The brew pub and restaurants planned for Westminster's century-old Main Street firehouse will include the area's first sports bar -- showcasing memorabilia from the extensive collection of local broadcaster Ted Patterson.
Grading began last week on John Street for construction of the new station for the Westminster Fire Engine and Hose Company No. 1, which is expected to move next fall.
After the move, restoration of the vacated firehouse at 66 E. Main St. should be a matter of months, because the work will be almost entirely cosmetic, said Dr. Kenneth Crawford, a retired physician who heads C&C Restaurant Group of Bel Air.
He said the beer-brewing equipment will take up one of the three bays, while the other two will become a more formal restaurant. The large social hall at the rear will become a casual sports bar with "huge-screen TV" and museum-quality displays from Patterson's collection.
Patterson, sports director at radio station WPOC-FM, said he has posters dating from the mid-1880s in a collection that probably numbers nearly a million items -- including jerseys, hats, bats, balls, programs, pennants, pins and cards.
The agreement came about because Crawford "helped to save TC my son's life," Patterson said. His son Michael, now 21, had a brain hemorrhage in January 1992 and had been given last rites -- but the doctor stabilized him, and he recovered over the next year.
Patterson said he ran into Crawford recently, "and he came over to look at my stuff and offered me a deal."
His memorabilia represents a lifetime of collecting, Patterson said, with an emphasis on the Orioles and the Baltimore Colts. But uniforms from George Brett, Wade Boggs, Bob Feller and Rocky Colavito mingle with those of Brooks and Frank Robinson, Boog Powell, Eddie Murray and Jim Palmer, some from 1925.
"The caps go further back and the game-used bats and advertising pieces back to the turn of the century, [with] players endorsing tobacco that 'doesn't make me short of breath.'
"I have practically every yearbook of every team, and score cards back to the 1890s," Patterson said.
Majority is baseball
About three-quarters of the collection relates to baseball, said Patterson, author of several books about the Orioles, including "The Baltimore Orioles: 40 Years of Magic from 33rd Street to Camden Yards."
Patterson said he's also trying to whittle a 1,000-page book on sports announcers and broadcasting that's based upon decades tape-recorded interviews.
