Sep 07 2007
Fort McHenry’s New Visitor Center Moves forward
Today’s Baltimore Sun has an article about the new and improved visitor center to be built at Fort McHenry in Locust Point. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2009 and be completed in 2010. A new visitor center is long overdue. But I hope they keep the cool model of the fort - or build a better one.
Future visitors to Baltimore’s Fort McHenry will learn about its role in American history by taking part in an “immersive experience” that will enable them to witness a pivotal battle in the War of 1812 as if through the eyes of Francis Scott Key, the attorney who wrote the poem that became the national anthem.
Efforts to build a new visitor center for the fort in South Baltimore cleared a key hurdle yesterday when architects unveiled a final design for the project, which has been in the planning stages for more than a decade.
The current 5,700-square-foot center was designed to accommodate 125,000 to 150,000 visitors a year and was declared obsolete from the day it opened in 1964. The new center will be more than three times as large - 17,200 square feet - and was designed to handle 758,000 visitors a year, the number expected by 2010.
2 Comments to “Fort McHenry’s New Visitor Center Moves forward”
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Meanwhile, 30% of the toilets over at Carlsbad Caverns don’t work and the associated Visitor’s Center there hasn’t been upgraded since the mid 1960s. Carlsbad VC stinks, literally. Mt. Rainiers Vistor’s Center looks down right creepy and could definitely use some work. Shenandoah’s Panorama Visitor’s Center has been shuttered for years due to asbestos and there are no plans on the books to do anything about it. I found out the hard way there is no cohesive communications network between Visitor’s Centers over at Crater Lake. Funding is so bad at several parks that there are limited hours and limited services. The Wilderness Office over at the Olympics operates out of a trailer whose roof leaks.
Ft. McHenry has a perfectly good Visitors Center now with nary a flaw or repair needed. But we have Senator Cardin and all him power and might, and he wants a new center in a different place, so he is getting one. Perhaps this is a rare case where the squeaking wheel perhaps should squeak a little less.
Cham - good to here another point of view on this subject. Last time I was there it seemed nice enough, but I assume the new one will be “better and bigger”. Whether it’s needed or not is another story. Will the new center bring in more $? Will it lead them to increase admission? That would be a problem.