Baltimore Station

It's been a tough month for music fans, and the bad news hasn't slowed down. On Wednesday, we lost the Godfather of Go-Go and D.C. legend Chuck Brown to complications from sepsis. He was 75. Naturally, his loss was felt particularly hard in the Baltimore and D.C. areas. Local writer Al Shipley tweeted , "[O]n the drive home I heard Chuck Brown music on 5 different radio stations, including a Baltimore station and a rock station. " Read the Washington Post obituary by Chris Richards here . And today, Donna Summer lost her battle with cancer.

A theft this month of 311 gallons of gasoline from a station in Baltimore is one in a series of similar incidents, according to the station's owner, who says people have been disabling pumps and allowing friends and relatives to fill their tanks for free Mehdi Rezakhan, who owns BP stations in Remington and East Baltimore, said each businesses has been hit once, and stations owned by friends have been taken several times, one for 1,800 gallons of...

Men who are recovering from drug or alcohol abuse will be able to avoid being homeless as they try to reclaim their lives next year at a home to be built in Mount Holly.And many in the West Baltimore neighborhoods of Mount Holly, Greater Walbrook, Woodhaven and Windsor Hills are ready to welcome, rather than oppose, their new neighbors."We're fully behind this. There's such a desperate need for transitional housing for those recovering," said John B. Ferron Sr., member and past president of Woodhaven Community Association.

It's been a tough month for music fans, and the bad news hasn't slowed down. On Wednesday, we lost the Godfather of Go-Go and D.C. legend Chuck Brown to complications from sepsis. He was 75. Naturally, his loss was felt particularly hard in the Baltimore and D.C. areas. Local writer Al Shipley tweeted , "[O]n the drive home I heard Chuck Brown music on 5 different radio stations, including a Baltimore station and a rock station. " Read the Washington Post obituary by Chris Richards here . And today, Donna Summer lost her battle with cancer.

More than 20 years ago two neighborhood women, Jaye Burtnick and Gloria DeBarry, established a safe and warm place for the street people of the Cross Street Market area. "Their first epiphany was that almost all the guys who came there were veterans and they had addiction issues," said Michael Seipp, executive director of what is now called the Baltimore Station, an agency that defines its mission as "a therapeutic residential recovery program for men who are homeless largely due to chronic substance abuse.

The way Joseph Carroll sees it, he has a second chance at life with his family. "I'll take that," Carroll, a 59-year-old Army veteran and father of four who brought back from Vietnam a propensity toward alcohol abuse. Now, after a spell on the streets and a five-month stint at The Baltimore Station, a treatment center whose population is made up mostly of military veterans, Carroll plans to return to his wife in Portsmouth, Va., after Thanksgiving. "If she don't change her mind," he said, laughing.

By 6 a.m., the free parking lot at the West Baltimore MARC station is almost full. The only sounds on the rickety wooden platform: cars whizzing by on U.S. 40, the blare of a police siren and the horn of the incoming train, a cue for the sweep of people that rushes inside. This is no Penn Station. There are no coffee shops or places to buy a paper, just mounds of trash along the side and a few partial shelters that don't do much good in the rain and snow. But city and state planners view the threadbare West Baltimore train station as the potential key to unleashing the redevelopment of an area long neglected and decimated by an unfortunate endeavor dubbed "the highway to nowhere."

Andrea Parquet-Taylor, news director for WMAR-TV, is leaving the Baltimore station after less than a year to take the same position with WXYZ-TV in Detroit, according to colleagues. Both stations are ABC affiliates owned by the E.W. Scripps Co. WMAR general manager Drew Berry would not confirm her new appointment, but noted that Scripps had made a series of executive shifts recently. "We expect another announcement Monday," he said. WXYZ's vice president general manager, Grace Gilchrist, did not return a call seeking comment yesterday.

Three managers of five radio stations up for sale by the Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Co., including Baltimore's WVRT-FM (104.3), plan to make an offer to buy the stations.James P. Fox, vice president and general manager of the Baltimore station, announced the collaboration with Edward T. Hardy of Portland, Ore., (KUPL-AM/FM) and Donald W. Meyers of Memphis, Tenn., (WMC-AM/FM).The management group has engaged Pacific Coast Securities, a Portland investment banking firm, to assist in making the offer.

In the shadow of a South Baltimore shelter, a high-ranking federal housing official brought an eloquent message of hope yesterday to the homeless men who have found refuge there.For far too long, said Andrew Cuomo, HUD's assistant secretary for community planning and development, cities have received inadequate federal aid for programs like the South Baltimore Station, a shelter mainly for men overcoming drug and alcohol abuse.Baltimore was the first stop on Mr. Cuomo's 10-city publicity blitz for legislation that would boost from $800 million to $1.6 billion the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's annual budget for homeless programs.

A large swath of downtown Baltimore's west side would become the city's third state-designated arts and entertainment district, and the state's 20th, if Maryland economic development officials approve a city application designed to strengthen the area. The proposed Bromo Tower Arts and Entertainment District is a 117-acre tract that would join districts in Station North and Highlandtown as city areas in which individuals and businesses would be eligible for tax breaks for arts-related activities and investments.

A loaded handgun was found in a holding cell in a Baltimore police station this week, officials confirmed after receiving inquiries from The Baltimore Sun.  The weapon, a .22 caliber handgun with six rounds in the chamber, was found by an officer as he was placing a suspect into a cell in the Southeastern District station on March 12, according to a report provided by police. The officer had entered the detainee's information in a station log book, then walked into the cell to hand back a driver's license when he noticed a black knit glove lying on a shelf.

After watching another TV reporter broadcasting from the great outdoors during the latest "blast of snow" we recently experienced, I think it's time we viewers said enough is enough. I realize that local weather is the life's blood of our local news stations. After all, if it wasn't for numerous forecasts, warmed over national news, and the latest "Sky Team" view of the nightly traffic accident, the local news hour would barely exist. But that doesn't excuse the constant gross exaggeration, screen crawls and teasers suggesting the need to "stay tuned" to hear about the approaching Armageddon - which frequently amounts to a snow shower somewhere in Cumberland.

Paramedic Kevin Hook's vehicle speeds up Lombard Street, weaving through traffic. His 7 a.m. shift as acting lieutenant at Baltimore's John F. Steadman Fire Station has just begun and Hook is monitoring dozens of calls scrolling down a monitor mounted on the dashboard of his SUV. There's an oil spill requiring a hazardous materials team to the east, a car crash to the west and a victim suffering from a stroke ahead on West Baltimore Street....

For stations in Baltimore and across the country, Monday is the first day of the post-Oprah Winfrey era. Llike their counterparts nationwide, stations here will be trying new and (allegedly_ improved shows to grab a piece of the huge audience that the queen of daytime television held for 25 years. Baltimore's late-afternoon TV landscape will include a new talk show featuring what syndicators describe as a more personal Anderson Cooper, as well a new time slot for Ellen DeGeneres' "Ellen" at 4 p.m weekdays on WBAL — Winfrey's old Baltimore home.

When Oprah Winfrey ends her syndicated talk show Wednesday, millions of fans will not be the only ones facing a void. TV station executives who have lived with what's come to be known as the "Oprah Factor" are buying, selling, hoping and praying to get a piece of the audience of one of the most lucrative franchises in television. Tens of millions of dollars are at stake. "With Oprah leaving, it's the Wild West in lots of cities like Baltimore," says Bob Papper, Hofstra University professor of media studies.

With an eye on cultivating a regional network, the Baltimore CFL Colts are on the verge of awarding radio broadcast rights to WJFK-AM (1300) of Infinity Broadcasting."

The life and death of Nicole Sesker - stepdaughter of Baltimore's previous police commissioner, drug addict and homicide victim - emerges now as the central image from a tragic tableau 40 years in the making, a vast crowd scene with thousands of weary faces. Sesker's death stands out to some because of its irony: Her stepfather was Leonard Hamm. But most who know better, who know that addiction and alcoholism infests the best of families, look past that and see something familiar: the end of a life of pain.

Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler is investigating a Rockville gasoline distributor after prices at the pump jumped 25 cents overnight last week, he said Monday. The inquiry takes place as Senate Democrats prepare a vote on legislation that would curb federal tax subsidies to the largest oil companies. Gansler said Empire Petroleum Holdings, which serves gas stations in Anne Arundel and Montgomery counties, has cooperated with his investigation, which he said he launched in response to a consumer complaint.

A 25-year-old man was found shot in the hand Sunday afternoon near the Penn North subway station, Baltimore City police said. Police spokesman Jeremy Silbert said the unidentified victim was taken to a local hospital. He said the incident occurred in the 1800 block of Presstman St., though it had initially been reported as North Avenue and Woodyear Street.