Derelict

A metal, clam-shell shovel crashed through the rotting deck of the derelict schooner, closed and pulled away the rotting debris.Splinter by splinter, the 60-foot boat, which had sunk in Anne Arundel's Rock Creek a year ago, was dismantled yesterday. Its final voyage to the Millersville landfill is slated for later this week.Bob Orem, an official with the state Department of Natural Resources who supervised the demolition, cringed a little every time the heavy shovel tore into the custom-built, handcrafted hull.

Penn Station, the city's bustling train, bus and taxi hub, sits almost exactly in Baltimore's geographic center. Within a two-mile radius lie many of the city's cultural treasures: four colleges and universities, two major art museums, a symphony and an opera hall and the stately main branch of the library. Youthful entrepreneurs have transformed once-derelict blocks just north of the station with nightclubs, galleries, a movie theater and even a do-it-yourself electronics workshop.

Washington. -- To some, the problem of vacant space in our older factory cities and suburbs is environmental ''red-lining.'' Builders, lenders, corporations and insurers systematically reject urban sites where even the slightest hint of industrial contamination exists.Others call it the ''brown-fields'' problem -- that instead of recycling sites where the Industrial Revolution in America was born, places where much of our national wealth was generated and much of our history written, developers keep heading out for exurban ''green-fields.

On a day when he could have been out oystering, waterman Mike Edwards trolled the Chesapeake Bay south of Annapolis on Friday for a different quarry. Sitting at the wheel of his workboat, the Miss Renee Two, he felt a "nudge" on the line he was towing astern and winched it in to discover he'd hooked a mucky but otherwise intact crab pot. A lone oyster toadfish lay trapped inside. "I got one this time," said Edwards - meaning the pot, rather than the fish. Edwards, 53, of Grasonville is part of a small navy of watermen who have been hired by the state Department of Natural Resources this winter to pull derelict crab pots from the water.

Many people know Annapolis as the historic district: the busy shops and restaurants of Main Street and the City Dock, the beautifully restored historic homes and churches, the State House building and the state offices. Yet, as this section of Maryland's capital has thrived, the resurrection of a nearby commercial strip on West Street has remained elusive, with a revitalization plan that has stagnated on paper for 15 years. But after final approval this month of Park Place - a $150 million dollar mixed-use development with a theater and hotel on 7 acres that many consider the linch-pin site - and with other projects in the works, the long-awaited West Street renaissance seems at hand.

WASHINGTON -- A two-year-long, highly classified internal Justice Department inquiry has concluded that the FBI was derelict in failing to aggressively pursue the case that ultimately led to Aldrich H. Ames, the most damaging spy in the history of the CIA.A report on the Justice Department's inquiry, officials said, blamed the FBI for reacting slowly after two Soviet officials working in Washington, who had been recruited as spies by the FBI, were inexplicably...

We used up this year's snow supply in the first blizzard and are already digging into the 1997-98 quota.Housing inspectors invest in derelict slum properties because it's what they know.If only Congress could reshape the budget as definitively as it did the communications industry.Maybe it would help if NFL moguls gave up the idea of home cities and just played out of mobile caravans.

Chesapeake Shipbuilding said Wednesday that it has signed a contract to acquire about three acres of property adjacent to the shipyard. The acquisition would allow the company to expand and create as many as 125 new jobs. The land, located on the Wicomico River, is now an empty lot with a "derelict" bulkhead, the company said in a press release. The company designs and builds commercial steel vessels and has been in Salisbury for more than 30 years. - Andrea K. Walker

AFTER YEARS of ignoring the growing problem of abandoned houses, the city is razing derelict buildings at a record rate. "For the next couple of years, you will see an awful lot of demolition," pledges Housing Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III, who intends to increase the number from 1,750 buildings to 2,500 a year.As cranes and bulldozers wipe out derelict blocks, it is becoming clear that Mr. Henson, using bureaucratic powers that are not subject to anyone's review, is conducting planning by demolition.

Abandoned houses had to be razed before causing further decayIn a recent editorial assessing the administration of Kurt L. Schmoke and commenting on my performance as housing commissioner, The Sun clearly contradicts itself ("His grade is C+ after 12 years," Nov. 22)."Thousands of derelict rowhouses were razed," it wrote, "but because he [Mr. Henson] operated without an overall plan, his middle-of-the-block demolitions devastated many neighborhoods."I do not understand what The Sun would have preferred: That we leave the "derelict" property in place, guaranteeing that the houses on either side would deteriorate along with it and further "devastate" the community?

Chesapeake Shipbuilding said Wednesday that it has signed a contract to acquire about three acres of property adjacent to the shipyard. The acquisition would allow the company to expand and create as many as 125 new jobs. The land, located on the Wicomico River, is now an empty lot with a "derelict" bulkhead, the company said in a press release. The company designs and builds commercial steel vessels and has been in Salisbury for more than 30 years. - Andrea K. Walker

A decrepit railroad bridge in the shadow of Interstate 95 could find new life as the linchpin of a 5 1/2 -mile trail encircling the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River - opening up recreational opportunities along a stretch of Baltimore waterfront that some are calling "the next Inner Harbor." For now, the century-old CSX swing bridge carries little traffic except the occasional trespasser with a crab pot. But city officials and a prominent developer envision a restored span that would serve runners, bicyclists and folks who simply want to take a stroll along a stretch of shoreline that is being reclaimed from industrial development.

WASHINGTON -- Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former top military commander in Iraq, delivered a blistering critique of U.S. involvement in the Iraq conflict yesterday, calling American political leaders "incompetent." Addressing an audience of journalists who cover the military, Sanchez said the armed force's mission to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein was flawed from the start. National leaders, said Sanchez, "have unquestionably been derelict in the performance of their duty."

It certainly wasn't the Ride the Ducks tour. Instead of the Inner Harbor or Camden Yards or any of Charm City's usual sights, a caravan of buses bearing more than 200 developers, real estate brokers, architects and planners rode past derelict and hard-at-work factories, boarded-up houses and huge swaths of vacant land. They surveyed parking lots with potential. They saw gleaming new offices and medical centers and apartments in buildings converted from something else. Most of all, they were on the lookout for opportunities.

As a veteran diver and recreational fisherman, Skip Zinck is used to dodging junk that dots the surface of the Chesapeake Bay and the mouths of its rivers. But there's one kind of debris lurking below the surface that really spooks him: ghost pots. Tens of thousands of derelict crab pots - enough to fill every bleacher seat at Camden Yards for 23 games - litter the shallows of the main stem of the bay. The traps, usually set adrift by storms, are potential deathtraps for fish, terrapins and crabs - and a threat to the bay's fragile ecology.

The political fiasco that threatens to quickly shutter Prince George's Hospital Center and create a public health emergency in Maryland illustrates why elected officials should not be overseeing medical facilities. With virtually no explanation, the Prince George's County Council turned down at the last minute an offer from the state that could have rescued the hospital from its immediate financial crisis and put it on a long-term path to solvency, thus making it attractive to private companies such as those that run health systems in the rest of Maryland.

William "Bud" Post III, 66, who won a $16.2 million jackpot and bitterly called it the "lottery of death" after his life turned sour, died of respiratory failure Sunday at a hospital in Seneca, Pa. He won the Pennsylvania lottery in 1988 after pawning a ring for $40 and buying 40 tickets. Until then, he had worked odd jobs, had been married five times and was living on Social Security disability income. But the winnings, which were paid out in annual installments of $498,000 after taxes, brought trouble.

MAYOR MARTIN O'Malley is to be applauded for choosing to make a $1 million investment in the city's future well-being. Despite criticism that this ought not to be done in hard times, he has earmarked that money to hire 21 paralegals, clerks, lawyers and real estate agents to expedite acquisition of abandoned properties. This is seed money toward success. The more the mayor progresses in his plan to renovate or demolish 5,000 such houses, the more the city stands to benefit. Every vacant house that is turned into profitable new use will widen the tax base.

The Rev. G. Stanley Steele remembers the first time he saw the low-slung building on a prominent East Baltimore street corner. Once an auto services center, and later a succession of grocery stores, the building had been vacant for several years. Boards blocked the doors and windows, and had been covered with graffiti and faded posters for all kinds of events. The parking lot out back had become a dumping ground for trash and discarded furniture. Inside, the building was dark, dank and malodorous.

William "Bud" Post III, 66, who won a $16.2 million jackpot and bitterly called it the "lottery of death" after his life turned sour, died of respiratory failure Sunday at a hospital in Seneca, Pa. He won the Pennsylvania lottery in 1988 after pawning a ring for $40 and buying 40 tickets. Until then, he had worked odd jobs, had been married five times and was living on Social Security disability income. But the winnings, which were paid out in annual installments of $498,000 after taxes, brought trouble.