Camden Station

Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, heads a group of Washingtonians who propose to build a 24-story, 750-room Hilton hotel on the footprint of the old Hotel Joyce, which stood opposite Camden Station for more than a century. The station, built in 1857 by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, also housed the railroad's general offices before moving uptown to the first B&O Building at the northwest corner of Baltimore and North Calvert streets, a casualty of the 1904 fire.

Hotel would be an unwise use of special space The American Institute of Architects' Urban Design Committee has long believed that the undeveloped space in front of Camden Station between Eutaw and Howard streets should be converted into a first-class urban plaza. In his article on the recent proposal for a new hotel to be put in this lot, Edward Gunts identified how a "Thicket of issues lies in path to new hotel" (Nov. 24). We believe building the hotel in this location would be short-sighted, and would forgo the area's potential to accommodate an open space and a hotel.

The Maryland Stadium Authority voted yesterday to go ahead on nearly $1 million of structural repairs to Camden Station, a historic train depot whose name inspired the city's renowned baseball park. The building sits empty, as it has since it closed as a commuter rail station in the mid-1980s. A decade ago, the authority spent $2.2 million to restore the building's exterior to coincide with the opening of Oriole Park at Camden Yards in 1992. At that time, the interior improvement was left up to a private investor because the authority didn't have the money to do it. No fewer than seven groups have seemed serious possibilities as tenants for the building - most prominently the Babe Ruth Museum - but nothing has materialized.

THE B&O was the nation's first real railroad. Its undertaking was probably the greatest business decision ever made in Baltimore. The downtown emblem of that daring innovation, Camden Station, sits abandoned and unused, as it has since its exterior was restored 10 years ago to serve as the frontispiece for Oriole Park at Camden Yards. The best way to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the founding of the B&O Railroad would be to return Camden Station to its traditional use. It's the oldest major metropolitan railroad station in the United States.

When Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened in 1992, one prominent feature remained off limits to the general public. Camden Station, the historic train depot that gave its name to Baltimore's downtown sports district, had been restored to its original exterior appearance, complete with a three-tiered clock tower and side cupolas. But officials at the Maryland Stadium Authority had no money to fix up the interior and left the doors locked, saying they'd need a private investor to finish the restoration.

"UNITAS we stand" -- along with Babe Ruth. That banner (without reference to Mr. Ruth) hung proudly in Memorial Stadium during the 17 seasons that John Unitas, cool and gritty, led the Baltimore Colts and became the greatest quarterback of all time. With the announcement last week of Mr. Unitas' decision to donate his collection of football memorabilia to Baltimore's Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, his legendary career will continue to speak across generations. "I think this stuff should be here," Mr. Unitas said with typical directness.

Johnny Unitas has donated his personal collection of football memorabilia to the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore, forging a partnership between two of the city's greatest sports treasures. The Baltimore Colts legend and museum officials made the announcement at the museum during a news conference yesterday. "I think this stuff should be here," Unitas said. "This is where I played all these years. The people of Baltimore have always been very gracious to me." Museum officials are hoping that the addition of the Unitas collection will accelerate the museum's plan to extend into Camden Station, a now empty building located next to Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

The 1.7-mile Howard Street Tunnel that billowed smoke yesterday is not a prominent part of the Baltimore landscape, not a source of great civic pride. Yet the tunnel, mostly ignored and unseen - even unknown to many residents - is hugely important, the way rail freight basically gets from here to there along the East Coast. And it's hardly just a functional workhorse. The 106-year-old tunnel is distinctive in many ways. It's said to be the longest underground conduit of freight on the Atlantic seaboard; the first example of heavy-duty railroad electrification in the United States, possibly the world; and a model example of soft-earth construction, built at a time when steam locomotives huffed and puffed through mostly rock-blasted tunnels.

OVER THE LAST quarter-century, we've watched the President Street station, a historic site in the outbreak of the Civil War, shrink. Twenty-five years ago, it was a long, wooden shed in the old rail yard at President and Fleet streets near Little Italy. Over the years, there was a fire and then a roof collapse. But there was always, always a corps of history buffs who appreciated the significance of the place, and they worked to save it. Somehow, the station survived the wrecker's ball.

LaVere Neale, a career railroader who retired as chief train dispatcher of CSX Transportation, died Saturday of cancer at his White Marsh home. He was 78. From his Camden Station office, Mr. Neale directed passenger and freight trains traveling to and from Harpers Ferry, W.Va., to Philadelphia and points in between. "It was more than just a job to him," said Thomas Swearman of Forest Hill, a colleague at CSX. "He started as a telegrapher and knew everything about the railroad." Born in Arkport, N.Y., he attended local schools there and worked briefly on a farm until he was summoned to Baltimore by his uncle, Isaac Neale, an employee of the old Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.