Demolition

The New Yorker's muddled article on language by Joan Acocella has generated responses , some incredulous, some furious, from linguists and lexicographers demonstrating just how wrong-headed and ignorant the magazine is about prescriptivism and descriptivism. Now Steven Pinker, a principal target of Ms. Acocella's inept criticism, has weighed in with an article at Slate , "False Fronts in the Language Wars," that will gladden your heart if you enjoy seeing a demolition job expertly performed.

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.

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.

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...

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.