Druid Hill Park

Much praise should be heaped upon the Grant Capital Management Company for their generous donation that will keep at least one public pool open ("Still in the swim," Editorial, Aug. 11). It is unbelievable that a city that boasts not one, but two stadiums, can't keep their public pools open during what has been a record breaking hot summer. Why bother to have pools if we don't keep them open? Couldn't the city planners have had some foresight to this problem before August? When children have no school and then have no place for recreation, that's when they get into trouble.

Wallace Gordon Burns Sr., a retired bank executive who enjoyed collecting books, died Monday in his sleep at his home in Zellwood, Fla. He was 90. Mr. Burns, the son of a carpenter and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised near Druid Hill Park and Pigtown. He was a 1937 graduate of City College. During World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps for four years at Turner Field in Albany, Ga., where he was crew chief on B-25 Mitchell Bombers. Mr. Burns began his banking career in 1937 when he went to work as a teller for Provident Savings Bank, eventually rising through the ranks to senior vice president.

Salome Semper stood in the drizzle on McCulloh Street outside Druid Hill Park with a smattering of parade spectators, listening to the sounds of steel drum bands playing in the distance. They could hear something like a parade way off toward Druid Park Drive, but still there was no sign of the costumed marchers or floats. Many had waited at least two hours amid spurts of heavy rain for the parade to wend its way from Park Heights to Druid Hill to kick off Baltimore's annual Caribbean Carnival Festival, in its 29th year this weekend.

Caribbean Festival Charm City takes on a distinctly island flavor (at least for a weekend) for the 29th annual Caribbean Carnival Festival, running today through Sunday in Druid Hill Park. Amid all the summer swelter, try imagining a cool island breeze as you view the many arts and crafts, try the food (enjoying a coconut or two couldn't hurt) and listen to music by Daddy O, Mr. Muzik, Jam Down, The Image Band and Triffik Jam. There's even a costume parade, beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday at the corner of Quantico and Park Heights avenues, complete with colorful dancers and vibrant steel-drum bands.

Sure, riding the zoo's new train is cool and all, admits 5-year-old Charlotte Corcoran. But the really cool thing about the Falls Road Zephyr is what goes on around the train. "It was great; I got to see all the animals," Charlotte said yesterday after she and her dad, Rick, a member of the zoo's board of directors, got an early seat on the Zephyr. "The best part was I got to see the monkeys." Train-less since 2005, when its old miniature locomotive had to be taken off the rails — it was falling apart, zoo officials said, and replacement parts were increasingly tough to find — the Maryland Zoo at Baltimore officially gets back into the miniature-railroad business at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Baltimore Police have identified two people who died in unrelated incidents over the weekend, a spokesman said. Gloria Harrod, 47, was found in her home in the 5200 block of Saint Charles Avenue in Northwest Baltimore's Arlington neighborhood on Saturday. Investigators are looking for Harrod's husband, who is considered a person of interest, said Detective Jeremy Silbert, a Baltimore Police spokesman. In another weekend incident, an autopsy will be performed on Michael Artis, 43, who was found dead in the backyard of his home at 9:45 a.m. Sunday, Silbert said.

The red-brick rowhouse facades of Baltimore's Bolton Hill neighborhood hold their own and are every bit as dreamy as Boston's Beacon Hill and Back Bay, Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square, New York City's Gramercy Park or Washington's Georgetown. The parameters of today's Bolton Hill are fairly recent, writes city historian, educator and author Frank R. Shivers Jr. in "Bolton Hill: Classic Baltimore Neighborhood. Blue Plaque Edition," published with the assistance of the Mount Royal Improvement Association and the Midtown Development Corp.

More than 4,000 people will attempt to "outrun the police" June 19 during the third annual University of Maryland Heart Center Baltimore 10-Miler, though Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III will not be among the pack after a health scare last year. Runners will compete with 10 officers to raise money for a foundation that aids injured officers and their families. Organizers of the event, which begins at Druid Hill Park and loops around Lake Montebello and back, say Corrigan Sports Enterprises, a regional sports promotion group, will donate $2 to the Signal 13 Foundation for each runner that finishes behind the first officer to finish the race.

Four years after a 14-year-old girl was electrocuted at Druid Hill Park while playing softball, a Baltimore judge will decide Friday whether to dismiss a civil case against an electrical firm the city hired for nearby repair work. Del Electric worked near Druid Hill Park's lower bowl softball fields at least six times in the three years before Deanna Green's death, including two months before the accident, according to court papers. Deanna's parents, Anthony and Nancy Green, sued Del Electric for damages.