Demolition

When Berea resident Nia Redmond heard that the long-vacant paint manufacturing plant in her East Baltimore neighborhood was to be torn down, she went door to door passing out fliers, inviting her neighbors to an emergency meeting. "A lot of us are still planting vegetables in our yards and we don't want to eat lead," Redmond said. "This is an elderly neighborhood. A lot of people already have asthma in here; a lot of people already have emphysema in here. " Early next year, the city is set to demolish the Ainsworth Paint and Chemical Co. plant, an empty eyesore for more than 20 years at the corner of Edison Highway and East Biddle Street.

Although the Kimco plan for Wilde Lake Village Center has faults, we want to see the project move forward for the future of Wilde Lake Village. However we strongly oppose demolition of the central building of the horseshoe shaped building that encloses the Village Green Courtyard. We urge the Planning Board to have the courage to do the right thing and save the central building from demolition. Kimco has proposed demolition for only one reason, to be able to see the Courtyard stores from the parking lot to lease stores.

What accounts for the unfairly sensational tone of your recent article on Baltimore City's legitimate - and sensible - use of affordable housing funds to demolish vacant eyesores ("City 'affordable housing' fund destroys more houses than it builds," Dec. 26)? Didn't The Sun take Housing Commissioner Paul Graziano to task just six months ago for overspending on affordable housing units in Johnston Square? Johnston Square should have taught us that government bureaucracies are not well-suited to meeting the complicated economic and logistical challenges of developing new housing, affordable or otherwise.

When the Ravens travel to Foxborough, Mass., for Sunday's AFC championship game, they may face more than just one opponent in the New England Patriots. The Ravens will be tasked with contradicting a history of dominance at Gillette Stadium, where - since 2002 - New England has won more regular-season games (67) and postseason contests (eight) than any other team in the NFL. The Patriots have dropped just two playoff games at home, but both losses occurred in back-to-back years beginning with the Ravens' 33-14 demolition in the 2009 postseason.

Demolition will begin next month at the Charles Village Pub & Patio, a popular hangout for Towson University students, which its owners say they plan to rebuild after it caught fire in January. From 8 p.m. March 11 until 8 a.m. March 12, Pennsylvania Avenue, between York Road and Washington Avenue, will remain closed while the building is demolished, according to a statement from Councilman David Marks. One of the bar's owners, Rick Bielski, said that the outpouring of support has prompted them to reopen.

Twenty-nine year old Lauran Miller was happy to see a well-dressed crowd gather Wednesday to ceremonially begin demolition at east Columbia's Guilford Gardens, a three-decade old, 100-unit public housing community where she lives with her husband and two children. "I think I'm pretty excited. This is a big change," the six-year resident said about the $43 million redevelopment that will offer 269 mixed income units with rents ranging from $360 to $1,700 a month. Howard County executive Ken Ulman renamed the community Monarch Mills, and the first new units should be ready by early next year, according to officials of Shelter Development.

A City Council member and several members of Westminster's Historic District Commission say they're worried about a proposed ordinance that would make it easier for the city to tear down dilapidated buildings.But sponsors of the proposal say demolition would be a last resort to deal with property owners who have not repaired buildings that are unfit for human habitation.The council is scheduled to vote tonight on the ordinance and on proposed amendments requiring a review by the Historic District Commission and council approval before the city could go to court to force the demolition of a derelict building.

The saga of Baltimore is a process of building and demolition. Urban renewal, in modern terms, may have started here only in 1951 but a century earlier large-scale demolition of "rookeries, shanties, pigpens and stables" went on to accommodate the city's expansion along the Jones Falls.After World War II -- when explosive suburbanization had already started -- many planners still optimistically predicted that Baltimore would soon have more than one million residents. That, of course, never happened.

AFTER YEARS of passively watching the number of vacant houses in Baltimore skyrocket and deteriorate, the city's housing department has sprung into action.Under Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III, it has started a large-scale demolition of residential structures deemed unsafe or unsalvageable. Last year, 529 such buildings were torn down; this year's goal has been set at 1,000.This kind of demolition derby is understandable. The city has lost about 250,000 residents since the 1950s. The number of vacant houses may be as high as 30,000.

Baltimore housing officials plan to begin demolition of an abandoned West Baltimore apartment complex today despite protests from Legal Aid Bureau lawyers who have filed a lawsuit on behalf of former tenants. Yesterday, the mayor's office issued a news release on the demolition of the Uplands Apartment complex in Southwest Baltimore. Today's ceremony calls for a news conference for elected officials, including Mayor Martin O'Malley, the Democratic candidate in the gubernatorial race. City housing officials said yesterday that they had the power to move forward with the demolition, but their position was disputed by a spokesman for Legal Aid. The spokesman said the city did not notify Legal Aid about the demolition, and once it found out about the city's plans, it asked a mediation judge to restrict the demolition to one building until the lawsuit is settled.

What accounts for the unfairly sensational tone of your recent article on Baltimore City's legitimate - and sensible - use of affordable housing funds to demolish vacant eyesores ("City 'affordable housing' fund destroys more houses than it builds," Dec. 26)? Didn't The Sun take Housing Commissioner Paul Graziano to task just six months ago for overspending on affordable housing units in Johnston Square? Johnston Square should have taught us that government bureaucracies are not well-suited to meeting the complicated economic and logistical challenges of developing new housing, affordable or otherwise.

From the desolate and dilapidated block of Denmore Avenue, a chant rang through the Park Heights neighborhood Wednesday as Baltimore political, community and business leaders gathered with residents to launch a project that many called a "new beginning" for the long troubled community. "Break the wall down," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake led the group in bellowing as the first of 41 vacant properties on the street was excavated — no longer habitable for squatters, drug dealers and rodents who for years have taken up residence there.

A project to rebuild affordable housing and a large recreation center in Ellicott City will begin in early December with the demolition of the Hilltop Housing complex. At the same time, Howard County officials are turning to state lawmakers as they try to secure $500,000 in state bond funding toward replacing an adjacent recreation center that they hope will be a lure for market-rate renters in the mixed-income community that is on the drawing board. Work at the Hilltop site and the new recreation center will comprise the first phase of redevelopment.

When Berea resident Nia Redmond heard that the long-vacant paint manufacturing plant in her East Baltimore neighborhood was to be torn down, she went door to door passing out fliers, inviting her neighbors to an emergency meeting. "A lot of us are still planting vegetables in our yards and we don't want to eat lead," Redmond said. "This is an elderly neighborhood. A lot of people already have asthma in here; a lot of people already have emphysema in here. " Early next year, the city is set to demolish the Ainsworth Paint and Chemical Co. plant, an empty eyesore for more than 20 years at the corner of Edison Highway and East Biddle Street.

A faded sign above the former Howard Park Super Pride store was gently lifted off the dilapidated vacant building with a crane Saturday, marking the start of construction of a new, long-awaited supermarket in the city. The Howard Park neighborhood, which is just south of Northern Parkway and borders Baltimore County to the west and the Forest Park Golf Course to the south, has been without a local grocery store for 12 years since the Super Pride was boarded up. Community leaders have worked with the city to bring back another grocer, but they've faced an uphill battle attracting developers, especially in poor economic times, while adjusting to several changes in political leadership.

Surrounded by clusters of trees and tall grasses, the community garden on Woodland Avenue provides Mary Waller with a serene, pastoral view from her wide front porch, less than half a mile from the Pimlico Race Course . But only a few of Waller's neighbors are left to enjoy it. Her side of the street is lined with rowhouses long abandoned and left to deteriorate, a lasting reminder of how her block in Northwest Baltimore has languished since...

Opening a criminal trial yesterday, a federal prosecutor accused two Baltimore County brothers who operate a well-known demolition company of illegally funneling $4,000 to Rep. Elijah E. Cummings' 1996 campaign in the belief that his support for replacing old public housing units would boost their business. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen O. Gavin contended that J. Mark and Douglas K. Loizeaux circumvented federal campaign laws against corporate donations by having employees at Controlled Demolition Inc. of Phoenix, in Baltimore County, write personal checks to Cummings' campaign, then reimbursing them.

A Baltimore demolition company has been accused of unsafe handling and storage of asbestos-laden debris at the former Bainbridge Naval Training Center in Cecil County.International Crane Co., at 1300 Race St., has been sued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is asking the federal court in Baltimore for unspecified penalties and an injunction against the firm.The EPA is accusing the company of storing asbestos-laden building debris on the former base in torn and open plastic bags.

Workers began to knock down five long-vacant rowhouses in Northeast Baltimore's Woodbourne-McCabe neighborhood Wednesday, part of an effort, city officials said, to draw new residents to an area where tidy brick homes stand next to boarded-up houses. The demolition was the first under a program established by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to address the more than 30,000 vacant homes and lots in the city. As a light rain fell Wednesday morning, workers nudged the front of a brick house with the claw-like arm of a hydraulic shovel.

I am not on Peter Angelos' payroll. We have at most a passing acquaintance. Other than as a skeptical and experience-hardened, cynical observer of all the State Center silliness, I'm not knowledgeable other than its obvious downsides. I'm sure its detail would drive me to distraction were I to delve into what's really afoot. I am, however, intimately familiar with the shameful Superblock fiasco and its lessons. Bryan Dunn, Kevin Macartney, Brian Morrison and Thomas Ventimiglia demonstrate they are not ("Mr.