David Scott Desmarais, who owned a dry-cleaning delivery business and promoted the city and his neighborhood, died of cancer Friday at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Northeast Baltimore resident was 46.
Born in Boston, he moved to Baltimore's Northwood neighborhood in 1962 when his father, Kenneth Desmarais - a radio personality who uses the on-air name Jackson - took a job at WCBM-AM.
A 1976 graduate of Calvert Hall College High School, Mr. Desmarais earned a bachelor's degree in English from Randolph Macon College in Ashland, Va., where he wrote a paper on the city's Inner Harbor and dollar-house renaissance.
FOR THE RECORD - David Scott Desmarais: An obituary in yesterday's editions for David Scott Desmarais misidentified one of his survivors, his close friend Ellen Jenkins of Baltimore. The Sun regrets the error.
"I knew I was a true Baltimorean when I found myself defending the city against people who didn't know anything about it," he told The Sun for a 1993 profile. "I began to get this emotional sense: `Hey, I'm from Baltimore,' and decided to educate myself so I could defend it with some knowledge."
"David absolutely loved Baltimore and made the city his hobby," said his mother, Anne Desmarais.
After graduation, Mr. Desmarais became an assistant manager of the old W. Bell & Co. catalog gift and luggage store at Charles and Redwood streets and later worked in membership development for the Downtown Partnership.
About 15 years ago he went into business for himself. He owned Park Charles Cleaners, a Charles Center service picking up and delivering clothing for downtown patrons. In the mid-1990s, it became Dave's Dry Cleaning, and he expanded the business to include cleaning for film production companies and Center Stage.
"He gave the best customer service," said Amanda Johnson, a costume designer assistant for the HBO television series The Wire. "He would pick up pounds and pounds of clothes, and sure enough I would have it all back right when we needed it."
In 1993 he acquired a set of auto tags with the inscription, BAWLMER, which he used on his 1982 Subaru and later on delivery vans.
"It's a way of letting people know that I love the city," he told The Sun. "I don't pretend to be the epitome of the Baltimore `hon' person, but I'm not poking fun either. When Motor Vehicles [Administration] said you could put seven characters on a tag instead of six, I rushed down to claim the plate."
Mr. Desmarais was fascinated by Baltimore history, architecture and neighborhoods, which he often visited while delivering clothes.
