Bromo Tower and ... Beatles
On one overseas business trip in 1978, I got to spend a weekend in Florence, Italy. At one point during a stroll around that beautiful city, I looked up and suddenly saw a familiar sight - the Bromo Tower of Baltimore!Actually, it was the Palazzo Vecchio, but architect Joseph Evans Sperry used the tower of this 14th-century structure as inspiration for the 1911 Emerson Bromo-Seltzer Tower. Sperry's client was Captain Isaac Emerson, a sea captain and inventor of Bromo Seltzer.
The 15-story tower was originally topped by a 51-foot revolving replica of the deep-blue Bromo Seltzer bottle. Brightly illuminated at night, ships sailing up the Chesapeake to Baltimore would navigate by it. Until the Baltimore Trust Company Building claimed the title in 1924, the Bromo Tower was the tallest structure in Baltimore.
Since 1936, the Bromo Tower has been bottle-less, and by the sixties, the building itself had deteriorated.
The Baltimore Office of Promotion and Arts did a great job renovating the Bromo Tower just a few years ago. The former office building is now leased out as studios for artists.
In the photo above, the curved shape is the revolving rooftop restaurant of the Holiday Inn. Well, it doesn't revolve anymore, and the restaurant, Circle One closed in 1974, but there it is. It's only claim to fame is that the Beatles, on September 13, 1964, played a concert at Baltimore's Civic Center, just across the street, and then stayed overnight in the then-brand-new hotel. By the way, they did get to dine in the revolving rooftoop restaurant, and back then, it did revolve.
Labels: Architecture, Baltimore, Beatles, Bromo Tower, Canon A630, Composition, Silhouette
posted by Steve Rosenbach at 1:47 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
At first glance, i thought this WAS the Palazzo Vecchio :). Then I noticed the modern structure next to it.
Just my opinion, but perhaps this one is just a smidge too dark? Maybe dodge some of the highlights, like the very top of the curved shape to accentuate it.
--WT
Thanks, Warren - I wondered that myself. I pulled it off of Ben's camera a lunch today at work, and there I only have Picassa - I'll try some more subtle manipulation in PSE at home.
Steve, i viewed the picture on a different monitor, and tried changing angles, etc. on the original monitor, and my opinion now is that it's fine the way it is. Not too dark after all. :)
--WT
Steve,
While we are here on the east coast we want to get to Europe and see some of the great sites similar to this. Like Warren I would like to see more of the details, but the darkness hides them. Did you do this on purpose?
Hi Dolph,
Yes, I darkened it on purpose, hoping to emphasize the shapes and the contrast between the 1911 and the 1964 architecture.
Also, the Holiday Inn itself is not very good-looking in detail ;-)
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