Battle Monument

Chloe A. Gudmundsson is a senior at Eastern Technical High School in Essex, and at the suggestion of her English teacher, she decided to research a paper on Maximilian Godefroy, the quirky architect who designed Baltimore's Battle Monument to commemorate the battle for the city in 1814. She also decided to submit her paper to the annual History Day competition this month on the Dundalk campus of the Community College of Baltimore County. The competition, which has been held for the last 12 years at Dundalk, features both city and Baltimore County public school students.

Chloe A. Gudmundsson is a senior at Eastern Technical High School in Essex, and at the suggestion of her English teacher, she decided to research a paper on Maximilian Godefroy, the quirky architect who designed Baltimore's Battle Monument to commemorate the battle for the city in 1814. She also decided to submit her paper to the annual History Day competition this month on the Dundalk campus of the Community College of Baltimore County. The competition, which has been held for the last 12 years at Dundalk, features both city and Baltimore County public school students.

Lady Baltimore, a 182-year-old woman who presides in the middle of Calvert Street, is undergoing reconstructive surgery.For two months, planners and restoration workers have been focusing their attention on trying to get the Lady Baltimore statue -- a key figure that adorns the Battle Monument -- back into top shape.Time, weather and pollution have taken their toll on the old lady. ++ She has withstood innumerable threats of eviction -- the most emphatic in 1923, 1925 and 1930 -- and has been accused of being a traffic menace, an aesthetic blot, a cracked and moldering relic.

Charles Pomeroy Ives III, a state of Maryland telecommunications worker who immersed himself in history causes from North Point to Carroll County, died in his sleep of a circulatory illness Oct. 20 at his Stoneleigh home. He was 63. Born in Elizabeth, N.J., and raised in Loch Raven Village, he was a 1967 Towson High School graduate. He had belonged to the Boy Scouts. His grandfather, C.P. Ives, was a Sun editorial writer from 1939 to 1973. Mr. Ives earned a bachelor's degree in history at Thiel College in Greenville, Pa. He worked at Baltimore banks, the Venable law firm and Ciena.

Flags were unfurled and muskets fired in downtown Baltimore yesterday as politicians and militiamen gathered to rededicate one of the city's most prominent monuments -- the statue that honors those who fought in the Battle of Baltimore and inspired the national anthem.Dressed in military regalia from the War of 1812, the Baltimore Ceremonial Guard, Captain Howard's Company of Mechanical Volunteers of the 5th Maryland Regiment and Aisquith's Sharpshooters began the hourlong ceremony at the city courthouse with a short parade from City Hall on Holliday Street to the Battle Monument on Calvert Street, between Lexington and Fayette streets.

Lady Baltimore has withstood much in 189 years perched overlooking Courthouse Square. She has lost both of her arms over the decades — one of them, holding high a wreath that signifies service to the republic, was sheared off by a gust of wind in January 1938, shattering on the pavement. And though it may be hard to tell from the street 52 feet below, wind, rain, snow, hail and pollution have dissolved much of the marble statue's eyes, nose and ears. But a new effort will finally give Lady Baltimore a new home — for her own good.

Lady Baltimore's right arm looks as if it has been attacked by the flesh-eating virus. Her face has been darkened by soot from years of auto exhaust. Her crown is tarnished, and green fungus is growing up her robe.But by early next year she could be presentable again, if friends can raise enough money for a long-overdue face lift.Baltimore's Commission on Historical and Architectural Preservation is scheduled today to join local historians and others to launch a $250,000 fund drive aimed at restoring Lady Baltimore and the memorial she adorns, the Battle Monument on Calvert Street near Fayette Street.

If you work downtown, you have seen her. She sits on the east side of the Battle Monument most every weekday, her legs in their white ankle socks and black sneakers dangling perilously close to the traffic that hurtles by. Chances are, she hasn't spoken to you. She speaks to almost no one. Always, when you see her, she is writing. On first glance, perhaps you thought she was a lawyer. She has a decent overcoat, after all, and a cart that could be used for hauling legal papers back and forth between courthouses.

As a child, Christina Blackman spent summers riding ponies on a North Dakota farm not far from where her great-grandmother taught immigrant children how to read and write in a one-room schoolhouse. "In some ways, I feel I've inherited my teaching career," Blackman said yesterday in an emotional address to a roomful of educators who gathered to honor her as Baltimore County's Teacher of the Year 2001. Blackman, 33, has taught music to special education students at Battle Monument School in Dundalk for 11 years.

The recently cleaned facades of Baltimore's Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse and Courthouse East were put in the spotlight last night as Mayor Martin O'Malley and other city officials unveiled a $37,000 lighting system that will accentuate the buildings after dark. The 11 acorn-shaped street lights, each with two additional floodlights, span "Courthouse Square" on Calvert Street, between Fayette and Lexington streets, and show off the results of a four-month, $94,000 exterior cleaning that rid the buildings of years of grime and bird droppings.

Lady Baltimore has withstood much in 189 years perched overlooking Courthouse Square. She has lost both of her arms over the decades — one of them, holding high a wreath that signifies service to the republic, was sheared off by a gust of wind in January 1938, shattering on the pavement. And though it may be hard to tell from the street 52 feet below, wind, rain, snow, hail and pollution have dissolved much of the marble statue's eyes, nose and ears. But a new effort will finally give Lady Baltimore a new home — for her own good.

I'M AS frustrated as the next guy at all the traffic tie-ups downtown, now knotted up in one of its periodic frenzies of new construction. I watch the meter on my taxi click away as the line of cars remains immobile, while a concrete mixer deposits a fresh batch to Fayette and Howard streets. So, one day, I said "enough" and just got out and walked and walked. Along the way, I did some snooping and investigating. It's time to take a look at the new Baltimore that has been refreshed and rebuilt over the summer and fall of 2003.

It's considered one of the most important Revolutionary War memorials in the nation, where Gen. George Washington achieved his first major victory 226 years ago. But only about 600 people a month visit the Trenton Battle Monument, in Trenton, N.J., and take the elevator up the 150-foot monument that towers over the historic battle site, now a vacant lot bordered by rowhouses and a health clinic. Several blocks away at New Jersey's State House, the second oldest continuously operating state capitol in the nation (dating to 1792)

The recently cleaned facades of Baltimore's Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse and Courthouse East were put in the spotlight last night as Mayor Martin O'Malley and other city officials unveiled a $37,000 lighting system that will accentuate the buildings after dark. The 11 acorn-shaped street lights, each with two additional floodlights, span "Courthouse Square" on Calvert Street, between Fayette and Lexington streets, and show off the results of a four-month, $94,000 exterior cleaning that rid the buildings of years of grime and bird droppings.

As a child, Christina Blackman spent summers riding ponies on a North Dakota farm not far from where her great-grandmother taught immigrant children how to read and write in a one-room schoolhouse. "In some ways, I feel I've inherited my teaching career," Blackman said yesterday in an emotional address to a roomful of educators who gathered to honor her as Baltimore County's Teacher of the Year 2001. Blackman, 33, has taught music to special education students at Battle Monument School in Dundalk for 11 years.

If you work downtown, you have seen her. She sits on the east side of the Battle Monument most every weekday, her legs in their white ankle socks and black sneakers dangling perilously close to the traffic that hurtles by. Chances are, she hasn't spoken to you. She speaks to almost no one. Always, when you see her, she is writing. On first glance, perhaps you thought she was a lawyer. She has a decent overcoat, after all, and a cart that could be used for hauling legal papers back and forth between courthouses.

Maria Lee Garitee, a retired guidance counselor whose work with handicapped children went far beyond her school duties, died Friday at her home in Towson after a five-year battle with cancer. She was 64.An educator in Baltimore County for 33 years, Mrs. Garitee committed her life to helping others, said her daughter Meridith Muehleib of Fairfax Station, Va."She wasn't satisfied to just get her handicapped students through school, she also worked hard to prepare them for the community and job market after graduating," Mrs. Muehleib said.

ON Wednesday morning, Nov. 11, 1964, a crowd gathered at the foot of the Battle Monument at Fayette and Calvert streets. The Southern High School band played "Baltimore, Our Baltimore." Milling about were Mayor Theodore R. McKeldin, City Council President Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., Comptroller Hyman A. Pressman, people who worked in the area and a gaggle of lawyers, politicians and judges.All this for the dedication of a newsstand? That's right, but this was no ordinary newsstand. It was Abe Sherman's glass and aluminum stand (with built-in light fixtures and radiant heat)

As official remembrance protocol, Civil War monuments cover the Gettysburg National Park, their stories and those of the men and women they honor unknown to the thousands of visitors who drive past. Trying to recapture some of those memories that truly represent the personal side of the war, James Schmick, founder of the Camp Curtin Historical Society in Harrisburg, Pa., has dedicated his time to teaching people about the monuments and the stories behind them. As part of an afternoon-long seminar at the Harrisburg Area Community College, Schmick has put together a 200-slide presentation covering 35 to 40 of the 1,300 monuments at the Gettysburg Battlefield.

Flags were unfurled and muskets fired in downtown Baltimore yesterday as politicians and militiamen gathered to rededicate one of the city's most prominent monuments -- the statue that honors those who fought in the Battle of Baltimore and inspired the national anthem.Dressed in military regalia from the War of 1812, the Baltimore Ceremonial Guard, Captain Howard's Company of Mechanical Volunteers of the 5th Maryland Regiment and Aisquith's Sharpshooters began the hourlong ceremony at the city courthouse with a short parade from City Hall on Holliday Street to the Battle Monument on Calvert Street, between Lexington and Fayette streets.