Balcony

A 23-month-old Laurel girl was in critical but stable condition after falling off a fourth-story apartment balcony early yesterday morning, police said.The parents of Rene Saulsbury told police they awoke at about 4 a.m. yesterday to the sounds of a child crying. The parents, whose names were not available, said they searched the apartment in the 100 block of Charlotte Drive before realizing the sounds were coming from outside, police said.Checking the balcony, they said, they looked down and saw the girl lying in the grass below.

Lost City Diner materialized in Charles North last August. Now, the fountain shop and late-night stop has shut itself down. Don't worry, though — its owner, Joy Martin, said it's an intermission. Martin, who also own the Club Charles, gave no firm date for the reopening of Lost City. In an email, she said she's "just closing to do some renovations to the kitchen and try to get my sign up. " When Lost City Diner opened suddenly last summer, it seemed to be the final chapter of a long-running serial that played out for years on the corner of Charles and Lanvale streets, half a block up from the Club Charles Lost City Diner, when it revealed itself, was beautiful, with antique fixtures and fanciful retro-industrial elements gorgeously evoking the giddy atmosphere of a Buck Rogers serial from the 1930s.

Four British men were hospitalized early today after falling two stories from an Ocean City apartment balcony and landing on the Boardwalk, police said.Ocean City police said the accident occurred about 2:40 a.m. when a balcony railing collapsed at an apartment above Trimper's Rides at the south end of the resort town.Andrew Ratcliffe and Martin Harrington, the two most seriously injured, were taken to Peninsula General Medical Center in Salisbury.Mr. Ratcliffe was listed in critical condition with a head injury.

Some of my favorite haunts in old Baltimore occupied me over a recent Sunday afternoon. On the first day of the week, I was in two historic churches, St. Ignatius on North Calvert Street and St. Alphonsus on Saratoga, home of the Latin Mass and a very handsome set of newly restored 19th-century stained-glass windows. There was time for a quick run through the Walters Art Museum's Greek artifact show and the Hippodrome matinee of "Dreamgirls." It was a cool winter day, with the flattering natural lighting from a setting sun. Ancient downtown Baltimore appeared much restored, cleaned and painted, physically in far better shape than some sketchy years in the 1990s.

A man in his 20s slipped from a balcony and plunged eight floors to his death last night at the George B. Murphy Homes housing project in West Baltimore, city police said.They said the man, whose identity police withheld because relatives had not been notified, was attempting to climb from an eighth-floor balcony to a ninth-floor balcony at approximately 9 p.m. when he apparently slipped and fell.He was taken to University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.The concrete balconies on the four 14-story high-rises were linked to another tragedy last year.

A 2-year-old Harford County girl was listed in stable condition last night after falling 20 feet from the balcony of her townhouse onto some concrete, said state police. Cpl. Daniel Fairburn said the child, whose name was not released, climbed onto a bicycle kept near the railing of a balcony at her home in the 1700 block of Fountain Rock Way in Edgewood. The girl's mother rushed to prevent her from falling, but the girl fell and landed on her head about 3:20 p.m. before the mother could reached her, he said.

A 19-month-old girl suffered head injuries yesterday in a fall from a balcony overlooking a swimming pool at Notre Dame Preparatory School near Towson, Baltimore County police said. The toddler was walking with a 12-year-old girl toward a soda machine above the pool at the school on Hampton Lane about 5:20 p.m. when the girl stopped to talk to a friend, police said. The toddler wandered away and somehow fell off the railed balcony, landing nearly 20 feet below on the tile floor next to the pool.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A child's shriek startled Qinuo Van Dyk just as her husband leaped off their 15th-floor Miami Beach hotel room balcony to his death. The stunned mother walked out to the balcony and looked down to see his body on the roof above the third-floor mezzanine -- right next to the pajama-clad bodies of her 4- and 8-year-old boys. That's when she started screaming. "It's so horrific; it's almost unbelievable," said Officer Bobby Hernandez, spokesman for Miami Beach police.

Nowhere in the 1824 Anne Arundel Court House now being refurbished is the weight of history more apparent than in the cavernous upstairs courtroom and its gallery, where black residents say Jim Crow laws once segregated them.The upstairs courtroom was created in an early 1890s overhaul of the courthouse, which is the third oldest in Maryland. The building is being renovated as part of a $2.5 million project to turn it into a museum and gateway to the new Circuit Court building next door."I went up there as a lad to watch the trials," said George Phelps Jr., 72, who grew up on nearby South Street.

Five Baltimore County police officers -- including one who saved a woman from jumping off her 21st-floor apartment balcony -- were honored for courage, dedication and community service last night at an awards ceremony in Towson.Officer Joseph E. Yeater of the Towson Precinct received the highest of the Baltimore County Police Foundation awards, the Medal of Honor, for grabbing a woman as she leapt over the edge of her balcony Feb. 8, 1995.He managed to hold on as the woman kicked and thrashed, about 200 feet above the street.

Hall of Famer and former Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer wanted something a bit different when he was looking for new digs in the city a couple of years ago. "It's a unique apartment. It's worked well for me," Palmer said of his two-level condo in the Canal Street Malt House at the edge of Little Italy. It put him a short walk from many of his favorite restaurants and near the O's, for whom he's been a color analyst. "It's very tranquil." The loft-style condo in the reborn structure - it was built in 1866 to store malt for the city's growing brewing industry - has a modified industrial look with exposed ductwork and huge windows.

Exactly 150 years after the "Washington and Jefferson Snowstorm" dropped a record 3 feet of snow on the region, a 28-inch snowfall brought Washington its worst weather disaster ever. On Jan. 28, 1922, the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre fell beneath the weight of the snow and carried the balcony down with it. Ninety-eight moviegoers were killed and 158 were injured, some trapped for hours. News accounts said small boys crawled through the rubble to give the victims pain medication.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A child's shriek startled Qinuo Van Dyk just as her husband leaped off their 15th-floor Miami Beach hotel room balcony to his death. The stunned mother walked out to the balcony and looked down to see his body on the roof above the third-floor mezzanine -- right next to the pajama-clad bodies of her 4- and 8-year-old boys. That's when she started screaming. "It's so horrific; it's almost unbelievable," said Officer Bobby Hernandez, spokesman for Miami Beach police.

Theater `Golda's Balcony' Golda's Balcony, a one-woman show about Israeli Prime Minis ter Golda Meir, opens tonight at the Hippodrome, 12 N. Eutaw St. Set during the Yom Kippur War, the show features Valerie Harper portraying Meir as she faces questions whose answers helped mold the future of Israel. The show runs through May 21. Tickets are $24-$64. Call 410-547-SEAT.

WHEN WILLIAM GIBSON'S PLAY ABOUT Golda Meir, Golda's Balcony, opens at the Hippodrome on Tuesday with Valerie Harper as its star, Baltimore audiences may experience a bit of deja vu. Nearly three decades ago, another Gibson play about the Israeli prime minister played a pre-Broadway run at the Mechanic Theatre. It was not an event Gibson remembers fondly. GOLDA'S BALCONY -- May 9-21 -- Hippodrome Theatre, 12 N. Eutaw St. -- $24-$64 -- 410-547-SEAT

He likes political themes. A bit of danger. The unknown. No wonder director Harold Prince savored the experience of staging the original production of Evita in 1978. "I've never done a job I was more pleased with the result of and I thought we really nailed it and it was flying blind," Prince says from his office in New York's Rockefeller Center. Considering the scads of legendary shows that the 77-year-old has produced and/or directed, his feelings about Evita run particularly deep.

A $3 million face lift of downtown Baltimore's 218-year-old Lexington Market would add larger windows, lighted signs, a balcony for outdoor dining and a 45-foot-tall globe with a digital display reading "World Famous Lexington Market." The renovation, which a city architectural review committee will begin reviewing today, is intended to make the market more attractive as the city helps lead a $350 million rebuilding of the struggling neighborhood around it. The panel will approve or reject the renovation in the coming months.

THE MAGIC began on a Saturday afternoon when my parents, sister and I climbed the steps to the balcony of the Curran Theater in San Francisco. We took our seats. The lights dimmed, the overture began and a scene from Edwardian England appeared far below us. I was 7 years old. It was my first trip to the theater. And I was ready. Seven is young to be attending a full-length Broadway musical. As an adult theatergoer, I would not be pleased to find myself seated next to a child that age, especially when paying $100 for the ticket.