Downtown

People who never bought a pair of shoelaces along old Lexington Street are now identifying it as a superblock - a chunk of downtown real estate that made news when Peter G. Angelos and David Hillman filed a lawsuit against the Baltimore Development Corp. This block was indeed super, once, when it seemed as if half the city converged there for everyday needs. The heart of the block was its array of five-and-dimes - Woolworth's, Grant's, McCrory's and Kresge's. The soul of the block was its diverse, unpretentious people.

Landscape architect Roland Oehme's dream is modest: He wants to be able to bike from his home in West Towson to the center of the Baltimore County seat without risking his life. So far, it's easier said than done. On a recent bike ride into the heart of town, he said, he barely avoided a wreck on Bosley Avenue -- a "treacherous" mix of six lanes of cars whizzing past at 50 mph, impatient drivers and traffic lights that don't allow walkers or bikers enough time to cross. Over the past week, Oehme's cautionary tale mingled with concerns and suggestions from about 150 residents and business owners, spawning a series of recommendations that would make Towson more pedestrian- and bike-friendly -- and more attractive for shops and outdoor dining.

An infrequent visitor to Annapolis, strolling past the storefronts of downtown yesterday, wouldn't have noticed. The stench of exhaust and the low roar of midday traffic had been replaced by unfamiliar sounds and smells - the odor of fresh pine boughs wrapped around lampposts and of fabric softener from the vent of a hot clothes dryer. Only the tinkle of an unseen wind chime or the drone of an occasional passing car broke the eerie near-silence. The Middle East peace conference at the U.S. Naval Academy, which drew delegates from 50 countries and organizations and hundreds of journalists and protesters to Annapolis, had driven away just about everyone else.

All too often, plans to revitalize urban areas end up gathering dust on book shelves because they are more dreams than sober assessments of the future.But a strategy for rejuvenating downtown Baltimore unveiled by the city's leading business organization yesterday is drawing praise from business leaders who say its pragmatism and lack of pie-in-the-sky visions will likely prove the key to its success.The Downtown Partnership's 36-page Central Business District Plan does not call for monorail trains skimming above Charles Street.

One of the last places most Baltimore residents would recommend walking at 9 p.m. is in the shadows of downtown's Jones Falls Expressway.But that's exactly where Denise Perkins can be found once a week. In her stylish beret and full-length brown topcoat, Perkins joins a posse of workers -- including a psychiatrist, nurse and social service counselors -- seeking out the city's chronic homeless.As manager of the Downtown Partnership's public safety guides, Perkins and the platoon act as a MASH unit, trying to lure the city's needy off the streets the hard way: one person at a time.

THE PROPOSED redevelopment of Baltimore's old shopping district, located on the west side of downtown, has given many people pause.The plan calls for demolishing some old buildings and replacing them with gleaming new shops, restaurants, offices and residences, and, as its centerpiece, a rejuvenated Hippodrome Theater.Whatever arguments you hear concerning the recycling of the old downtown blocks, remember: History is on the side of the proponents. This city has some outstanding examples of how to resurrect declining neighborhoods.

It's easy to feel bullish about Wall Street these days.The street where many a fortune has been made or lost is getting a new look. Older buildings are being renovated, new ones are rising, and -- of all things -- people are moving in.Wall Street has always had people around during the day, hundreds of thousands of them working in the high-rise offices of this downtown business district, taking lunch in small eateries, crowding the subways in the rush hours....

With little fanfare, the Baltimore City Council approved yesterday a $350 million plan to renovate the west side of downtown, the largest urban revitalization effort since the Inner Harbor project two decades ago.Downtown merchants who face losing their businesses wept and sighed as the council voted 15-4 to support a plan that calls for the city to condemn 110 properties along an 18-block stretch. The move allows the city to begin buying and assembling large tracts of land in hopes of luring major developers to reinvest in Baltimore's sagging downtown core.

Four children died in a house fire down the street three years ago. A red awning announces the drug recovery house at the other end of the block. Planks of wood have replaced the windows and doors on adjacent row homes now abandoned.Yet the residents in this aching East Baltimore neighborhood have a message for downtown business owners who want to ship into their midst the 900 poor men, women and children fed daily by the Our Daily Bread soup kitchen.We'll take them.The woes of the Johnston Square neighborhood east of the Jones Falls Expressway and north of the state penitentiary are so bad that plans announced Tuesday to move the city's largest downtown soup kitchen into the area are being viewed as a possible catalyst for renewal.

Postal service returned to Westminster's Main Street yesterday with the official opening of a satellite office at Giulianova Groceria at the Winchester Exchange Building.Owner Tony D'Eugenio said he was in at 6: 15 a.m., hours before state and local officials arrived for a ribbon-cutting. "I've been cooking -- lentil bean soup, fresh spaghetti sauce. I had some baking to do, and I had to make lasagna."D'Eugenio said he hopes the post office window at the rear of his store will boost business when postal patrons get a whiff of what's cooking.

Hopes for a reborn central Columbia clashed with fears over a bankrupt developer's future at an unusual, daylong Howard County Council hearing Saturday. Discussion has been going on for five years as debates raged over traffic, affordable housing, schools and infrastructure cost. The council intends to vote on the resulting legislation by January, though critics say more time is needed. Columbia's master developer, General Growth Properties Inc., the Chicago shopping center chain that bought the Rouse Company five years ago, is pushing to urbanize downtown Columbia with a new street grid, pedestrian plazas, sidewalk shops, restaurants and multistory, densely packed offices and garages.

On Sunday, we listed a high temperature of 80 for Saturday in downtown Baltimore. That puzzled reader Fred Weiss. "My thermometer barely made it to 70 ... Where and what time was that 80-degree reading?" Darned if I know. Our data vendor claims it came from The Baltimore Sun's station at Calvert and Centre, but we never got that warm, either. All future "downtown" readings will come from the Maryland Science Center.

In 1984, downtown Baltimore was a very different place than it is today. After reaching its pinnacle in the 1940s, Baltimore began to witness a decline in population, employment and investment that continued well into the next four decades. The downtown area was no exception. Despite successful efforts to redevelop Charles Center and the Inner Harbor, much of the area outside of these districts remained unchanged. Vacant storefronts along Charles Street were the norm. Graffiti and other signs of vagrancy were increasing.

Bud Schaefer, of Parkton, was born in 1930. He's noticed many high-temperature records were set that year: "Was that time period of the late 1920s and early 1930s unusually hot?" Yes, and through the '40s. Or so it seems. Baltimore's eight hottest years, and four of our six hottest summers, all fell between 1930 and 1949. Then again, 1950 was when they moved the official station from downtown to the airport.

Although most Baltimoreans have to store their garbage on their own premises for six full days now that the new "one plus one" schedule of weekly trash collection has started, residents in one small part of the city were exempt - leading others to cry foul. Those who live downtown and in Mount Vernon continue to enjoy twice-a-week collection plus the traditional extra perk of twice-a-week recycling. Call it two plus two. The bounty of refuse collection service in that area, well-known to lawmakers and often discussed in City Council meetings, was news to many residents who began closely eyeing the new trash pickup routes for the first time this week as the schedule changes took effect.

Baltimore City is getting a touch of Venice with a fleet of water taxis to whisk commuters downtown from Fells Point, Canton and Locust Point via the Inner Harbor. Even if the snappy blue-and-white vessels aren't quite on a par with Venice's famed Vaporettos, they certainly make city commuting more scenic, and on top of that, they're free. But should they be? The system, which is being expanded with a $1.6 million federal stimulus grant, costs about $150,000 a year to operate. But so far, it's only attracted about 90 passengers a day, which seems a lot for a relative handful of commuters, most of whom probably could afford at least a token fare.

Michael D. Sydnor Jr. is just one face of the alarming spate of car break-ins around downtown Baltimore. He's 40 years old and until two years ago, he says, he lived rent-free with his girlfriend in an apartment on North Charles Street, though the address he provided authorities does not exist. He says he earned $11 per hour working in a stockroom at the Inner Harbor's Hyatt Regency, but when asked the address of his employer on a court form, he put down a question mark. He's been arrested 101 times under the name Sydnor since 1994, but he sometimes uses the last name Thomas.

John Polyniak in Lake Shore says the downtown temperature he gets from the phone company's weather line is so much higher than BWI's that "it seems irrelevant. ... Is the thermometer laying on the tar atop the Maryland Science Center?" It's actually on a phone company building downtown. It's a hot spot, but downtown summer temperatures are always higher than BWI's because of urban "heat island" effects - solar energy reradiated by concrete and asphalt. The Sun's station at Calvert and Centre streets is a cooler choice: baltimoresun.

Beginning this week, the residents and property owners of East Baltimore's Old Town neighborhood will have an opportunity to shape their future by participating in a weeklong planning charrette sponsored by the Baltimore Planning Department. This area between the Johns Hopkins University medical campus and downtown represents a significant development opportunity, which is why the city has selected it for this public "visioning" session. On the east side of the study area, the vacant Somerset Courts public housing community adjoins the Dunbar and Sojourner Douglas schools at the edge of the Hopkins campus.

Baltimore officials want to revive a downtown shuttle bus service to ease congestion and free up parking spaces in city garages, despite the financial failure of a similar transit system three years ago. The proposal, which might initially include three downtown circulator bus routes - with reduced fares or no fare at all - would be paid for in part by increasing a city tax levied on daily and monthly parking spaces. "Congestion is a serious issue in downtown," said 1st Deputy Mayor Andrew Frank.