Walter Sondheim Jr., 98; championed Baltimore’s downtown revival
Walter Sondheim Jr., 98, the civic and business leader who championed Baltimore’s downtown renaissance and guided the city through the desegregation of its schools, died Thursday of pneumonia at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore.
Sondheim in 1999 was named one of the most important and influential Marylanders of the 20th century.
He was considered one of the architects of downtown development and, as an early member of the Greater Baltimore Committee, pushed for projects such as the complex of office and apartments called Charles Center, the Maryland Science Center and the waterside development known as Inner Harbor, which helped revitalize the dying industrial city.
Sondheim was president of the Baltimore school board in the 1950s when it decided to desegregate a prestigious engineering course at the Polytechnic Institute in response to protests, two years before the U.S. Supreme Court mandated desegregation at public schools nationwide.
Sondheim held a number of civic posts after his retirement, including president of the state school board.
He was a native of Baltimore and graduated from Haverford College in Pennsylvania in 1929. During World War II he served in the Navy and was stationed in Cleveland.
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