Basement

Julie Somis of Baltimore has a historic, brick, end-of-group rowhouse next to Riverside Park in South Baltimore. The basement of the house is unfinished, with a thin concrete floor and a low ceiling. When she and her husband bought the house 11 years ago, their home inspector showed them deteriorated bricks and mortar at part of the foundation wall in the basement. The mortar is soft in places, the result of dampness in the wall leaching minerals from the mortar over the past century. Moisture has also broken down salmon bricks - bricks that are unusually soft because they were not well-fired when they were originally baked in the brick kiln.

"Is there any way out other than the main stairs?" I asked. My husband, our real-estate agent, the seller's agent and I were standing in the finished basement of a home in Owings Mills. It was a vast space: a nice bathroom, a media room, a room big enough to waltz in and another room with hidden panels in the walls for stashing who knows what. There was even a fireplace at the bottom of the stairs, creating a spa-like atmosphere. But no, the selling agent said that there was just the one staircase, noting that some people like having only one way into the basement because exterior doors attract thieves.

Five weeks after a spectacular five-alarm fire all but destroyed the old Gill Gym, Western Maryland College plans to rebuild the 58-year-old campus landmark.The contractor who renovated the college's library has been hired to rebuild the gymnasium and work should be completed by June 15, said Donald W. Schumaker Jr., a college spokesman.The college has hired Henry H. Lewis Contractors Inc. of Owings Mills, who did an award-winning $10 million expansion of Hoover Library in 1991, he said.Although plans are not complete, the reconstruction of the gymnasium will include an entrance for the handicapped and possibly a large multipurpose room in the basement.

A firefighter was injured battling a two-alarm fire at a debris-filled, single-family home in Northwest Baltimore on Monday morning when he fell through a floor into the home's basement, according to the Baltimore Fire Department. Firefighters responded just before 9 a.m. to the home in the 4200 block of Groveland Avenue, in the city's West Arlington neighborhood, and found heavy smoke, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, a department spokesman. When firefighters entered the home, they determined the fire had originated in the basement but had “extended into the walls” and was traveling into the first and second floors as well, Cartwright said.

A letter from Edwin Leimkuhler of Baltimore described an offer from a waterproofing contractor to install a black, slitted, corrugated plastic tubing around the perimeter of his basement. He was told, however, there was a danger of it becoming clogged with an accumulation of dust and dirt. Another company proposed using rigid plastic pipe with holes in the underside of the pipe. He wants to know whether there is any important difference. What Edwin is describing is the essential component of a typical basement waterproofing system - a drain tile or "French drain."

It seems strangely fitting that some of the Baltimore area's best bars are a few steps below the rest. Charm City doesn't have many basement bars, but the few that are scattered across the city and region are standouts. The boxing-themed Venice Tavern in Highlandtown has been in the same family for generations, Dionysus is a Mount Vernon haunt steeped in character and the Quarry House in Silver Spring has an excellent beer list and live music lineup. Here are three of the area's best basement bars.

Invited over to help celebrate his son's first birthday, 25-year-old Hari P. Close III had been a no-show. But overnight Tuesday, Close crept into the home where his son lived and climbed into bed with the boy's mother, records show. On Wednesday morning, 1-year-old Dalyire Damion McFadden was missing, and he was later found by police wrapped in a deflated air mattress in the basement. He had been stabbed in the neck, police say. Close, who was an aspiring male model, was charged Thursday with first-degree murder in his son's death and was being held without bond.

A body found smoldering in the basement of a vacant Southwest Baltimore home may have been intentionally set on fire, police and fire officials said. Firefighters were called at about 9:40 a.m. to a home in the first block of S. Monroe St. in the Booth-Boyd neighborhood on Wednesday, officials said. Upon arriving, firefighters found "no visible fire, just very very light smoke" and the individual was pronounced dead at the scene, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, a fire department spokesman.

Firefighters discovered the body of a woman in the basement of single family home in Northwest Baltimore that caught fire Friday, authorities said. The fire started around 2:30 p.m. in the 5700 block of Highgate Road in the city's Glen neighborhood, according to Chief Kevin Cartwright of the Baltimore City Fire Department. The woman appeared to have suffered burns, but a cause of death has not been determined. Homicide detectives have been called to the home to investigate, according to Baltimore police.

Don't worry, it won't be the type where they do bad covers of Adon Olam. Eutaw Place, housed at the bottom of Beth Am Synagogue, is catering to singer-songwriters. It's scheduled to open in late April. The idea came together last summer, said producer and booker Ellen Kahan Zager, 56. She likes coffee-house types like Jammin Java in Virginia and adult contemporary getaways like Rams Head on Stage in Annapolis. But didn't find any in Baltimore. Though she didn't have any experience in the business - "My husband and I just love music," the graphic designer says - she approached the rabbi of her new temple, Beth Am, with a proposal: "Would you consider a music venue in the lower level of the synagogue?"

Firefighters discovered the body of a woman in the basement of single family home in Northwest Baltimore that caught fire Friday, authorities said. The fire started around 2:30 p.m. in the 5700 block of Highgate Road in the city's Glen neighborhood, according to Chief Kevin Cartwright of the Baltimore City Fire Department. The woman appeared to have suffered burns, but a cause of death has not been determined. Homicide detectives have been called to the home to investigate, according to Baltimore police.

Twitter and web radio carried a new kind of prime-time crime drama in Baltimore Saturday when a Waverly man refused to allow police to serve a warrant and then broadcast the ensuing standoff after a S.W.A.T. team arrived. He was on the air live Saturday night for more than 5 hours, much of it spent talking to a police negotiator before surrendering peacefully. Another day and night in the brave, new world of social media… Frank James MacArthur, a cabdriver, who tweets, blogs and broadcasts on the Internet as The Baltimore Spectator, left the airwaves just before 11 p.m. saying, “All right, it's 10:57.

Combustible materials stored too close to a furnace burst into flames and caused the October rowhouse fire that claimed five lives, Baltimore fire officials said Thursday. Investigators determined that the two-alarm fire began in the basement and spread quickly through the two-story brick home, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, a Fire Department spokesman. The chilly evening may have prompted the family to turn on the furnace, he said. The fire struck in the early morning hours of Oct. 11 and quickly destroyed 5601 Denwood Ave., an end-of-group home in the Frankford neighborhood.

One man was rescued from the basement of his burning Edgewood home early Thursday morning. Few details were available, but a spokesman for the Harford County Volunteer Fire and EMS Association said the person was the only one home. The fire in the single-family home was reported at 5:30 a.m. in the 200 block of Kennard Avenue, according to the association's Facebook page. Firefighters from Abingdon, Joppa and Bel Air volunteer fire companies and Aberdeen Proving Ground Fire Department responded to battle the blaze, which was reported as "well-involved.

Sandbags lined the concrete atop the exterior basement stairs at St. Martin's Home in Catonsville, a symbol of the Little Sisters of the Poor's long — and losing — battle against summer heat and storms. After one heavy downpour, the sump pumps in the basement of the 200,000-square-foot brick home failed. Equipped with water vacs, the nuns, in starched white habits, mopped up the entire basement. They sandbagged the stairs to stave off another flood. They used emergency generators when the June derecho that left hundreds of thousands of Marylanders without power knocked out much of the air conditioning system.

A 36-year-old man died Sunday at the scene of a shooting in the Berea neighborhood in East Baltimore. Officers responded at 8:55 p.m. to reports of shots fired and found the man in the basement of a home in the 2700 block of Mura St., near North Lakewood Avenue. The victim, who had been shot multiple times, was pronounced dead at 9 p.m. Witnesses told investigators that two armed suspects confronted the victim and shot him during an argument. Mary.gail.hare@baltsun.com Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

Real estate agents might tell you otherwise, but the most important room in the house is not the bedroom with a balcony, or the bathroom with the skylight, or even the kitchen with its high-tech island. It is the basement.The basement tells you the secrets of a house. Where the floors are sagging. Where the leaks are. Where a previous owner has jerry-rigged a wiring job. A glance at the paint cans hidden in a corner offers clues on what has recently been repainted.Long ago when I was house-hunting, I always made it a point to visit the prospective basement.

Once upon a time, a starry-eyed young couple fell in love and got married. To save money, they rented a tiny apartment with barely room for two, except for the basement, which they intended to use as a bedroom. They placed their mattress on a plywood island near the furnace, water heater and racks of clothing, and resolved to clean up . . . or something . . . as soon as they returned from their honeymoon.Unbeknown to them, their friend and fairy godmother, designer Cheryl Duvall, could not bear to allow the newlyweds to return to the basement as it was. As a surprise wedding gift, she and six friends from Duvall/Hendricks, an architectural and design firm, pooled resources, and talents, and spent four weeknights and one Saturday waging a successful battle against the basement uglies.

A two-alarm fire gutted Ross' Crab House in Dundalk on Sunday night, according to a Baltimore County Fire Department spokesman. An employee of the family-owned restaurant in the 1100 block of North Point Road noticed smoke coming from the basement about 7:25 p.m. and alerted five other employees and about 15 customers, who all evacuated the building, said Lt. Jay Ringgold, the spokesman. A fire engine out of the Wise Avenue Volunteer Fire Company that happened to be nearby responded almost immediately, and firefighters entered the building and found heavy fire in the basement that was hard to reach, Ringgold said.

A Cockeysville woman was charged in a July home invasion when Baltimore County police said she threatened a 74-year-old woman and dragged her down to the basement. Police said Lenny Carela, 38, broke into a home on Valley Crossing Circle, near the intersection of Padonia and Cranbrook roads, when the homeowner was out walking her dog. When the homeowner returned, she found Carela taking her purse and cell phone. The two woman got into a fight and Carela tired to choke the victim and threatened her with a knife, before dragging her to the basement, police said.