Druid Hill Park

Johns Hopkins University faculty will offer 32 presentations covering issues in prevention, treatment and diagnosis of diseases affecting women from 9 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. today at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel. Topics of the 13th annual health conference, titled "A Woman's Journey," include aging, heart disease, breast cancer, global warming, stress, weight loss and depression. The keynote speaker is Leslie Mancuso, president and chief executive officer of JHPIEGO, a Johns Hopkins affiliate and international health organization that works to improve health care conditions in 50 countries.

Chrysanthemums are in bloom in Baltimore. Under the theme "Asian Roots: The Art of the Chrysanthemum," the Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory and Botanic Gardens has been displaying the fall flower Tuesday through Sunday since Nov. 2. The flowers, also called mums, originated in Asia and northeastern Europe. The show at Rawlings Conservatory in Druid Hill Park features origami displays and hundreds of chrysanthemums, grown and assembled by members of the Baltimore Department of Recreation and Parks.

A North Baltimore man died early yesterday of a gunshot wound he suffered during an attempted robbery near Druid Hill Park, police said.John Charles Williams, 36, of the 400 block of Winston Ave. was approached by an assailant with a handgun about 1 a.m. in the 2200 block of Division St. and was shot in the torso, said Sgt. Scott Rowe, a police spokesman. He was pronounced dead at Maryland Shock Trauma Center.Pub Date: 10/18/99

City police are investigating the discovery yesterday afternoon of a body floating in a lake in Druid Hill Park.Police pulled the body of a black man in his 40s from the lake in the 3100 block of Swan Drive about 3: 45 p.m.The death has been called questionable pending an investigation.Police had not released the man's identity last night.Pub Date: 4/25/99

Gregory "Pops" Smith drew pictures of the men who gathered on Baltimore street corners and sipped from small brown bags. He sketched women who clutched their children's hands as they walked in Lexington Market. And he depicted the people who played percussion instruments at Druid Hill Park on warm days.Mr. Smith drew pictures of the life he saw every day. His artwork was funny, sad and often dealt with life's dark side. But his work had a common thread: amazing realism.Mr. Smith, a Baltimore native who friends said "just seemed to blend into any group" while he sketched, died Wednesday of heart failure at his home in Montclair, N.J., where he had lived since November.

1) STONEY RUNI grew up on the edge of Leakin Park, known chiefly as where murder victims are unceremoniously dumped. But its hills were cut with old, worn paths, and in five minutes, you could walk far enough so that the nearby houses disappeared.A similar illusion is provided by Stoney Run Park, in the Roland Park area. Although a few houses are still visible along the two paths on both sides of Stoney Run Creek, the short walk -- about a mile round trip -- provides a quick escape from the city beyond.

It is a forgotten lake at the edge of an urban wilderness.For decades, until vandalism forced Baltimore to fence off more than 100 acres of Druid Hill Park in 1970, Boat Lake was a place where lovers escaped the sweat and filth of city summers to row on a pond shaded by trees.Abandoned by humans, the 3-acre lake with its castle-like pavilion became a refuge for warblers flying south instead of workers fleeing the clock.During years of neglect, the roof of the shelter rotted. Termites devoured a pillar.

Despite the lingering piles of snow that remain as a reminder of the 56 inches that blanketed Mountain Lake Park over the winter, daffodils there are starting to poke their heads up through the ground. The cold is releasing its grip on this once-fashionable Garrett County resort, which dates to 1881.Soon shutters will be thrown back and wicker porch furniture returned to broad Victorian porches as its 1,300 residents prepare for another summer in what was once called "America's ideal summer resort."

Mission: The association was founded last year to work in partnership with the city of Baltimore to ensure the future of the historic Baltimore Conservatory in Druid Hill Park, the third oldest designed park in the United States; to assist in the development of the conservatory into a premier horticultural center; to continue educational, recreational, career training, employment, economic development and tourism programs. The conservatory complex is owned by the city and includes the 1888 Palm House with glass walls that enclose tropical plants and trees, and three adjacent greenhouses.

Leslie Harvey is a vivacious 18-year-old with a blistering forehand. It's the forehand that helped earn her a wild-card selection into the main draw of this week's USTA Women's Satellite tournament at Druid Hill Park.It is her experience and knowledge of the local courts that may help her survive past the first round that begins today."She has known these courts since before she was born," said Leslie's mother, Marie, an administrative assistant at Old Court Middle School. "Her dad was out here playing in a tournament the week before she was born, and I was sitting in the stands cheering for him."

Sunday BUTCHERS HILL HOUSE TOUR: The tour runs from noon to 5 p.m. and begins at Patterson Park's White House at East Lombard Street and South Patterson Park Avenue. Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 the day of. Call 410-522-6773. JEWISH HISTORY BIKE TOUR: Get fit, learn some history and enjoy the great outdoors all at the same time. The bike tour rides through South Baltimore, East Baltimore and Bolton Hill to uncover remaining Jewish sites. The trip leaves from the Jewish Museum of Maryland, 15 Lloyd St., at 10 a.m. Riders must be at least 12 years old. Tickets are $20. To register, call 410-732-6400.

Constellation should leave Now that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved the Constellation Energy Group/Electricit? de France joint venture ("CEG nuclear venture advances," Oct. 10), I, as a stockholder, would like to see Constellation tell Governor Martin O'Malley and the legislature to go jump in a lake, move their corporate headquarters to Delaware, build a nuclear facility in upstate New York and sell any excess power to BGE at a premium. Walter J. Kasprzak, Fallston Obama is the MVP Here we go again!

The decrepit mansion once served as home to the president of the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, but two decades of brush has grown and, along with vandals, has made it uninhabitable. Cue the goats. In what's the first step to a $10 million project to transform this piece of Druid Hill Park into an environmental and recreational center for the city, the four-legged weed whackers have cleared a half-acre ring of ivy and other invasive species. The herd of 40 will be brought back to clear the rest of the 9-acre parcel that few have used, legally anyway, for years.

It was Robert Taylor's first time at a Baltimore Pride event, but the nonprofit worker from Alexandria, Va., already had the right idea. As the shadows of an unexpectedly sunny day grew long, Taylor, his arms folded, lay back in the shade of an oak tree in Druid Hill Park yesterday, catching a tranquil snooze. "It's comfortable here," whispered his friend, Robert Bruce of Washington, on the second and final day of Baltimore Pride, the 34th annual festival celebrating gay and lesbian life in Charm City.

Brittany Banks says she's tired of missing out on a normal adolescence. She never went to a prom, never had a first date. Ever since seven boys allegedly attacked and sexually assaulted her at a Baltimore middle school six years ago, she's been through dozens of psychiatric wards and residential facilities for troubled youths. She had hoped to find freedom on the night of Sept. 10, when she jumped out a window of an Upper Marlboro group home where she was supposed to have been under 24-hour supervision.

It's not unusual for a public building or park to be named after someone. Selling naming rights of a stadium, arena or ballpark to a corporate sponsor is something professional sports franchises and even major universities do routinely. But officials in Frederick are contemplating taking the concept one step further. A 1.5-acre lot in downtown Frederick, the former site of a children's playground, is being converted into a fenced-in dog park where pets can run unleashed. It could soon be named the "Flying Dog Park," not because the city is prone to aerial canines but because it's also the name of a local brewery.

THE PROBLEM // A broken pipe in Robert E. Lee Park caused water to pour down a path for more than a week. THE BACKSTORY // Daniel Pugatsky, who walks his dog in Robert E. Lee Park, noticed water pouring out of a crack in a path just past the footbridge near the dam. The Pikesville resident talked to friends who go there daily and learned it had been draining that way for at least three to four days. In late June, he called Baltimore's 311 system from the park to report the problem. "I said, 'Well, if nobody's fixing it, then maybe nobody knows about it,'" Pugatsky said.

Children splashed each other in the pool, squealing and giggling. Sunglasses-clad lifeguards perched on a high chair, watching for signs of trouble. Parents coaxed the little ones who eyed the water with apprehension. It was a familiar scene for Clarence "Shad" Brown Jr., 75, who worked as a city lifeguard in the 1950s - except for one major difference. "We couldn't go to this pool," Brown said, sitting by the Druid Hill Park pool yesterday. "We had to go to the colored pool." The Druid Hill Park Negro Pool was smaller, and when it rained, water from a nearby cemetery flowed into it, Brown said.

Comedian Lonnie Shorr, who would go on to appear on the Merv Griffin, Dean Martin and Tonight shows, was bitten by the acting bug while a 1950s City College student. He made his Baltimore debut when he landed a role in the student play Remains to be Seen, presented on his high school's 33rd Street stage. "I was always the class clown," he said. He was born in 1939 in Zebulon, N.C., and he likes to tell his audiences where he came from. "It's just a word and it's funnier than Baltimore.

Baltimore officials opened the latest addition to the Jones Falls Trail yesterday, hoping that the pathway will provide a boost to the city's effort to become more bike-friendly. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin and Mayor Sheila Dixon ditched their usual business attire and strapped on bicycle helmets to celebrate the completion of a portion of the trail. In an inaugural ride, they led dozens of cyclists - including one on a unicycle and another pair on a tandem bike - on the 2.75-mile ride through Druid Hill Park, zipping by the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, the Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory and the park's lake.