Baltimore Neighborhoods

The red-brick rowhouse facades of Baltimore's Bolton Hill neighborhood hold their own and are every bit as dreamy as Boston's Beacon Hill and Back Bay, Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square, New York City's Gramercy Park or Washington's Georgetown. The parameters of today's Bolton Hill are fairly recent, writes city historian, educator and author Frank R. Shivers Jr. in "Bolton Hill: Classic Baltimore Neighborhood. Blue Plaque Edition," published with the assistance of the Mount Royal Improvement Association and the Midtown Development Corp.

I grew up in Homeland in North Baltimore — a strong neighborhood by most measurements and a wonderful place to be a child. But it was also missing something. In the summertime, as a teenager, I used to like to drive south on York Road to Greenmount, go east on North Avenue, and south on North Patterson Park Avenue. I was unaware of potential accusations of voyeurism; I just knew that it was a lot more fun when it was hot outside to be on a street where people are sitting on their stoops or on lawn chairs on the sidewalk, exchanging stories and selling and eating snowballs, than it was to be stuck in an air-conditioned living room in North Baltimore.

Recently, I listened as a friend and fellow Johns Hopkins student denounced the university for its "social injustice" in forcing low-income black families to relocate to make room for the expansion of the Hopkins medical campus in East Baltimore. She discussed the long and sometimes turbulent relationship that Hopkins has had with the East Baltimore community. Certainly, the experiment conducted via the Kennedy Krieger Institute (an affiliate of Johns Hopkins) on lead paint levels in children failed to garner trust.

Students and staff at Calvin M. Rodwell Elementary are abuzz over the arrival of WeatherBug Science Curriculum, a program that will allow the city school to feed data to meteorologists and give students a better appreciation of science, math and literacy. "Our students are very excited," said Saundra Adams, the school's principal. "They have the opportunity to experience in-depth learning. They are going to use this as a way to springboard off their own learning." The curriculum is supported by a $50,000 grant the school received through a partnership that urges schools and neighborhood groups to work together to improve neighborhoods - therefore encouraging families to move back to the city.

Hundreds of people lined up in the cold Tuesday outside the Salvation Army center in West Baltimore to apply for 22 jobs - and a chance to make Baltimore a cleaner and greener city. As job seekers filed inside to fill out applications and interview, Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings arrived to hoist an oversize check for $1.1 million in federal stimulus funds that the two Maryland Democrats had helped secure. The jobs, provided through the Parks and People Foundation, a local nonprofit, will focus on reducing urban trash and pollution fouling Baltimore's harbor and the Chesapeake Bay. "This is a day of real opportunities for the people of Baltimore, and a day of opportunity for the Chesapeake Bay," said Jacqueline Carrera, president and CEO of the foundation.

Vacant lots transformed into gardens and playgrounds are bright spots in Baltimore neighborhoods - places for residents to talk, play and even grow food. But the people who clean, plant and tend these plots often have no guarantee that their hard work will not be cleared to make way for development. Now the city has crafted a procedure for residents to permanently claim open spaces. Under a plan approved by the city's spending board yesterday, community groups that nurture a vacant lot for five years will be able to form a land trust to buy the plot for a nominal fee from the city.

On the Monday before Thanksgiving, smiling women dished out generous helpings of turkey, green beans and sweet potatoes inside the East Baltimore Development Inc. Community Resource Center, as little boys circled the crowded room with trays of lemon cake and pumpkin pie. Hundreds of people - some dressed in their Sunday best, others in work clothes - squeezed to fit at the dozens of tables covered with yellow plastic tablecloths. Neighbors greeted each other with hugs. Old friends shouted above the live jazz music to catch up on grandchildren.

This just in to Crime Scenes: "My daughter is an athlete in a wheelchair. With minimal opportunities for her to play wheelchair sports in Central Maryland, we were thrilled to find the Metro League at Farring-Baybrook Recreation Center. However, my husband believes I'm taking our lives in our hands by traveling to that section of Baltimore at night. "Sheltered in Howard County, I am now terrified and guilty that I'm putting my daughter at risk. I've spent time looking on the Internet at Baltimore's crime statistics but am still uncertain whether to allow her to play.

At 10 p.m. on a Monday in Northwest Baltimore, more than 20 Orthodox Jewish men are packed into a two-room apartment with a couch and maps of the nearby synagogues, eating kosher chili and discussing how to respond to the next neighborhood emergency. Those gathered here are members of Shomrim, Hebrew for "watchers," and they make up a round-the-clock citizens patrol, complete with matching jackets, radios and a hot-line number that area residents know as well as 911. Members have intervened in suicide attempts, divided the neighborhood into quadrants and fanned out to look for missing people, thwarted bicycle thefts and saturated areas hit by burglaries to report suspicious people to police.

What are Baltimore's best deals and discounts? The reporters behind Consuming Interests, The Sun's consumer blog, have come up with its list of the region's best bargains, which we share with you in honor of Black Friday. Some people will mark this day by seeking out doorbuster discounts, but we think there are some amazing experiences to be had that cost no money at all. We've also included some ideas for those who enjoy a little retail therapy. Home decor: Plagued by blank walls in your home?