The Maryland Theater was a music venue in Baltimore, Maryland, home to that city's first jazz band, led by John Ridgely. It was originally built for James Lawrence Kernan (1838-1912) as a vaudeville house, in 1903, adjacent to his Hotel Kernan (later renamed the Congress Hotel). It included a rathskeller in the basement with some of the first music in town from a "jazz band" led by John Ridgley, at what became known later as "The Marble Bar", a musical venue even up to the 1980s. Located facing West Franklin Street, between North Paca Street and west of North Howard Street, which was one of the fanciest hotels in the city at the time constructed of Beaux Arts/Classical Revival style architecture. In the 1950s, the old Maryland Theatre was razed and temporarily replaced by a parking lot for the last days of the hotel.
The old Kernan/Congress Hotel was renovated and restored in 2004-2005 as apartments and condos by the locally famous architect and construction firm, Streuver Brothers, Eccles and Rouse as one of their last renewal projects of three decades in the city.
