Downtown Baltimore

John Houser III reviews Cazbar in Friday's Live section. Someone spread it around that Cazbar, an "authentic Turkish taverna" in Downtown Baltimore, had closed. It was I, Richard Gorelick. I'd feel much less guilty about that whole ugly episode if you read John's review of Cazbar . It includes a revelatory moment, the sure feeling of eating the best version possible of a thing. Find out what what it was.  

Whether they live in Baltimore or its suburbs, whether they're here every day, once in a blue moon or never at all, everyone has an opinion, everyone has prejudices, everyone constructs their own reality about the city. For some, it's a dangerous urban "hell hole" with a deserving "Third World profile. " No talk-radio bigot used those cruel and racially charged terms. Two college professors, one from Johns Hopkins and one from Loyola, did - and in a 2008 essay that affirmed in a national publication what television viewers had seen for years in the prime-time entertainment that exploited Baltimore's complex human problems: poverty, ignorance, violent crime, drug addiction.

Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. crews repaired a gas leak at the corner of West Baltimore and Eutaw Streets last night after a paramedic reported a strong odor of gas at the downtown intersection.Fire officials said the paramedic was responding to a call about 9 p.m. when he noticed the odor. BG&E crews found a small leak in a pipe below the Community Blood and Plasma Service at 335 W. Baltimore St. They made a temporary repair and were set to return today.BG&E spokesman Art Slusark said the utility had received more than the usual number of gas odor reports following Monday's explosion in Irvington that killed an elderly woman.

During a stroll Thursday night from Little Italy to Harborplace, I bought jelly beans in The Best of Luck candy store, listened to a sidewalk trumpeter play the blues, noted several dead lights that left unappealing darkness along Pratt Street, and watched a Baltimore police officer train his flashlight into cars approaching the stop at Pratt and South, apparently looking for anyone not wearing a seat belt. He was the first cop I saw, and I guess his duty was in the cause of public safety, but I'd much rather have seen the man on foot patrol, strolling the sidewalks and Inner Harbor promenade with the rest of us. His presence certainly would have been appreciated 30 minutes later, when a squadron of eight skinny boys on bicycles decided to pop wheelies and fly along the brick walkway between the World Trade Center and the National Aquarium, oblivious (or maybe not)

Rightly or wrongly, Kurt L. Schmoke has been suspected of not being the same kind of "bricks and mortar" mayor as William Donald Schaefer. For that reason alone, his response to a strategy recommendation for downtown that landed on his desk yesterday will be closely watched.If Mr. Schmoke wins re-election this year, "The Renaissance Continues: a 20-year strategy for downtown Baltimore" offers guide posts for him to put his stamp on the city during the next four years. The question is whether he has the imagination and inventiveness to seize the momentum that the opening of a new baseball stadium and light-rail line will bring to Baltimore in 1992.

This'll make you all warm and fuzzy: Baltimore Gas & Electric, which last week announced a merger with Potomac Electric and the movement of its corporate headquarters out of downtown Baltimore, has pledged $50,000 to help fund the Downtown Partnership's "latest business retention and growth initiatives." In press release, a BGE veep is quoted as saying, "This award illustrates BGE's steadfast commitment to the prosperity of downtown Baltimore." YEAH, well . . . And check this out: The Better Business Bureau of Greater Maryland, facing complaints that its tele-marketers use high-pressure sales pitches to recruit new dues-paying members, is offering an award to recognize companies that treat their customers and employees ethically.

Over the past month, a series of reports has made people uneasy about the level of safety in downtown Baltimore. In truth, statistics show that both violent crime and property crime have decreased downtown by 40 percent over the last nine years and that downtown is still one of the safest areas in Baltimore. On any typical day, there are at least 160,000 residents, visitors, and employees in downtown Baltimore, going about their business without incident or interruption. The residential base continues to grow every year, outpacing most other cities and placing Baltimore seventh in the country in terms of the number of residents in a downtown area.

Magna gets loan reprieve Magna Entertainment Corp., which owns Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course, received a reprieve on loan repayments and more cash. The Canadian company had owed $180 million to parent MI Developments Inc., which has a 59 percent stake in Magna, by the end of the month, and Magna's $40 million line of credit with a bank was due Friday. The bank exteneded its deadline to July 30, and MID to Aug. 31. $550 million in construction Developers completed nearly $550 million in downtown Baltimore construction projects in the first four months of this year.

Sean March has a new job: He's part tour guide, part goodwill ambassador, and the eyes and ears for the city's downtown police officers.Mr. March is one of Baltimore's 35 new Public Safety Guides, who will walk downtown streets starting March 1, report suspicious behavior to police, give directions to lost tourists and get to know merchants.The guides are expected to make downtown Baltimore a safer, friendlier place. They were hired by the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, a consortium of property owners.

Ninety years ago this morning, approximately on the spot where Walt Disney's World on Ice is currently performing at the Baltimore Arena, somebody dropped a cigarette. Twenty-four hours later, most of downtown Baltimore was gone.Yesterday, a few dozen firefighters and fire buffs gathered beside the arena to commemorate the great fire of 1904, a wind-whipped catastrophe that tore the heart out of the city, leveling 140 acres and 1,500 buildings."It's the history of Baltimore, and the younger generation doesn't know about it," said Francis A. Kemper, 73, a retired Baltimore firefighter who planned yesterday's ceremony.

Downtown's Howard Street was jammed on the Saturday before Easter, and Diana Kane was busy with her new modeling agency. That was five decades ago. Back then, as a black woman, she was a pioneer: She founded a business on what was then Baltimore's principal shopping street at a time when few African-Americans could shop in the fashion houses there. Within a few years, Kane saw results. The glossy department store catalogs started showing African-American models. It was the 1960s, and their appearance was something of a first for Baltimore.

Eastern Shore police officers leaving a meeting at the U.S. District Court building in downtown Baltimore on Wednesday night spotted a wanted man and attempted to apprehend him, leading to a car crash, state police confirmed. Spokesman Greg Shipley said the officers, from Wicomico County and part of a federal drug task force, were leaving the meeting when they saw Shawn L. Brown driving a BMW. He said they were familiar with Brown and knew he was wanted on a drug warrant from their area.  Shipley said Brown realized he was being followed, and began "driving evasively.

Near City Hall, 5-year-old Shalyn Lloyd stood wearing a green hoodie and carrying a sign that read: "Are we next?" His sign expressed the outrage felt by hundreds who marched in downtown Baltimore on Monday night — and thousands more who have rallied in cities around the nation in recent days — to protest the failure of Florida authorities to arrest George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who killed teenager Trayvon Martin on...

Downtown Baltimore lost 9.4 percent of its jobs in 2011, according to a study to be released today by the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore. The partnership's annual State of Downtown report showed that the area had 102,731 jobs last year, down from 113,437 in 2010, according to Claritas, a research firm that tracks downtowns in the nation's top 25 metro areas and performed the analysis for the partnership. However, local economists who reviewed the annual report on Baltimore's core — the area within a one-mile radius of the intersection of Pratt and Light streets — said any job loss likely was far less severe than the data indicated.

In Sunday's column, I mentioned the shifting of what we consider downtown Baltimore from the old central business district to the city-within-a-city, Harbor East, created by "the Bread Man. " John Paterakis, who made a fortune baking hamburger buns for McDonald's, invested in the old industrial parcels between the Inner Harbor and Fells Point. His investment, sweetened with tax breaks and other incentives from the city, has paid off big-time, and even those of us who ridiculed the long-gone Schmoke administration's decision to give millions to a millionaire have to acknowledge it. But Harbor East today is hardly the quaint, three-story townhouse neighborhood Mr. Paterakis had originally envisioned and pitched to nearby communities.

A man was stabbed and seriously injured Monday night in downtown Baltimore, according to city police. The attack occurred shortly before 9 p.m. in front of an M&T Bank branch near West Fayette and South Eutaw streets, said Det. Nicole Monroe, a city police spokeswoman. Details of the incident were not available. The victim was rushed to a nearby hospital, though police said the man's injuries did not appear to be life-threatening. The stabbing was near the Hippodrome Theater, which did not have any events scheduled Monday night, and close to several other attractions.

Downtown Baltimore merchants began their push for a bigger share of this year's Christmas shopping dollars yesterday with a $330,000 advertising campaign they hope will lure shoppers away from area malls. The "Downtown for the Holidays" campaign represents a first for the area, said Michele Whelley, president of Downtown Partnership Inc. The business organization joined with Trigen Energy, American Express, Pepsi-Cola Co. and local and state government to promote downtown Baltimore. "Don't go to a mall in some faraway county cornfield," said Mayor Martin O'Malley yesterday, announcing the effort.

Detectives were searching yesterday for an unidentified man involved in the Christmas Eve shooting of a Westminster man, who minutes before his demise had shot his estranged wife to death on a crowded street in downtown Baltimore.Reginald Simpson, 25, was attacked by a man, dressed in black, in the 400 block of West Fairmount Avenue as he was fleeing from the 200 block of West Baltimore Street, where he had just shot his wife to death, according to city police.Audry Simpson, 23, of Randallstown died from a gunshot wound to the head at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

A woman was seriously injured Monday evening when she walked into the side of a moving light rail train at Lombard and Howard streets, just west of Baltimore's downtown, officials said. The accident occurred about 5:35 p.m., halting trains and forcing police to close off several streets during the evening rush hour. Trains were back and service and streets reopened about 6 p.m., police said. Terry Owens, a spokesman for the Maryland Transit Administration, said the woman struck the right front corner of the train, apparently while trying to cross the tracks that run north and south on Howard Street.

Add another problem to the mounting woes for the financially troubled organizers of Baltimore's inaugural Grand Prix auto race — the company has missed all its deadlines for planting trees downtown to make up for those cut down for the Labor Day weekend event. Not one of the 198 trees promised by Baltimore Racing Development has been planted, even though it had pledged to get them all in by late last week, according to Beth Strommen, director of the city's office of sustainability.