East Side

Baltimore County officials say the key to more business on the east side is the extension of Route 43, a $65 million highway scheduled to be completed late next year. The road will allow more than 600 acres to be developed along the Interstate 95 corridor, extending from White Marsh to Middle River. County officials hope that a planned business park will attract biotech companies that will lead to more than 10,000 new jobs for the area. "We're looking for high-paying jobs," said David Iannucci, executive director of the county's Department of Economic Development.

The state came to Montgomery County's east side a few years ago bearing gifts: a redesigned U.S. 29 to speed commuters through to destinations in Howard County and the District. But soon after the roadwork was completed, new problems arose. Nearby shopping was now obscured from drivers' sightlines. Once-thriving stores lost business and began to close. "It's easy for people to keep on going," said Bill Strassberger, a community activist who lives near the Burtonsville shopping area, where several storefronts are vacant.

Proposals for an Asian theme park and, later, a NASCAR track fizzled in the face of public protest. Now comes the latest idea for the same spot on Baltimore County's east side: Move the Maryland State Fairgrounds from Timonium to the site in Middle River - with, perhaps, slot machines. County Councilman Joseph Bartenfelder's suggestion led the county executive to call in the news media yesterday to denounce the idea. And it had some area residents cringing at the thought of being thrust into the debate surrounding the hot-button issue in state politics.

GROUNDBREAKING for the $139 million Wyndham hotel is the most visible sign of the dramatic transformation of East Baltimore's "Gold Coast," from Little Italy to Canton.Former lumber yards and industrial sites are giving way to snazzy luxury developments.Formstone facades on rowhouses are being stripped away as blue-collar neighborhoods undergo gentrification.City Hall played a pivotal role in orchestrating the Inner Harbor renewal in the 1970s. But as the momentum shifts east of downtown, private investment -- albeit with city aid -- is driving changes there.

Kingsley Park, the dreary remnant of World War II-era housing projects on Baltimore County's east side that descended into dilapidated living conditions and a haven of crime, will be redeveloped into a new village of mixed-income housing. In a joint move by the county and federal governments and the corporate owners of the property, officials will let the contract that allows for more than 300 mostly low-income, Section 8 housing residents at Kingsley Park expire Aug. 30. The action will bring down the curtain on the troubled complex, the last outpost for obsolete housing in the county's east-side revitalization district built 60 years ago for defense plant workers.

The boots, tied together in a double knot, hung from a power line looping over North Bethel Street - notice that drug dealers have claimed this dead-end patch of East Baltimore real estate. "They will be gone tomorrow," said Sgt. Thomas J. Joyce as he questioned a group of young men standing near a suspicious car with a Washington, D.C., license plate. "They are an insult to me." Baltimore police have started their latest effort to reclaim the city's most violent neighborhoods. A force of 120 more officers hit the east side Tuesday, an answer to the criminals who have claimed places like the 1800 block of N. Bethel St., where three families live alongside 17 empty, crumbling rowhouses.

Despite the successes of Baltimore County's ambitious revitalization program in Middle River and Essex, people there are puzzled at the lack of progress on its centerpiece, a multimillion-dollar waterfront destination. With two major housing developments under construction, WaterView and Hopewell Pointe, and a $5 million streetscape near completion, the collection of restaurants, shops and a marina at the headwaters of the Middle River has yet to materialize. Some are critical of the lack of progress on the waterfront destination.

Of all of the views in New York City, the best one is often from whatever restaurant, greengrocer or food vendor a visitor happens to be enjoying at the moment.From Harlem to Chinatown and everywhere in between, a passion for food can be a visitor's best guide. Manhattan is nothing if not a place to let the taste buds do the walking and lead the traveler on a tour of gastronomical, visual and cultural delight.Harlem"Can you raise your hands in praise? Can you raise your hands? I know you can because I've seen you lifting that fried chicken to your mouth."

In a bold new effort to reinvigorate the decayed area north of the Johns Hopkins medical complex in East Baltimore, the O'Malley administration is pushing ahead with a preliminary plan for a major biotechnology park and up to 1,000 housing units. Developed after months of study and to be done in stages over several years, the plan could require the demolition of hundreds of properties, many of them vacant and in need of repair, and displace a still-to-be-determined number of homeowners and renters in a 50-acre pie-shaped swath.

Leaders of an influential business and civic group said yesterday that although it might not appear that Baltimore has changed significantly in the past year, much behind-the-scenes groundwork has been laid for the kind of revitalization effort not seen in the city in decades. The Greater Baltimore Committee, which held its annual meeting last night, engaged an audience of more than 800 at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore hotel in something part pep rally and part realistic goal-setting. "We need to get people to believe this stuff is really happening," Francis B. Burch Jr., GBC chairman and co-chairman of Piper Rudnick LLP, said before the event yesterday.