Happy birthday, Billy!

In honor of my sister's birthday, I went on an F. Scott Fitzgerald pilgrimage here in Baltimore, and here are the results. Fitzgerald had important family ties to Baltimore; he was named, after all, for his relative Francis Scott Key, one of Baltimore' most famous citizens. Some of the most difficult years of Fitzgerald's life were spent in Baltimore. But Fitzgerald seems to have enjoyed Baltimore as well; I found the following quote in an article about Fitzgerald's time in Baltimore:

Baltimore is warm, but pleasant - I love it more than I thought. It is so rich with memories. It is nice to look up the street and see the statue of my great-uncle (Francis Scott Key.) And to know Poe is buried here and that many ancestors of mine have walked in the old town by the bay. I belong here, where everything is civilized and gay and rotted and polite. And I wouldn't mind a bit if in a few years Zelda and I could snuggle up together under a stone in some graveyard here. That is a really happy thought and not melancholy at all.

On 12 February 1932, Fitzgerald brought his wife Zelda to the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic of the Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore. This is where Zelda completed her novel, Save Me The Waltz.

On 30 March 1932, Fitzgerald left Alabama and stayed at the Hotel Rennert, which stood at the corner of Saratoga and Liberty streets; it has since been torn down. Here's a picture from an old postcard.


From 20 May 1932 to November 1933, Fitzgerald rented "La Paix," a house on the Turnbull estate in Towson, just outside of Baltimore. There, Fitzgerald completed Tender is the Night, and when Zelda was discharged from the Phipps clinic, she came to live there. I read somewhere that "La Paix" was torn down to make room for St. Josephs Medical Center; I went to Lapaix Lane in Towson to see if there was anything to see, but no luck. But here's a picture from the Maryland Historical Society; you can see more pictures, including interior shots, here.


On 26 June 1933, Zelda's play Scandalabra opened for a one week run by Vagabond Junior Players. Here's the Vagabond Theatre, at 806 S. Broadway in Fells Point.


In December 1933, Fitzgerald rented a house at 1307 Park Avenue, in Bolton Hill. It's the house in the middle with the unfortunate dark gray paint job. It was hard to find a spot on the street to take a good picture. There's a plaque on the front that says that Fitzgerald lived there, but since it was between two open windows that look right into the living room, there was no way of taking a picture without seeming really, really creepy.


A few blocks away, at the corner of Bolton and Wilson streets, is a small park named for Fitzgerald. There's not much there, unfortunately.


Fitzgerald stayed at Johns Hopkins Hospital nine times. The first was in August 1932, when he had a tentative diagnosis of typhoid fever. He would also be hospitalized for alcoholism and chronic inactive fibroid tuberculosis. Fitzgerald wrote half a dozen stories about Hopkins, including "One Interne."


Zelda suffered a relapse and returned to the Phipps clinic on 12 February 1934. On 19 May 1934, Zelda was transferred to Sheppard-Pratt Hospital outside of Baltimore.


In September 1935, Fitzgerald rented an apartment at the Cambridge Arms on Charles Street. This is now Wolman Hall, a residence hall at the Johns Hopkins University Homewood Campus. In 1937, Fitzgerald left Baltimore for good and went to Hollywood.


And that concludes the tour. Apparently there's a book on Fitzgerald and Baltimore out there, so I'm going to see if I can get my hands on it. And of course, if you come to Baltimore, I'll show you around myself.