Armistead Gardens

Some places just can't get a break. Here are the people of Armistead Gardens in East Baltimore, striving to eke out an existence in a neighborhood hemmed in by highways, heavy industry and a city incinerator.The neighborhood is a stone's throw from a decrepit stretch of Pulaski Highway, pimpled and pockmarked by no-tell motels and seedy, windowless bars. A body gets carried out of one of the establishments every so often. Prostitutes -- females dressed as females or, occasionally, males dressed as females, according to police -- saunter up and down the highway; in a reverse tug-of-war, city officers push the hookers north and county vice detectives repel them south again.

A lawsuit challenging both the Maryland Court of Appeals ruling that pit bulls are "inherently dangerous" and a Baltimore landlord's decision to ban the animals from its property to avoid liabilities created under the ruling was recently amended to include the state's governor, attorney general and chief appeals judge as defendants. Gov. Martin O'Malley, Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler and Chief Judge Robert M. Bell are all being sued personally but within their official capacities, according to the amended complaint, which was filed Sunday night.

Residents of East Baltimore's Armistead Gardens have asked the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center to set up shop in their small working-class community, where there are a large number of elderly people who need health care but have difficulty traveling to nearby medical centers."

Dolores M. Soul, a retired Maryland State Department of Education official, died Monday of cancer at Future Care Charles Village. She was 70. Dolores Mary Soul was born at home on Rose Street and was a 1957 graduate of Catholic High School. She was a graduate of the University of Baltimore, where she earned an accounting degree. A certified public accountant, she also held a bachelor's degree from what is now Loyola University Maryland. Ms. Soul was the section chief for general accounting for the state education department for 35 years.

Sean Roberts is realistic about his Armistead Gardens community of small rowhouses in a semi-isolated section of northeast Baltimore."It certainly isn't the best neighborhood, but it's not the worst," Mr. Roberts said yesterday as the city's police commissioner stood nearby. "We don't want it to get any worse." He said the community is threatened by a budding drug trade and is hoping that a legal crackdown by Baltimore police and prosecutors can nip the problem.Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier and Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy held a news conference at the 1,500-home complex yesterday to announce the filing of civil lawsuits against five residents under the state's nuisance abatement law.Mr.

More than 150 police officers swept through Armistead Gardens in Northeast Baltimore yesterday afternoon hoping to break up a ring of teen-age drug dealers who they said were relatives and friends of another drug gang busted eight months ago."I stood here on this very corner and watched the cops arrest the older brothers of the people we are locking up today," said police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier, standing at Quantril Way and Harper Way. "We are going to keep coming back here until this behavior stops."

It's not the exotic dance club advertised as a "House of Latin Fire" that bothers Denise Jeannetta. It's not even the prostitutes in skin-tight vinyl jeans who cruise the median strip a quarter-mile from her home.But when a discount adult video store opened at the entrance to her East Baltimore neighborhood, Ms. Jeannetta decided it was time to fight back.Her neighbors in Armistead Gardens, a tidy working-class community off Pulaski Highway and Erdman Avenue, also shuddered at the arrival of a shop specializing in sex, titillation and videotapes.

A Carroll County man was one of two people shot and killed early yesterday in Armistead Gardens in Northeast Baltimore, highlighting concerns by city police about the dangers to suburban residents involved in the drug trade.The 40-year-old Hampstead man is the third person from Carroll County killed in Baltimore this year during apparent drug disputes, all coming at a time when police have noted an unusual surge of arrests of cocaine and heroin users from outside the city.The incident highlights a circle of drug activity in which high-level dealers and struggling addicts from outside Baltimore use inner-city streets to conduct their business in transactions that often lead to violence.

They felt alone for the longest time, the hamlet of Armistead Gardens vs. the aging trash-burning plant less than a mile away; ordinary folks sick of a horizon that always looked gray, tired of the slimy soot that wafted their way from the Pulaski Incinerator.For years the fight was against City Hall. In 1981, when Baltimore sold the trash-burning plant to Willard J. Hackerman, residents had to battle the wealth and influence of the Whiting-Turning Construction Co. owner.It is amazing to the people of Armistead Gardens and their supporters that the little people seem to have won: Hackerman says he's ready to demolish the 41-year-old incinerator and donate the land to the communities that hounded him.Along the way, the fight against the incinerator picked up support from environmentalists, politicians and hundreds of residents in Belair-Edison, Rosedale, Beverly Hills, and other neighborhoods along the U.S. 40 corridor.

A recent spate of canine attacks has prompted the United States Postal Service to issue an ultimatum to 500 Armistead Gardens residents: Move your mailbox to the street, or your mail will not be delivered -- even if you don't own a dog.The new rule, announced March 19, may be the first regulation of its kind to be issued by the Postal Service in Baltimore, postal officials say.The department typically takes action against the owner of a troublesome pet...

CINCINNATI -- On the Ravens first offensive play, a 15-yard run by Jamal Lewis, the six friends from Baltimore experienced the hardships that can come from being part of a minority. Lewis' run earned the childhood buddies -- wearing purple from head to toe -- a negative reaction from the natives. They heard the taunts of a few of the surrounding Cincinnati Bengals fans, some aimed at the Ravens star running back and subsequently the team's road-warrior fans. "You just have to let it go," said Jeff Meyers after hearing a fan curse at his group, "because I know the beatings that some of the out-of-town fans get in our stadium.

With blocks and blocks of barrackslike buildings, Armistead Gardens is a throwback to World War II, when it was home to an army of out-of-town workers toiling in Baltimore's defense manufacturers. The 169-acre complex next to Herring Run Park in East Baltimore later became an unusual nonprofit housing cooperative. The 1,518-unit development is about to launch a bold experiment: It will sell 65 fix-up vacant units at cost. Some homes could go for as little as $5,000, predicted Leon Bonnell, a retired Sparrows Point worker and Armistead Gardens official.

Paul Darmofall, a folk artist whose glittering glass shard collages are esteemed by collectors worldwide and earned him the nickname of the Baltimore Glassman, died of a heart attack Sunday at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center at Perry Point. The Armistead Gardens resident was 78. "Whether it is glasphalt, the glittering bangles of Blaze Starr or the artwork of Paul Darmofall, they're all very Baltimore and known all over the world. And we ought to be proud of them," said Rebecca Hoffberger, founder and executive director of the American Visionary Art Museum.

Earlyn M. Crumbaker, a longtime Armistead Gardens activist, died of undetermined causes Wednesday at her daughter's home in Stone Mountain, Ga. She was 87. Earlyn McIntire was born and raised in Smithfield, W.Va., where she graduated from high school. During the late 1930s, she worked in a Wheeling, W.Va., confectionery store. After her 1939 marriage to John Henry Crumbaker, the couple settled on East North Avenue in Baltimore. Mr. Crumbaker, a firefighter at the Broening Highway plant of General Motors Corp.

William R. Miles Sr., 82, NSA division director William R. Miles Sr., a retired National Security Agency division director and former Navy submariner, died Sunday from complications of heart-bypass surgery at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 82 and lived in Catonsville. After 17 years at the NSA at Fort Meade, he retired in 1973. Born and raised on Walbrook Avenue in West Baltimore, Mr. Miles attended Polytechnic Institute before he enlisted in the Navy. He spent his entire career aboard submarines and, during World War II, completed 13 patrols in the Pacific.

Listed below, in descending order, are the 16 Baltimore schools that posted the highest gains in third-grade reading comprehension tests between fall 1997 and spring 1998, on citywide tests. Students took the California Diagnostic Reading Test last September; in May, they took the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills 4 Test.Scores are reported as grade equivalents, with 3.0 representing where third-graders should be at the beginning of the school year and 4.0 representing where they should be at the end of theschool year.

Wanda lifts a swollen hand to her face, scratches her nose and tells the eternal lie about quitting the heroin habit.Her eyelids are at half-mast, and her voice is the low grumble of the junkie as she talks about life on the street in the white glow of the Marylander Motel sign on Pulaski Highway."

Authorities raided residences in Armistead Gardens and Highlandtown in East Baltimore and Dundalk in Baltimore County yesterday afternoon and arrested at least 20 people, including nine juveniles and two women, on drug and weapons charges.During the raids, police seized 21 handguns and rifles, 2 pounds of marijuana, about 8 ounces of suspected crack cocaine, $10,000 and three automobiles.Lt. Paul Sheppard of the city's Northeastern District investigative operations section said the arrests were part of the department's effort to rid targeted neighborhoods of drugs, weapons and undesirable residents.

Developers of the $124 million Westin Hotel passed a key hurdle yesterday when the city Planning Commission approved the development plan for the project.Construction of the 600-room hotel at 300 E. Pratt St. will create 1,750 construction jobs, 430 permanent hotel jobs and 227 "spinoff" jobs, and the hotel will generate more than $5 million a year in annual tax revenues, according to city planners.The hotel will be privately funded. Construction is scheduled to begin by the end of the year and be completed by the end of 2000, according to developer Thomas Brodie of New York-based Schulweis Realty Co.Passenger killed as car collides with tanker truckAn unidentified man was killed last night when a car and an oil tanker truck collided at an intersection in a heavily industrial section of southern Baltimore, police said.

They felt alone for the longest time, the hamlet of Armistead Gardens vs. the aging trash-burning plant less than a mile away; ordinary folks sick of a horizon that always looked gray, tired of the slimy soot that wafted their way from the Pulaski Incinerator.For years the fight was against City Hall. In 1981, when Baltimore sold the trash-burning plant to Willard J. Hackerman, residents had to battle the wealth and influence of the Whiting-Turning Construction Co. owner.It is amazing to the people of Armistead Gardens and their supporters that the little people seem to have won: Hackerman says he's ready to demolish the 41-year-old incinerator and donate the land to the communities that hounded him.Along the way, the fight against the incinerator picked up support from environmentalists, politicians and hundreds of residents in Belair-Edison, Rosedale, Beverly Hills, and other neighborhoods along the U.S. 40 corridor.