Calvert Street

The call about Michael Phelps' car accident on Calvert Street crackled over the newsroom police radio as I was about to leave work Thursday night. My first thought was, when I get home, I'll have to go online and see what happened. But then, a moment of clarity, a sense of the absurdity: I was going to get on my computer to see what was happening on a street corner just several blocks from where I was standing? When did the real world become a place for people who can't handle the Internet?

A 28-year-old woman who was slightly injured when her Honda Accord hit a Cadillac Escalade driven by Olympic swimming star Michael Phelps in Baltimore's Mid-Town Belvedere neighborhood is to be charged with running a red light, a city police spokesman said Friday. The woman is identified in a police report as Amanda Elizabeth Virkus of Sandy Spring in Montgomery County. If found guilty of the citation, she faces a $180 fine and three points against her driving record. Virkus suffered neck and shoulder injuries, according to the city Fire Department, and was treated at Maryland Shock Trauma Center and released.

A huge water main break caused extensive flooding in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore early yesterday. Several residences and businesses lost water service or had low pressure, and a city official said it could be two days before the area returns to normal. The rupture, which occurred about 4 a.m. in the middle of the 100 block of E. Madison St., at Hargrove Alley, turned city streets into fast-rushing streams carrying sand, mud, rocks and chunks of asphalt. The city's Office of Emergency Management set up a command post to coordinate work by the city Department of Public Works, the Fire Department and Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. as city officials expressed concern about the condition of electrical lines, natural gas pipes and a potential collapse of the street, said Kurt Kocher, a public works spokesman.

Carrell L. Jenkins, founder and former president of a Timonium printing company, died of liver failure Dec. 1 at his Towson home. He was 82. Mr. Jenkins was born in Baltimore and raised on North Calvert Street. After graduating from Loyola High School in 1944, he served in the Pacific as a naval signalman. After the war, he entered Loyola College, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1949. He worked selling business machines for several Baltimore companies before co-founding A & F Printing Co. in 1970.

Long-stalled efforts to renovate and expand Baltimore's outdated courthouses began again this month after city officials asked the Maryland Stadium Authority to do a formal study of the project. The city and courts have set aside $700,000 for the feasibility study, which must be approved by two General Assembly committees before it can begin, said George Nilson, the city's solicitor. It would be the second study in five years. The first elaborated on previous reports and identified eight sites where a third courthouse to handle criminal cases could be built.

Pratt St. plan impedes drivers, pedestrians I wonder how much careful study was devoted to the traffic consequences of the proposed Pratt Street revitalization ("New Pratt St.," Sept. 10). While I welcome the added park land at the intersection of Pratt and Light streets that this plan would create, I fear that the plan would have a negative impact on motorists and pedestrians. Even with the addition of northbound lanes on Light Street above Pratt Street, forcing northbound traffic to make a left turn from Pratt Street to head north on Calvert Street is bound to create a backup at busy times of the day or evening.

So you want to know who, exactly, owns that vacant property near you. It's an eyesore and you'd like the name of the guy to complain to. Or you want to buy it and can't figure out where to send the offer. Or you're just nosy. Whatever the reason, you can search for answers without leaving home. http://sdatcert3.resiusa.org/rp_rewrite. It offers a variety of information on properties across Maryland - tax assessment numbers, prior sales history in many cases, whether the property is owner-occupied and, yes, who that owner is. A search on the Calvert Street address where I spend most of my time shows the owner as Tribune Co. and lists a mailing address in Chicago, for instance.

Baltimore city work crews restored water service last night to the part of the Mount Vernon neighborhood affected by a water main break a day earlier, but they said they would have to work through the weekend to reconstruct a damaged road. The break, which occurred in the 200 block of E. Madison St., between North Calvert Street and Guilford Avenue, flooded two streets and prompted the closing of two Maryland State Highway Administration buildings, a spokesman for the Department of Public Works said.

Art festival -- The Inner West Street Association will present the First Sunday Arts Festival from noon to 5 p.m. Sept. 2 on the first block of West Street from Church Circle to Calvert Street. This event will feature live music from Jeff Antoniuk Master Class Jazz Bands and Joe McCarthy Quartet, artists, vendors and crafts, street performers and sidewalk dining. Free. 410- 741-3267 or www.goweststreet.com.