Baltimore is ushering in the winter holiday season with the lighting of the city’s Washington Monument at Mount Vernon Place on Thursday, Dec. 7, from 5 to 8 p.m.
Fireworks will light up the sky at 8 p.m. The fireworks display is designed by Baltimore-based Image Engineering.
This will be the 52nd year for the Monument Lighting, which is being managed by the nonprofit Mount Vernon Place Conservancy.
The event will feature more than 20 local food and beverage vendors, offering sweet and savory foods, as well as beer, mead, wine, and hot and spiked cider.
“We’ve heard community feedback and have created a layout that we hope will be easy to navigate throughout the West, South, and North squares,” said Lance Humphries, the Conservancy’s executive director, in a statement. “We’ll be running five bars throughout these squares and have added a new item that we hope will fly off the shelves: delicious hot cider, available as-is or spiked.”
Attendees can find a map of the vendors on the Conservancy’s website.
Holiday musical entertainment will be provided by members of the Baltimore School
for the Arts, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s OrchKids, the Emmanuel Episcopal Church Choir, the Peabody Brass Ensemble, the Noah Pierre Band, and the Morgan State University Choir.
“There will be lots of excitement and joy in the air!” Humphries said.
Fox 45 new anchor Patrice Sanders will be the emcee for the event.
The Mount Vernon Place Conservancy, which also oversees the city’s Flower Mart, was founded in 2008. Baltimore City partnered with the nonprofit in 2012 to help oversee the restoration, management and maintenance of the Washington Monument and Mount Vernon Place’s four park squares.
The Conservancy reopened the Washington Monument in 2015 after a restoration project. Next, the nonprofit will work to improve the accessibility and sustainability of the North and South Squares.
“While we’ve restored the Washington Monument,” Humphries said, “there remains much work to do to restore the parks for the future. If you look closely, the historic fabric is literally crumbling. We are currently in the middle of a $12 million capital campaign to restore the North and South Squares.”
So sorry we missed this event