Pic(k) of the Week: The American Brewery, in Baltimore, Maryland.

The American Brewery building was once a symbol of a thriving East Baltimore neighborhood. Victorian Gothic in architectural style, it looked as if a red monument on a hill.

The brewery would close in 1973, a victim of industry consolidation. And, for forty years thereafter, this magnificent 30,000 square-foot brewery building, listed in the National Registry of Historic Sites, would stand abandoned (but, fortunately, intact).

In 2009, it would be renovated to serve as headquarters for Humanim —a not-for-profit organization serving individuals with disabilities. Funds were provided in part by the State of Maryland’s Heritage Structure Rehabilitation Tax Credit and the federal Historic/New Market Tax Credits. Most of the equipment and tanks are long gone, but the restoration, especially to the exterior, was done accurately.

Humanim offered guided tours of the building as part of Baltimore Beer Week: 26 October 2013.

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• Baltimore historian Alexander D. Mitchell IV was integral in creating these tours, and assisted in leading them.
• More photos from the tour: here.
• Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of personal photos, often posted on Saturdays, and often, but not always, with a good fermentable as a subject. Camera: Olympus Pen E-PL1.
• Commercial reproduction requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.