October 15, 2000|By Joe Nawrozki and David Nitkin
IF EVER there was a sweet realization of the American Dream, it was celebrated in the blue-collar cornucopia of eastern Baltimore County.
The huge Bethlehem Steel plant at Sparrows Point employed 35,000, working around the clock in what was once the second largest steel mill in the world. Glenn L. Martin had 52,000 workers churning out combat aircraft for the boys on the front in World War II. And other employers such as the General Motors plant on Broening Highway, the shipyard at Sparrows Point, Eastern Stainless Steel in Eastpoint and the Western Electric facility at Point Breeze kept employment buzzing at a fever pitch.
Those milk-and-honey days are a misty memory, because many of those companies have moved, gone out of business or downsized.
Today, a battle rages over an ambitious east-side revitalization plan that some residents view as the latest slap in the face from the central government in Towson.
Others see it as the last hope.
The fight over Senate Bill 509 fills newspaper headlines, airwaves and Internet chat rooms. But a sense of local history is required to fully understand why the legislation has struck a populist, anti-government, anti-big business chord among some east-siders.
Years of fighting with county government and economic hardship caused by the global economy have left some east-siders with a mistrust of change. Their cynicism runs so deep that they see Senate Bill 509 as a thinly veiled land grab by the county to help rich developers. They do not accept the county's pitch that SB 509 is merely a way to restore vibrancy to blighted areas.
Baltimore County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger proposed Senate Bill 509 in January. He is seeking condemnation power so the county can acquire 310 properties in Essex-Middle River and Dundalk on the county's east side and in Randallstown on the west side. The land might wind up in the hands of private developers.
Ruppersberger concedes that he made a major political mistake -- one that he has publicly apologized for many times -- when he failed to consult east-side residents to win their support.
"They just don't want change. The issue has turned people against each other; it's turned into a civil war," said Don Crockett, an organizer of the annual Essex Day Festivaland an Essex resident for 40 years. "If this effort fails, Essex will become an endangered species. The life preserver has been tossed to us, and if we don't grab it, Essex will sink like the Titanic."
Across the 1940s into the mid-1960s, thousands of well-paying jobs were filled with those who survived the Depression and combat in Europe, Africa and the hellholes of the Pacific. They delighted in having a good job to feed their families. Every day was a gift, hard work a matter of pride.
But by the mid-1960s, forces such as foreign competition, automation and plant closings ripped the soul out of Essex, Middle River, Dundalk and other communities in eastern Baltimore County. Some retirees moved to Rosedale, Perry Hall and Harford County. Others followed the work elsewhere, but some stayed. And newcomers, many in poverty, swept into the east side and filled the void.
By the 1990s, the area had lost more than 70,000 jobs. "I don't recognize people there anymore," said Robert L. Hannon, Baltimore County's chief of economic development, who grew up in Essex and whose father still lives there. "Many with education, hard work and discipline moved out."
Vision of renewal
Hannon and Ruppersberger maintain that the revitalization plan would pump new life into areas suffering from neglect.
The plan for Essex-Middle River calls for new homes and a waterfront tourist destination that includes restaurants, shops and parks. Two blighted multifamily apartment communities have been demolished and another, the Villages of Tall Trees, is destined to be turned into dust when its 2,000 residents are relocated.
But the blueprint for the renewal effort, Senate Bill 509, carries with it condemnation power, which opponents see as a threat to fundamental property rights. As a result, Ruppersberger faces one of the most tumultuous fights of his political life as he tries to persuade voters to approve the measure in a Nov. 7 referendum.
"Saving those distressed communities on the east side has developed into a point of honor for me and I will not walk away from this," Ruppersberger said after a stormy "debate" at Kenwood High School on Oct. 4 with Del. James F. Ports Jr. of Perry Hall.
Recently, Ruppersberger sat in his Towson office and reflected on the past and on the current east-side battle.
"There has been governmental neglect there for a long, long time, and I moved ahead and put forth a plan for neighborhood renewal," said Ruppersberger, a Democrat. "I still believe that this law will pass because we are seeing lots of people not seen at the debates who I meet door-to-door. Once I have a chance to explain it, they are all for it."
But some who have heard the pitch aren't sold.
