American Brewery

THE VIEW from the top of the long-vacant American Brewery is breathtaking: Downtown skyscrapers glisten in the distance; so do the Johns Hopkins medical campus and the harbor. But back on the ground, the view is shocking: Abandoned rowhouses pockmark the neighborhood around the old brewery in the 1600 block of N. Gay St. Even a Rite Aid store, constructed with great political fanfare just six years ago, is shuttered. Yet there is some good news. After more than a decade of false starts, renewal has come to the American Brewery complex.

Nearly a decade after Baltimore's vacant and deteriorated American Brewery was placed on a local "endangered landmarks" list, there's new reason for optimism that it finally might be on the way to restoration. Construction began last month on a $10 million project that will transform much of the former brewery property in the 1700 block of N. Gay St. to a senior living center by mid-2002. Now one of Baltimore's most hard-charging developers - Struever Bros. Eccles and Rouse - tentatively has agreed to work with the nonprofit Council for Economic and Business Opportunity to develop a plan to restore the pagoda-like brew house.

It is one of those architectural oddities that lend the Baltimore skyline more than a little distinction, while at the same time arousing the curiosity of those who appreciate offbeat buildings.Standing on a hill in the 1700 block of North Gay Street, the abandoned American Brewery rises up from the street, a massive red brick structure grown dingy and weary with age, its pagoda-like tower visible for miles.Placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, the former brewery has served as a backdrop for movies and this season even figured in an episode of "Homicide."

There is no finer example of a Victorian industrial structure in Baltimore City than the old American Building in the 1700 block of Gay Street. Standing on a hill, this temple of Bacchus rises over the surrounding rowhouse community like a magical storybook castle.After years of vandalism and false starts, the badly decayed American Brewery complex finally seems destined for renovation.Using a combination of city loans, state and federal grants as well as historic tax credits, the Council for Economic and Business Opportunity is in the process of putting together a $1.5 million package to turn the bottling wing into a flexible manufacturing center for light industrial business.