Brick

Yes, Lego makes trains. And no, there's no telling how many thousands of bricks went into the making of this particular train garden. Abe Friedman smiles as he recounts the most frequent questions he's hearing this weekend at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum, where an amazingly intricate and wondrously expansive Lego creation is kicking-off this season's Holiday Festival of Trains. Each weekend through the holiday season, different model railroading clubs will be setting up train gardens in the museum's roundhouse.

I take exception to Councilman David Marks' article published in your paper May 15. He stated that the building boom in Towson would "transform this suburban county seat into one of the most dynamic cosmopolitan communities in Maryland. " I feel it will transform this suburban county seat into one of the most congested impassable urban communities closely resembling the urban sprawl found elsewhere in Baltimore County along Reisterstown Road or Liberty Road. Is that what the full-time residents of Towson want?

When the chance to buy a historic 19th-century home in old Ellicott City came about five years ago, Don Reuwer Jr. and his partner, Lisa Devries, snatched it up. The couple chose the home, known as Burleigh Manor, for its traditional beauty and country-setting feel. "The home sits on 10 acres, so you feel like you're in the country, but you're also in the heart of Ellicott City," Devries said about the house, which was built in the early 1800s by the Hammonds, a family listed among the founders of Howard County.

"Estate" is not a description that should be used indiscriminately - yet the term clearly when referring to the Colonial-style mansion at 1105 Bellevista Court in Severna Park. Located on nearly one acre in the subdivision of Belleview Estates, this four-story brick home with almost 9,000 square feet of living space was listed at $1,995,900 and sold for $1,850,000. It closed April 30 without ever being formally listed on the market. "[This was] one of the highest-selling, non-waterfront homes in Anne Arundel County and an example of the positive turn our housing market is taking," said Jennifer Sowers of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, one of two co-listing agents.

Annapolis' buckling brick Main Street could be reconstructed as early as fall 1993 due to the project's inclusion in the city's $40.9 million capital budget.The city plans to re-brick completely the thoroughfare leading from the waterfront to historic Church Circle. Overhead power lines will be buried, and aging utilities will be replaced."I don't think anyone would argue that Main Street is in good repair," said Central Services Director Emory Harrison, who provided summary sheets of the proposed capital improvement program yesterday.

It was about 11:40 a.m. Monday when I walked out to my car. As I was about to put the key in the lock, I noticed the concrete brick on my driver's seat.Shards of glass surrounded the brick and covered the front passenger seat. The glove compartment was opened, its contents on the passenger's seat. The passenger-side window was gone.I didn't get upset. I couldn't. Losing two sisters and a brother in less than 16 months tends to make me keep my cool when far less serious things happen. Instead I muttered to myself, showing scarcely a trace of emotion, "This is not how I left this car."

After months of fund raising through its "Buy-A-Brick" campaign, the non-profit Baltimore Harbor Endowment will begin work April 15 on the first section of the waterfront brick promenade that it plans to build from Canton to Key Highway.A section of the waterfront near the Belt's Landing condominium complex in Fells Point has been selected for paving with more than 2,000 bricks purchased by individuals, families and companies in support of the group's 3-year campaign.The effort calls for 100,000 bricks, engraved with individual or corporate names, to be sold for the tax-deductible rate of $50 a piece and installed in designated segments of the waterfront.

It's called Camden blend and bears the Calvert label, but it's neither your evening shot of whiskey nor your morning cup of coffee.This special brew is a brick -- the brick entrusted with giving the $105.4 million Camden Yards baseball stadium its much-touted, old-fashioned feel.Roland L. "Bud" Slimmer Jr., a retired union bricklayer who worked on Memorial Stadium four decades ago, laid the first three Camden blend bricks on the stadium's west facade yesterday.Then Mr. Slimmer, 62, passed the trowel to Charles Smith, 51, a Baltimore Masonry Inc. foreman.

Westminster Mayor W. Benjamin Brown and City Council President William F. Haifley say they have dropped the brick issue for the new police headquarters and don't plan to raise it again.The two elected officials have opposed a March 8 council decision to overlay the new Westminster police headquarters with white brick rather than red.Staff research ordered by Mr. Haifley and Mr. Brown showed that white brick would cost about $150 more than comparable red brick, a difference of $5 per 1,000 bricks.

How thick is thick as a brick?The answer, apparently, is 4 inches -- or, as one Baltimore County homebuilder is finding out, it might be the distance between being inside and outside of the law.The issue arose yesterday when Glen Arm Homes asked to be exempted from "setback" requirements for 28 homes planned for Pine Grove, a residential community in Carney.The builder said that adding brick to the front of the houses would increase their depth by 4 inches -- and push them outside the prescribed "building envelopes."

Jamila Ward and Lionel Jennings had been house hunting on and off for two years when their agent pointed the couple in a new direction: a formerly condemned property in a revitalized area of Baltimore. Some city neighborhoods, just years ago marked by abandoned or deteriorating single-family homes, are becoming places of renewal, with nonprofit agencies buying up properties and renovating them for sale to first-time homebuyers. Ward and Jennings, her fiance, qualified for one of these properties in the Johnston Square neighborhood on the city's east side.

When 302 Glenrae Drive in the heart of Old Catonsville went on the market March 27, 2013, it didn't remain there long. Only three days, in fact. The Bob & Ronna Team of Long & Foster Realtors brought a potential buyer to see the home on that very day, and a bid was placed immediately. "Not only that, it listed and sold at the same price — $425, 000," Ronna Corman-Chew said. "This is an incredible, completely remodeled three-bed and two-bath split-level with a retro flair," Bob Chew said.

A large section of brick facade fell off a National Institutes of Health research facility on the Southeast Baltimore campus of Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, reviving concerns about a building that opened two years late because of other problems. The incident, in which no one was injured, also has raised questions about safety in a city with many large buildings - but no laws requiring their exterior walls to be inspected as they age. Experts say such problems are relatively rare, but could become more common as building standards change.

George G. Litz, former owner of one of the Baltimore area's largest brick distribution companies, died Feb. 11 of cancer at his Owings Mills home. He was 64. The son of a brick company executive and a homemaker, George Galvin Litz was born in Baltimore and raised on Cedarcroft Road. He was a 1967 graduate of City College and attended Loyola University Maryland. He then joined L & L Supply Co., the Lutherville business that had been founded in 1955 by his father, Donald P. Litz Sr., and John F. Leonard, who had worked together at the old United Clay & Supply Co. In 1975, he inherited L & L Supply Co. and continued operating it until last year when he sold it to Glen-Gery Brick, a division of Oldcastle Co. Mr. Litz had said that one of his "great passions in life" was the fact that his company supplied the brick that built Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadium.

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a moderately obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar - another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: - See more at: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/language-blog/bal-in-a-word-subfusc-20130219,0,1370566.story#sthash.2Canyfd4.dpuf Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a moderately obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar - another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary.

The beige-plastic Wilkins-Rogers Mill is unmistakable, as are the red B&O Freight House and the purple Obladi hotel. Rendered in toy building blocks, the replicas of historic Ellicott City landmarks lend an air of authenticity to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum's newest train garden, a 360-degree, custom-built feature that is proving to be a major attraction on Main Street. "This is definitely something unique," Tom Hane, site manager at the Ellicott City Station, said of the display by the Washington Metropolitan Area Lego Train Club.

The people working to restore Brewer Hill Cemetery in Annapolis would like you to buy a brick.Or at least a ticket that looks like one. It's the Brewer Hill Cemetery Association's latest effort to raisemoney to restore the 19th-century black cemetery to a glory it has not known before. Plans include a new pillared brick wall on West Street topped by lanterns in place of the broken and bowed hurricane fence."It's moving, believe me," said Emma Pickett, association vice president. "I feel good about it."

Part of the charm of Baltimore's arts scene is that someone is always hitting the "refresh" button. An art gallery or music club shuts down on one block, only to have another pop up a few streets over. Abandoned or underused venues might suddenly sprout a theater troupe one day, an artists' collective the next. A lot of the refreshing can be traced to a thriving DIY culture in town, a culture that has been responsible for some of the most intriguing new enterprises over the years and that helps give the city its reputation as a place where artists of every genre can find - or create - an outlet.

Retail analysts reported a curious trend this Black Friday. On the traditional first shopping day of the Christmas season, the number of visits to malls, big box stores and other retailers increased, according to the analytics firm ShopperTrak, but the amount spent in brick-and-mortar businesses actually went down slightly from last year's total. Online shopping, meanwhile, jumped ahead of its traditional Cyber Monday kick-off and exceeded $1 billion on the Friday after Thanksgiving for the first time.