allowed ice cream to be frozen with a liquid cream texture. The adjoining building at 1107 East Fayette Street, built in the 1920s as part of the Hendler Creamery complex was built for the creation of one of the nation's first ice cream delivery systems by refrigerated truck.

In 1929 the Hendler Creamery was sold to Borden, and it became part of a national corporation rather than a local company.

Beginning in 1859, Baltimore City established horse-car service as a means of mass transit. Prior to this, people either owned carriages or hired hackneys which were extremely expensive or simply walked in the inner city. An omnibus service, where a team of horses pulled a large passenger carriage, began in 1844 but proved slow and uncomfortable. Other cities such as New York introduced horse cars where teams of horses pulled a car on iron rails, making it easier to move larger and heavier loads. The City Council of Baltimore finally awarded franchises and by the early 1860s, several horse-car lines were operating, one of which was the Baltimore City Passenger Railway.

Alternatives to horse-car service began to appear in the United States with the introduction of cable car service in San Francisco in 1873. Transit operators were looking for an alternative to horse-cars which had disadvantages, horses could not pull cars up steep hills, they deposited tons of manure and gallons of urine on city streets each day, horses could get sick, and they were expensive to maintain and feed. A cable-car did not use a horse but was propelled on rails by an endless cable in a conduit between the rails under the street. Although cable car systems required a large initial capital outlay, as much as $200,000 a mile in New York City, they still provided a better return on investment than horse cars. The decade from 1880 to 1890 was the heyday of cable car use in the United States. In Baltimore, the horse-car companies, particularly Baltimore City Passenger and Baltimore Traction, began to make the transition to cable in the late 1880s.

The construction of the conduit in the streets was a complicated and expensive part of the operation. A cable made of a hemp core wrapped with steel wires was pulled through the conduit which was formed by a cast-iron yoke that also supported the rails. Powerhouses along the transit line were required to continuously pull the cable through the conduits. On February 6^th, 1892, it was announced in the Baltimore Sun that Baltimore City Passenger hired prominent Baltimore architect, Jackson C. Gott to design a powerhouse measuring 92' wide and 170' deep. The engine room, which fronted on East Baltimore Street, measured 82' x 87' with enameled brick wainscoting and a 38'-high ceiling. The cable-winding machinery was powered by a steam engine. The BCP facility had a 41' x 48' boiler room with a coal storage room also measuring 41' x 48'. Other spaces included an 8' x 26' cable-splicing room, a 14' x 40' cable storage room, and a 14' x 42' dynamo and tool room fronting on East Street. The basement, which rises 5' above the sidewalk, provided foundations for the machinery in the engine room and space for runs of cable to the street. The cable was moved by being wrapped around a large wheel called a driver and also around a small unpowered wheel called an idler.

BCP's franchise ran from Patterson Park to Druid Hill Park and the powerhouse propelled the section of line between East Baltimore Street and the intersection of Gay Street and North Avenue. The Sun described the design: "Economy, durability, and simplicity are the controlling motives for the design, and a practical powerhouse, with a proper regard for architectural proportions and effect, without unnecessary ornamentations is expected as the result." The original design had a 57' high gabled center section with hipped roofs that sloped down to two 27' high flanking wings.

Gott had designed other BCP powerhouses including ones at Eutaw and Lombard Streets and on Charles Street. Born in Baltimore County in 1829, Gott apprenticed as a carpenter and as an architect in local firms before beginning his own practice in 1863. His principal buildings include 22-24, 26-30 South Howard Street (1880), the Maryland Penitentiary (1894), buildings for Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College 1894), stations for the Western Maryland Railway at Glyndon and Union Bridge (1894), and the Crown Cork & Seal Building (1896-98). Gott was named a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1889 and died in 1909.

Although there were electric street cars being developed during the 1880s, cable-cars were still economical until the first practical electric streetcar was developed by Frank J. Sprague in Richmond, Virginia in 1888. It became far less expensive to run streetcars from an overhead wire than to use cable. BCP and Baltimore Traction spent millions on cable before switching to electric cars. The BCP cable powerhouse on East Baltimore Street was converted to an electric power station in 1898. A streetcar conglomerate, United Railways and Electric Company, bought up competing lines including BCP to form Baltimore's major streetcar company in 1899. UREC used the part of the building, renting the old engine room to the Maryland Naval Reserve as a drill hall.

The building briefly played a small role in Baltimore's legitimate and Yiddish theater history when it was leased in 1902 to the American Amusement Company, one of whose managers was James Lawrence Kernan, Baltimore's most famous late-19th-century theatrical impresario. His most famous theater-hotel complex was at the intersection of Howard and Franklin Streets, called the "Triple Million Dollar Enterprise," which included the Maryland Theater, the Hotel Kernan, and the Auditorium (now Mayfair Theater). Architect Edward Glidden was hired to renovate the building to create an entrance into a 15' x18' tiled lobby that included a box office and manager's office and a 45' x 90' auditorium with 24' x 30' stage. A new floor was inserted in the 38' high former engine room. It opened in January 1903 as the Convention Hall presenting melodrama by the R.J. Erwood stock company with vaudeville acts and short Vitograph movies shown at intermission. Vaudeville and stage comedy and dramas were some of the main entertainments of the early 20^th Century, but Kernan recognized the growing popularity of movies since the late 1890s and showed some of Baltimore's first moving pictures including the influential The Great Train Robbery at the Maryland Theater.

The building was then leased by Lafayette Amusement Company and opened as the Bijou in August, 1903 presenting theatrical melodramas but closed shortly after. It remained vacant until 1906 when Kernan reacquired it and installed new scenery and heating and electrical systems. In 1907, plans were announced to sell the building by United Railways & Electric to the Hebrew Free School Society which was housed in a nearby house at 21 North High Street, but they were abandoned. In mid-1907, it became a Jewish theater called the Baltimore Theater, drawing on the heavy Jewish population that originally settled in the area, east of the Jones Falls.

By the fall of 1907, New York producer, Leopold Spachner, acquired the theater, renaming it the Princess and debuting the English Grand Opera Company's production of Il Trovatore. Baltimore newspapers listed the building as a movie theater called the Bijou in 1908 and 1909. The theater again became a Yiddish theater for a short time afterward.

The building's most important and long-lasting history was to Baltimore's ice cream industry when it was purchased by Lionel Manuel Hendler in 1912. Hendler's popular ice cream company was a continuation of a Baltimore legacy begun by Jacob Fussell who is considered the father of the American ice cream industry. Although English colonists had brought ice cream recipes to America in the 1700s, Fussell was the first man in America to produce ice cream in a plant, in 1851. Until then, all ice cream had been made at home.

In the 18^th and the first half of the 19^th centuries, ice cream was a luxury. Households would combine cream, eggs, and sugar in a covered tin, then place it in a wooden bucket surrounded by five to six inches of packed ice and salt. The bucket was shaken for almost two hours until the mix was frozen. The process was time-consuming and difficult. Often the mix would be inedible and a waste of expensive ingredients. In 1843, a patent was granted to Nancy M. Johnson for a simple hand-cranked ice cream maker. The machine was a tall metal canister with a crank attached to its top. It sat inside a wooden tub packed with ice and salt. Johnson's hand-cranked ice cream freezer was easier to use than shaking a bucket. It churned the mixture more evenly, beating more air into the mix, making a smoother textured ice cream. The making was reduced to just an hour and ice cream became a common household dessert.

Fussell was a milk delivery man in Baltimore who frequently had extra amounts of cream that his customers did not want. Instead of throwing it away, he used to make ice cream in bulk, selling it for 25 cents per quart, 40 percent less than confectioners did. By harvesting enough ice to fill a large ice house in Pennsylvania, Fussell began production in 1851 using the wooden bucket method to make just two quarts a day. Once business took off, he bought hand crank freezers and hired workers. In 1853, he moved his factory to Baltimore. Over the next ten years, he opened plants in Washington, Boston and New York. Others copied Fussell's methods and the ice cream industry grew across America. Total ice cream consumption in America went from four thousand gallons per year in 1859 to five million by the end of the 19^th Century. Fussell, who died in 1912 had made ice cream an indispensable treat.

Hendler, born in 1885 in Baltimore, also came from a dairy background. His father, Isaac, operated dairies in East Baltimore. In 1905, Hendler opened his own ice cream business on Lloyd Street. Only seven years later, Hendler Creamery was capitalized at $100,000, and he purchased the former BCP powerhouse for $40,000 to create his own plant. The building at 1100 East Baltimore was converted into America's first completely automated ice cream plant. Around 1914-15, Hendler built a 25' wide addition to the east as laboratory space and third-floor additions that flanked the original powerhouse roof. A second floor was constructed below the theater floor that housed business offices. The original powerhouse floor as well as the entire theater stayed in place.

The new plant pioneered many advances in ice cream making, the most important being that production was fully automated from beginning to end, untouched by human hands. According to the Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers, Hendler was the first to install the fast frozen method which allowed ice cream to be frozen with a texture comparable to liquid cream instead of a consistency of ice crystals that most products of the period had. To produce smoother ice cream, he developed a new blade design. Ice cream had to be hand packed into cans by hand until Hendler designed an automatic ice cream can filling machine. His conveyor system was an innovation that took cans from a sterilizer to an automatic filling machine and on to a cold room for storage.

Ice cream was delivered in horse drawn wagons packed with ice and salt making it highly perishable and it could only be distributed in immediate neighborhoods. Hendler pioneered the use of an all motor fleet of refrigerated trucks allowing city wide deliveries. At its height, the company distributed ice cream to 400 stores using 120 trucks.

Generations of Baltimoreans ate Hendler's ice cream from 1905 until the brand ceased to exist in 1971. Until the advent of supermarkets, most ice cream was eaten or purchased in containers from soda fountains. Along with quarts, Hendler introduced pint packaging which meant fountain owners did not have hand dip ice cream into containers. But his most popular packaging size was the "brick," a rectangle of ice cream where servings were sliced off, much like cutting a loaf of bread. Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry were by far the most popular flavors but Hendler had as many as fifty flavors including ginger and peppermint, licorice, eggnog made with pure rum, and tomato aspic, a special flavor served at the Southern Hotel.

Hendler's extra smooth ice cream gave it the slogan "The Velvet Kind," which was used on billboards and in windows of soda fountains and drugstores throughout Baltimore. Along with the slogan came an advertising symbol, the Kewpie doll, a smiling chubby baby. Created by artist Rose O'Neil in 1915, who licensed the character to Hendler as well as other businesses, the Kewpie was found on all Hendler advertising and promotions. O'Neil worked on commissions for Hendler in the late 1920s to create more Kewpie images.

In 1923, Hendler purchased a parcel directly to the north of 1100 East Baltimore to build 1107 East Fayette Street, a garage and storage warehouse totaling 150,000 square feet. The building housed Hendler's truck fleet which accessed Fayette and East Fairmount Streets through a series of garage doors. A tunnel under East Fairmount connected the two buildings.

Hendler owned the company until it was sold to Borden in 1929, but the family continued to run the Baltimore plant until the 1960s. In 1960, Borden constructed a one-story brick warehouse and loading dock that adjoined the original building and extended east to Aisquith Street. Hendler was an important member of Baltimore's Jewish business community, and the Creamery was part of Baltimore's long tradition of successful Jewish-owned businesses such as its department stores and clothing factories. Hendler served on various civic and secular boards and lived in a mansion on Lake Drive nicknamed "vanilla on the lake" off Eutaw Place, Baltimore's most fashionable address for most of the 20^th Century. Hendler Lane is named after the ice cream magnate.

The Borden Company ceased operations at the plant in the 1980s, and the building sat vacant until it was acquired by the City of Baltimore and was used as an employment training facility. The two buildings were expected to be renovated and converted into commercial office space by a private developer in 2007, but those plans fell through. Unfortunately, demolition of the complex began in June 2024.

Demolition of historic Hendler Creamery in Baltimore's Jonestown moves forward 7/30/2024

Site Description

The Hendler Creamery consists of two adjacent building complexes located in East Baltimore. The original building complex at 1100 East Baltimore Street, which encompasses a full city block bounded by East Fairmount Avenue, East Street, East Baltimore and Aisquith streets, contains a 59,340 square foot brick Romanesque Revival cable-car powerhouse built in 1892, with additions done in 1915-20 and 1949, and is connected to a one-story brick building built in the 1960s that extends east to Aisquith Street. The other building complex at 1107 East Fayette Street, a 33,504 square foot brick warehouse structure built from 1923-27, is located directly north across East Fairmount Avenue and contains a first-floor garage with a partial second and third story above. It extends from East Fairmount Avenue to East Fayette Street and from Aisquith Street along East Fayette Street. The buildings at 1100 East Baltimore Street are in good condition with the exception of roof leaks in the 1892 building. The building at 1107 East Fayette Street is in good condition.

The Hendler Creamery was located in the former Baltimore City Passenger Railway cable-car powerhouse located at the southwest corner of East Street and East Baltimore Street. It extends 92' to the east and extends 172' north to East Fairmount Avenue. It is a brick bearing wall structure with steel roof trusses and a slate roof.

The south or front elevation which faces East Baltimore Street is constructed of red face brick with red mortar joints and Seneca stone trim and consists of a 57' high, 44' wide center gable roof section flanked by 45' high, 24' wide bays. The center section has a stone water table spanning four pairs of rectangular basement window openings infilled with plywood. Four feet above the water table are four large contiguous Romanesque Revival half-round arched openings with the original double hung windows which are now hidden behind an infill of brick. Directly above them are four pairs of rectangular window openings that are infilled with plywood, some of the original window frames remain behind them. Above these windows are eight contiguous rectangular window openings which are infilled with plywood. A cluster of four round engaged columns of molded brick with stone capitals and bases separate each of the four arched and eight contiguous rectangular windows. In the tympanum of the pediment is a pair of half-round arched openings flanked by rectangular openings which are infilled with plywood; no window units remain. At the first floor, which is five feet above street level, the east flanking bay contains an arched opening with a door and transom and the west bay contains an identical opening that has been altered to create a garage door opening. Above these are three rectangular window openings that are infilled with plywood; some window units remain. Directly above the three windows in each bay is a continuous corbelled brick cornice that extends around the entire building. Above this cornice in both bays is another story containing a pair of half-round arched double hung windows separated by the same clustered column detail as below. Above the windows is an identical corbelled brick cornice that is at the same height as the bottom of the center pediment. To the right of the east bay is another bay containing a large infilled window opening at the first floor level above which is a grouping of three rectangular window openings that are infilled with plywood; some window units remain. Above these windows are a grouping of half-round arched double-hung windows that match the units in the flanking bays. No window units remain. The bays are topped with a continuous corbelled brick cornice that extends around the entire building.

The west elevation along East Street consists of four half-round arched openings that extend to the street level and have been infilled with brick or plywood. Between two of the openings are two half-round arched window openings that have the arch areas infilled with plywood; some double hung window remain. Above these openings are rectangular window openings that have been infilled. Some window units remain. Directly above is a corbelled brick cornice identical to one on the south elevation and above it is a series of rectangular window openings that extend to East Fairmount Avenue and are infilled with plywood; some double hung windows remain.

The east elevation consists of rectangular window openings at the upper level with a one-story addition below that is connected to a 1960s addition.

The rear or north facade along East Fairmount Avenue consists of four half-round arched doors on the first floor which have been infilled with brick and steel doors and a roll up door. Above them are a series of rectangular windows topped by a corbelled brick cornice that extends around the entire building. Above the cornice are six half-round arched openings which have been infilled with plywood; no window units remain. The tympanum of the pediment contains a 3' diameter oculus which as been infilled; no window unit remains.

The original 1892 design was altered in 1915-1920, when the Hendler Company added the eastern-most bay for a laboratory and another story on the south, west, and north elevations above the original cornice that matched a floor constructed in 1903 for a theater. A second story below the theater floor was added and windows were inserted into the existing exterior walls. The east facade originally had a series of half-round arched windows on the first floor that were enclosed by later additions. A 100' brick chimney originally stood adjacent to the east elevation but was cut down to approximately 30' and enclosed in subsequent additions.

The first floor, constructed of concrete with white glazed brick wainscoting, originally contained the 82' x 87' engine and cable-winding machinery room. Some offices have been created along the south wall. The steel structure that supports the second and third floors is exposed. The brick walls of the original boiler room and coal storage room in the rear of the first floor remain in place. A steel spiral stair along the south wall leads to the second floor and one in the middle of the first floor leads to the third floor. A freight elevator is located in the middle of the floor.

A stairway from the arched doorway in the original east bay leads up to a steel frame and concrete-slab second floor where the Hendler offices and board room were located. The rooms along the south wall have plaster walls and stained wood trim and are in fair to good condition. Beyond the offices to the rear of the building are open storage areas and freezer rooms. Offices have been created in some of the storage areas in the center section of the floor.

A stair from the office area leads to a hallway that leads to a theater located along the south wall directly behind the eight contiguous windows on the south elevation. The theater with stage is intact. The detailing of the auditorium interior is Adamesque-inspired with mirrors on the sidewalls. Dressing rooms for the performers behind the rear of the theater are intact. To the north of the theater hallway is open storage space where the original steel trusses are exposed. A separate steel spiral stair leads up to an attic. The spiral stair from the first floor terminates at the third.

The attic is a wood framed space that is open from the front to the back of the building with the exception of the freight elevator. The steel roof trusses and the underside of the slate roofing are exposed to view.

The original powerhouse engine room had a 38' high ceiling which came up to the existing attic level. A floor was installed for the theater in 1903 and Hendler installed a floor beneath it in 1915-1920. A one-story addition was built in 1949 next to the east elevation which extended to East Fairmount Avenue.

In the 1960s, the Borden Company, which had purchased Hendler in 1929, constructed a one-story brick warehouse and loading dock which is part of the 1100 East Baltimore Street complex.

From 1923 to 1927, Hendler built a 216' x 105' garage and warehouse with a partial second and third story above. It is constructed of reinforced concrete with a brick exterior and flat built-up roof. The building also contains a basement which once had a tunnel connection to the 1100 East Baltimore Street building.

The north elevation along East Fayette Street contains three original garage door openings with window openings between them. They have been infilled with brick with new windows and door openings.

The east elevation, which originally was brick has been stuccoed over with cement plaster, contains the three-story section which has an original garage door at the first floor and four original window openings on the second floor; new window units have replaced the original units. The original windows on the first and third floors have been bricked in and stuccoed over.

The first floor of the south elevation contains eight garage-door openings that have been infilled with brick; one with new doors. The original window opening has been infilled on the first floor of the three-story section while a new window has been installed at the second floor and the original window unit remains at the third floor The second story contains all eight original window openings; new window units have replaced the originals.

The garage space is completely open except for an enclosed space in the southeast corner that contains a freight elevator and an enclosed space in the southwest corner containing a stair to the second floor and basement. The reinforced concrete structure is exposed and is in poor to fair condition.

The second floor, which originally was open warehouse space, was divided into classroom and office space for Baltimore City employment training programs. The second windows on the north elevation are replacement units.