Boston Street

Downs Engravers & Stationers 2500 Boston St., Canton Hours: 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Saturday and noon-5 p.m. Sunday. 410-752-7770 Looking for a clever card for Valentine's Day? How about some fine paper for those Christmas thank-you notes you never got around to writing? You might find what you need at Downs Engravers & Stationers' new, 1,000-square-foot store in the Flagship Building at The Can Company in Canton. (To find it, locate the Starbucks on Boston Street. It's a few feet away.

American Can Co.'s parking lot in Canton is a contractors' traffic jam as the days grow short for the grand opening of the $27 million complex that has made the technological leap from clanking machines to computer screens and their Web pages.The project is the finale to a 10-year story wherein one of Baltimore's oldest manufacturing plants shut its doors a decade ago, only to be reborn as a new, computer-based workplace made into dozens of offices for 800 workers.In addition to the eight floors of office space, the stoutly constructed American Can site, in the 2400 block of Boston St., also houses several restaurants, a bookstore, coffee shop, gourmet food and wine bar and other retail establishments.

A 26-year-old Baltimore County man was shot and killed Monday night while driving a VMW Express Delivery van in the 600 block of N. Streeper St. in Southeast Baltimore, police said.Jerry Byrd of the first block of Dundas Court was shot in the torso about 7 p.m. after an argument with his former girlfriend, they said. He was pronounced dead a short time later at Johns Hopkins Hospital.Jerome Griffin, 23, of the first block of Luzerne Ave., a friend of Byrd's former girlfriend, was arrested about two hours later in the 600 block of N. Milton Ave. He was charged with first-degree murder and handgun-related offenses and was being held without bail at the city Detention Center yesterday.

TOWSON -- A road where six people died in accidents last year will get special police attention in 1998. Officers from Baltimore County, Hampstead and the Maryland State Police will work together on Hanover Pike (Route 30), which runs through northwest Baltimore County and northeast Carroll County, county police say.The three agencies will use extra patrols to control crime and traffic problems in the area, police said.Police will check drivers' licenses and registrations, and check to see whether drivers have outstanding warrants.

The most outdated discussion in the suburbs around Baltimore is the one about the death of the city of Baltimore. In fact, the great urban beast lives. You can tell by the trail of the money, and also by the sound of laughter after dark.Like last week, on a Thursday night on Boston Street in Canton, where several hundred people gathered at the new Bibelot bookstore. They were mostly young professional people, mainly unattached, and some were actually there to read a book and not just each other's glances.

A DEEP RECESSION stunted developers' dreams of making Canton into a "Gold Coast" in the 1980s. Now, a decade later, Canton is taking off.East Baltimore's biggest supermarket recently opened there. The former American Can Co. complex is being converted into an upscale shopping mall and high-tech incubator. Meanwhile, the city is spending more than $43 million on infrastructure improvements which will replace the area's century-old sewers and turn Boston Street from a potholed truck route into a landscaped waterfront boulevard.

A DRIVE INTO CANTON these days will test anyone's nerves.Here, you'll find the best and worst of Baltimore: a revitalized neighborhood, sparkling waterfront, historic churches -- and perhaps the most fouled-up road construction in the city.Residents of this trendy community have complained to Intrepid One for months about the $14.5 million overhaul of Boston Street that is expected to connect the Inner Harbor to Interstate 95 on the Eastside.If city Department of Public Works supervisors don't try to improve the painful situation soon, your wheelster fears that commuters will stage a Boston (Street)

Remember the American officer in Vietnam who famously said he had to destroy a village in order to save it? Welcome to Boston Street, on the west side of Canton, where they're beginning to understand such language of contradiction.Take Harry Lewis, for example. He's sitting by the window of Harry's Cafe Mediterraneo, which he opened in July 1995, and pointing to a crater in the street that could be spotted on a clear day from the moon."See that?" he says. "You could fit a whole car into that, and that's the thing that's killing us."

Remember the American officer in Vietnam who famously said he had to destroy a village in order to save it? Welcome to Boston Street, on the west side of Canton, where they're beginning to understand such language of contradiction.Take Harry Lewis, for example. He's sitting by the window of Harry's Cafe Mediterraneo, which he opened in July 1995, and pointing to a crater in the street that could be spotted on a clear day from the moon."See that?" he says. "You could fit a whole car into that, and that's the thing that's killing us."

A DEEP RECESSION stunted developers' dreams of making Canton into a "Gold Coast" in the 1980s. Now, a decade later, Canton is taking off.East Baltimore's biggest supermarket recently opened there. The former American Can Co. complex is being converted into an upscale shopping mall and high-tech incubator. Meanwhile, the city is spending more than $43 million on infrastructure improvements which will replace the area's century-old sewers and turn Boston Street from a potholed truck route into a landscaped waterfront boulevard.

'Fair share' about more than negotiations Collective bargaining means much more than sitting down at a bargaining table ("How fair is 'fair share?'" July 3). It means educating employees about their rights, training shop stewards and providing materials and resources to employees. It means involving employees in workplace policies and practices through labor-management committee meetings which are designed to improve workplaces. And it means representing employees in issues regarding the enforcement of contracts.

In 1969, strong community action from all over Baltimore defeated an expressway plan that devastated neighborhoods in West Baltimore and threatened to do the same in Canton and along Boston Street. I was one of hundreds of people across Baltimore who worked with neighborhood groups and the citywide Movement Against Destruction to prevent the building of an eight-lane East-West Expressway. Forty years later, Baltimore finds itself again in a debate about the best way to move people to and through our city.

Once a gritty neighborhood on Southeast Baltimore's industrial waterfront, Canton has transformed itself into a model of urban chic where million-dollar townhouses overlook the harbor and destination night spots surround O'Donnell Square. But many residents of the resurgent community worry that the city's preferred route for an east-west transit line would cut off Canton from the water, drag down property values and compound the area's already serious traffic and parking problems. They're organizing to oppose the plan known as Alternative 4-C - which has powerful support and could well be chosen when the Maryland Transit Administration decides this summer.

With a large fitness club on one side of Boston Street and new business on other side, the signs are clear that Canton is rapidly growing across a section of railroad tracks and into an adjacent industrial area. Cars routinely clog Boston Street, with traffic jams now reaching as far east as Interstate 95, frustrating residents and visitors. "It's already a nightmare," said Darryl Jurkiewicz, president of the Canton Community Association. The large, multitrack crossing used by three railroads that often switch from one track to the other increases delays and backups.

THE PROBLEM -- Large trucks use Bonaparte Avenue in East Baltimore even though doing so is prohibited. THE BACKSTORY -- Bonaparte Avenue is a residential street that runs through the East Baltimore-Midway neighborhood. Truck drivers seem to like it as a convenient shortcut to industries at the eastern edge of the city, ignoring signs that bar them from using the road. "The trucks are shaking our houses and knocking our pictures off the walls," said John D. Brown, who has lived on Bonaparte for 21 years.

As I read "Slow down or say cheese" (Aug. 1), I anticipated the usual reactions from those who claim their right to speed would be violated. But leave it it to state Sen. Andrew P. Harris to bring out the "Big Brother is watching you" argument. What I find ironic is that those who scream the loudest against public safety enhancements such as photo speed radar and red-light cameras seem to have no problem when it comes to illegal government wiretapping and surveillance. It seems that the big difference is that in this case they might be caught.

Residents and bar-goers on Boston Street will see new faces - and more police uniforms - in Canton this week. Two off-duty police officers will begin patrolling the nearby Northshore at Canton townhouse community Wednesday, and instead of the usual bouncers or security guards, Good Love Bar, a Boston Street hangout, has already hired two of its own off-duty officers. Huckas, a sports bar and hookah lounge, has also agreed to hire uniformed officers, according to officials. After years of complaints about rowdiness spilling out onto Boston Street, the two bars agreed to pay for officers as a concession to residents.

Downs Engravers & Stationers 2500 Boston St., Canton Hours: 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Saturday and noon-5 p.m. Sunday. 410-752-7770 Looking for a clever card for Valentine's Day? How about some fine paper for those Christmas thank-you notes you never got around to writing? You might find what you need at Downs Engravers & Stationers' new, 1,000-square-foot store in the Flagship Building at The Can Company in Canton. (To find it, locate the Starbucks on Boston Street. It's a few feet away.

The removal of pedestrian bridges at the General Motors plant will necessitate the closure of a portion of Broening Highway from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m. today, according to city transportation officials. The affected area runs from Keith Avenue to Holabird Avenue. Northbound Broening traffic will be directed north on Clinton Street, east on Boston Street, south on Ponca, and then back to Broening. Southbound Broening traffic will be sent west on Holabird, north on Ponca, west on Boston Street, south on Clinton Street, east on Keith Avenue, and then back to Broening.

We can't let the year end without mentioning the 100th birthday of the Canton Railroad Co. which for some reason or other, passed by in May unnoticed. Since 1906, the Canton's fleet of locomotives and its hearty band of railroaders, has kept freight moving to and from local industries and moving through the port of Baltimore. A visitor to the railroad finds it located in a part of industrial Baltimore that is still hardworking and grimy, while not too far to the west, Edwin F. Hale Sr.'s First Mariner Bank building, a component of his Canton Crossing development, sprawls on a 65-acre waterfront site, a symbol of the new Canton.