The Classic Building

The Classic Building. . Originally built for Henry Sonneborn and Company in 1895 and designed by the noted architect Charles E. Cassell, this structure housed some of the leading wholesale clothing manufactures in Baltimore in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The building stands on the former site of the famous Concordia Opera House and annex which was a center of German culture among the upper classes in Baltimore during the late 19th century. , Architecturally, the building features subtle, yet elegant details which include iron lintels adorned with iron rosettes, a metal cornice embellished with egg and dart molding and rolled stone modillions, and pilasters capped with Ionic capitals which clearly mark the structure bays of the building. This structure serves as a fine example of one of Baltimore’s earliest commercial loft buildings., In the early 1900’s Henry Sonneborn and Company, one of the largest clothing manufacturers in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, moved from this building to their new headquarters at the northwest corner of South Paca and West Pratt Streets. Around 1908, the L. Greif and Brother Company, founded in 1862 as manufacturers of men’s suits and overcoats, occupied the building and remained for nearly two decades. In the mid 1920’s the Strouse-Baer Company, producers of middy blouses for women and children under the “Jack Tar Togs” label, moved to this structure for more spacious quarters. Since the late 1930’s the building has had various occupants, one of which was the Classic Uniform Company in the 1950’s, which gave the building its present name.