Mount Vernon is Baltimore's cultural and architectural centrepiece — the neighbourhood of wide streets, marble stoops, and the Washington Monument that feels most like a 19th-century American city ought to. The monument, completed in 1829, was the first major monument to George Washington in the country, and its column still dominates the neighbourhood from a slight rise.
The Walters Art Museum — free, extraordinary — anchors the western side of the neighbourhood. The Peabody Institute, one of the country's oldest conservatories, fills the neighbourhood with music students and occasional free concerts. Mount Vernon Square, the park surrounding the monument, is used for farmers markets and events. This is the neighbourhood for architecture walks and the kind of afternoon that starts at a museum and ends at a bar.