Door

They were rapping at The Door on Chester Street yesterday.On a steamy afternoon in East Baltimore, Antonio Glover, 16, and his partner, Richard Hughes, 18, performed a rap number that was surprisingly professional.As with all rap music, the words came fast and furious. Onephrase -- "the 'hood's all we know" -- stuck with me. Their rough, crime-ridden neighborhood was all that high school dropouts Antonio and Richard did know before they discovered The Door, the inner-city ministry founded by a former Baltimore Colt tackle, the Rev. Joe Ehrmann.

An apparent would-be robber, who bummed a cigarette from an employee of an Ellicott City fast-food restaurant as the worker waited for the manager to open it yesterday morning, fired a shot through the restaurant's front door before fleeing with no money.No one was hurt during the shooting at the Wendy's restaurant in the 9100 block of Old Annapolis Road, police said.Sgt. Morris Carroll, spokesman for Howard County police, said the gunman, in a white lab coat, was standing by a pay telephone at the restaurant about 8: 30 a.m. when he asked an employee, who was waiting for the manager, for a cigarette.

A 3-year-old Salisbury girl was shot in the abdomen yesterday after a relative answered a knock at the door of their residence, police in the Eastern Shore city reported.Lt. Gene Powell said the assailant knocked on the door of a first-floor apartment in the 400 block of Naylor St. about 4: 30 p.m. When a man answered, the assailant fired a .22 caliber firearm, and the bullet struck the girl in the abdomen and left her body, Powell said.He said the girl was taken by ambulance to Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury, where she was treated for a non-life threatening wound and held overnight for observation.

City and housing authority police conducted a door-to-door canvass today of an East Baltimore high-rise apartment building, searching for the mother who dumped a newborninfant into a trash chute last night.The baby was rescued by a city firefighter and a Southeastern District police officer.The boy was reported in good condition at Johns Hopkins Hospital's pediatric intensive care unit.The Fire and Police departments were alerted to the problem about 10 p.m. yesterday after a tenant heard the infant's cries.

A 22-year-old woman apparently mistaken for someone else was shot to death at a friend's house in South Baltimore last night while picking up her 2-year-old daughter.Police arrested a suspect less than an hour later -- a man convicted of murder three decades ago.Detective Marvin Sydnor said that Tambra Dove of the 1500 block of Cypress Street answered a knock at the door of her friend's row house in the 1100 block of Wicomico Street and was immediately shot several times in her head and chest by a man carrying a rifle.

Director George C. Wolfe has often used doors as a central symbol in his productions, and "Jelly's Last Jam" is a case in point. In his 1991 Broadway musical about Jelly Roll Morton, Mr. Wolfe used an upstage door through which characters emerged to tell the bitter story of the African-American legend who claimed to have been the founder of jazz."

Not from the sanctity of a pulpit but from the pain of the streets. The Rev. Joe Ehrmann, who took the hard knocks and handed out some himself, has made a remarkable change in his own personal pursuit of happiness. It comes in the fulfillment of doing for others -- this giant of a man with a white face, in a black neighborhood, who doesn't see color.Ehrmann, who came to the National Football League with the Baltimore Colts and played as a defensive lineman for 13 years, has a ministry that deals with helping black children.

Louis Robert Barry, a purchasing manager for a White Marsh window and door supplier, was found dead of undetermined causes Aug. 25 while on a business trip in Bermuda. The Joppa resident was 48. He and business associate Ron Short had become ill after going out for dinner Aug. 24, and Mr. Barry called the house physician to his room at the Wyndham Resort & Spa in Hamilton. An ambulance was summoned, but Mr. Barry declined to go to a hospital, Mr. Short, a Whiteford resident, told The Royal Gazette newspaper in Bermuda.

Because of incorrect information supplied by the Baltimore County Police Department, an article yesterday gave the wrong number of precincts with officers who serve warrants full time for the county. There are two such officers in the Essex precinct, two in Woodlawn, and one each in the Garrison and Wilkens precincts.The Sun regrets the error.It's the police version of kissing frogs to find a prince: Two Essex patrol officers assigned to serving warrants knock on hundreds of doors every week, hoping to make an arrest.

When Jamie and Ann Pezzulla decided to sell their Timonium home, they knew the outside appearance mattered as much as what was inside. So they weeded and mulched the front gardens, replaced the screens on the side porch, hung an American flag and cleaned the front siding. But they didn't stop there. Understanding that the front door is a key component in the first impression a house makes on potential buyers, the Pezzullas went an extra step. Their front door was stripped and repainted, and the hardware was replaced, giving it a polished look.