Eastport

Annapolis police have identified as a city resident the man they think is responsible for more than 30 home burglaries in Eastport neighborhoods.They would not divulge the man's name yesterday for fear of interfering with the investigation. But police said they have issued one arrest warrant for the man in connection with a burglary unrelated to the Monday break-ins in which he is a suspect.The man lost a size 10 1/2 sneaker during a struggle with an officer who he kicked in the shin. The officer hung onto the shoe, and the man fled, jumping over two fences.

In rapidly changing Eastport, where expensive modern homes have sprung up alongside older homes and businesses, the inevitable conflict between old and new may be to blame for a dispute involving late-night music wafting from the Peerless Rens Club.Some residents who live behind the non-profit, all-black club, which has called the Annapolis waterfront community home for four decades, say noise from its dances has been a problem for several years. Recently, they've begun to take action, writing letters to the city Alcoholic Beverages Control Board and meeting with club and city officials.

When Susan Norfolk decided three years ago to sell her computer graphics business in Northbrook, Ill., and open a bed-and-breakfast someplace warm, she headed for quaint Annapolis.After looking at 20 houses downtown, Norfolk chose the working-class neighborhood of Eastport, just across the Spa Creek Bridge from the city's historic district."The downtown area is pretty saturated" with bed-and-breakfasts, Norfolk said. "I get a whole crowd down here that they don't get there ... the sailing school people, people visiting Eastport businesses.

Joe Mack didn't train a lick and hadn't participated in a tug of war since eighth grade, so he and his teammates were elated to pull off a fleeting victory for Annapolis yesterday in its annual battle against the enclave dubbed the Maritime Republic of Eastport. But, as it does more often than not, Eastport outpulled its parent city overall - winning three of the five heats and bragging rights in a town where boastfulness is practically the municipal pastime. The city of legislators and lobbyists, where serious Middle East peace talks are planned, showed its lighter side during the 10th anniversary tug organized by the group from Eastport, a breakaway neighborhood that unofficially seceded from Annapolis on Super Bowl Sunday 1998 using a strategy mapped out on bar napkins.

Eastport is often referred to as the other side of Annapolis. But if you ask a group of Eastporters, they will tell you Annapolis is the other side of Eastport. That's because while Eastport may not be as well known as its famous neighbor, anyone who lives on the peninsula knows Eastport has it all and more. "If life had not changed at all after the first day of living in Eastport, I would have been perfectly happy. But the longer I live here, the better and better it gets," said Carey Kirk, who moved to Eastport in 1997.

UPPER MARLBORO -- Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, a giant shark -- very similar to the man-eater that terrorized Amity Harbor in the 1975 movie, "Jaws" -- has been spotted -- in Maryland.The 38-foot great white was not seen slicing through the Chesapeake Bay but resting on the land-locked paved parking lot at Eastport International Inc. And though the fiberglass fish seems harmless now -- the lower jaw with its razor-sharp teeth are missing -- it won't be long before the shark is back scaring people at Universal Studio Florida, a theme park in Orlando.

THIS YEAR marks the 130th anniversary of the opening of the first Eastport bridge. Appropriately, the span across Spa Creek has been closed for repairs -- to give Annapolitans a glimpse of how difficult it was to get from one shore to the other in Maryland's capital long ago.Not that civic distinctions ended with the building of the bridge, mind you. "If you were an Annapolitan, you didn't go over to Eastport," an old-timer told local chronicler Mame Warren....

When "The End" scrolls across the screens tomorrow night at the Crown Eastport Art 2 cinema, Annapolis moviegoers will bid farewell to the only local theater dedicated to arts and independent films. Connecticut-based Crown Theatres recently announced that the Eastport Art 2's screens would go dark after tomorrow but that the "tradition will immediately continue" at the nine-screen Crown Harbour, which is getting a $1 million face lift this summer and fall. Although it's possible that the neighborhood theater, at Eastport Shopping Village, could reopen under new management, local moviegoers are already bemoaning its closing.

UPPER MARLBORO -- Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, a giant shark -- very similar to the man-eater that terrorized Amity Harbor in the 1975 movie, "Jaws" -- has been spotted -- in Maryland.The 38-foot great white was not seen slicing through the Chesapeake Bay but resting on the land-locked paved parking lot at Eastport International Inc. And though the fiberglass fish seems harmless now -- the lower jaw with its razor-sharp teeth are missing -- it won't be long before the shark is back scaring people at Universal Studio Florida, a theme park in Orlando.

For folks living in Eastport, the view of the world is a little different. They consider their close-knit neighborhood, which happens to be in Annapolis, just east of the downtown historic district, to be its own city -- the Maritime Republic of Eastport, or MRE. They have their own flag, their own parliament and their own mascot, a golden retriever. And they refer to that neighboring city, which happens to be the state capital, as "Westport." Community pride runs deep in this working-class neighborhood, and it should be in fine form tonight as Eastport celebrates its third annual "Independence Weekend."