NEWS
By Susan Reimer | August 28, 2009
Just add water. That's all that was left for the residents of the East Baltimore neighborhood of Oliver to do after a vegetable garden and urban sanctuary were installed in a single day in a vacant lot in the 1300 block of N. Central Ave. Eight raised beds were filled with clean soil and planted with 150 vegetable seedlings Thursday. Around the perimeter, 400 perennials, herbs and shrubs were planted, plus 30 trees to shield the oasis from traffic noise. All planted in time for Mayor Sheila Dixon to cut the ribbon at the end of the day. "The vegetables that come out of this garden," said the mayor, "will help others make the change to greener and healthier living."
NEWS
By Lorraine Mirabella | July 26, 2009
As if on cue during an event to mark the Baltimore City Fire Department's 150th year, sirens shrieked and ladder trucks raced up North Gay Street just minutes after the fire chief stepped up to the podium. "That noise is a working fire going on," James S. Clack, chief of the city's Fire Department, told the crowd of onlookers, firefighters and officials who gathered Saturday at War Memorial Plaza downtown. "If it gets any bigger, we might all have to leave." Speeches praising the department's dedication and perseverance would be interrupted twice more as a fire under way on Belair Road went to two alarms, then three.
NEWS
By Annie Linskey | December 6, 2008
The Baltimore City Fire Department is considering reducing its budget next year by ending the practice of filling vacant shifts by paying overtime, meaning that some truck or engine companies could be shut down on days with staff shortages, Fire Chief James S. Clack said yesterday. The proposed policy, known as "rotating company closures," could save the department $5.5 million in overtime expenditures, Clack said. Mayor Sheila Dixon directed all city agencies last month to reduce their budgets to save $65 million next year.
NEWS
By Edward Gunts | May 18, 2008
A rare example of Baltimore's architectural history was nearly lost several years ago when an 1871 firehouse on West Mulberry Street was torn down to make way for redevelopment. It was the only firehouse in Baltimore -- and one of the last surviving buildings in the city -- whose first-floor front facade was made of cast iron, a popular local building material in the 1800s, but not in use today. A quick thinking preservationist saw the demolition work under way and managed to salvage the largest cast-iron pieces before they were carted off for scrap metal.
NEWS
By Jacques Kelly | April 24, 2008
John T. O'Mailey, a retired firefighter who spent decades as secretary of the Baltimore City Fire Department's board and was an early advocate of hiring African-American firefighters, died of cancer Tuesday at the Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The longtime Belair-Edison and Towson resident was 91. Born in Baltimore and raised on Llewelyn Avenue, among other East Baltimore addresses, he attended City College for a year before dropping out to take a job. He attended night school and later earned a General Education Development certificate.
NEWS
By Frederick N. Rasmussen | April 6, 2008
Thomas Joseph Baginski, a retired Baltimore City Fire Department battalion chief whose career spanned 41 years, died of cancer March 30 at Good Samaritan Hospital. The Parkville resident was 72. Mr. Baginski, who was born and raised in Baltimore, was a 1953 graduate of Calvert Hall College High School, where he played varsity football. He served in the Army for several years before joining the Fire Department in 1958. He was promoted to pump operator and lieutenant in 1964, and captain six years later.
NEWS
By Jacques Kelly | February 7, 2008
Joseph Anthony Mirabile, a retired Baltimore City Fire Department captain who fought the Tru-Fit Clothing store blaze in 1955, died of renal failure complications Monday at his Dundalk home. He was 86. Born in Baltimore and raised in Little Italy, he attended St. Leo's parochial and city public schools and later earned a General Education Diploma. He studied marine drawing at the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts and won the school's Peabody Prize in 1956. He joined the Navy in 1939 and served in the Pacific during World War II. Stationed at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he was aboard a ship that left the naval base three days before the Japanese attack.
NEWS
By Ruma Kumar | December 29, 2007
The "I love you" and "Rest in peace" notes scribbled on the wooden boards barricading the hollow windows of 1903 Cecil Ave. have begun to fade. But everything about the May blaze in an East Baltimore rowhouse that killed eight of her neighbors - five of them children - remains vivid for Anita Paige. After 14 years on this block, Paige says she is living more carefully: making sure not to leave the kitchen while a pot of soup's bubbling on the stove, clearing clothes away from her water heater and checking to see that her smoke detector works.
NEWS
By Madison Park and James Drew | November 25, 2007
Federal investigators are trying to determine why 12 railcars of a CSX freight train jumped the track yesterday morning near M&T Bank Stadium, just blocks from the site of the 2001 derailment and subsequent Howard Street Tunnel fire that burned for a week and paralyzed freight traffic along the East Coast. Nobody was hurt in yesterday's incident, which tied up traffic in the Camden Yards area for hours, but there were eerie similarities to the previous derailment, which sent plumes of acrid smoke into the air and forced evacuations.
NEWS
October 24, 2007
Francis E. "Frank" Uhlhorn III, a retired Baltimore firefighter whose career spanned nearly four decades, died of cancer Oct. 10 at his Catonsville home. He was 65. Born in Baltimore and raised on Carrollton Avenue, Mr. Uhlhorn was a 1960 graduate of Edmondson High School. He followed his father and an uncle when he joined the Baltimore City Fire Department in 1970. He spent most of his career as a firefighter and lieutenant and was longtime captain of No. 8 Truck on Frederick Avenue.