When it was completed , the Belvedere , according to early accounts was considered " something of a sensation for Baltimore . " Over the years , it has figured prominently in Baltimore 's social , political and economic life , especially as it was located in a predominately tiny exclusive residential neighborhood , north of most of the other downtown hotels which were then clustered . In 1912 , former President of Princeton University and now Governor of New Jersey , Woodrow Wilson , once a graduate student at the newly established The Johns Hopkins University ( 1876 ) in the 1880s , living at nearby Druid Hill Avenue , stayed at the Belvedere Hotel while attending the 1912 Democratic National Convention , sited in Baltimore at the old Fifth Regiment Armory on North Howard Street nearby . That summer of 1912 convention nominated him for President versus incumbent Republican 27th President William Howard Taft and former 26th President Theodore Roosevelt in a landmark U.S. Presidential Election of 1912 , resulting in Democrat Wilson 's election as 28th President , the first Democrat since 22nd and 24th President Grover Cleveland in the 1880s and early 1890s
1912 Democratic National Convention
1912 Democratic National Convention
Belvedere Hotel