Factory

As Herman Charles Engel Jr. walks through the Kirk-Stieff factory, there is an eerie silence. The formidable hammering machines stand mute, hundreds of tools and dies await reassignment while employees tend to final chores. It's like the lull after a memorable dinner party, a few people reliving the high points while they clear the table.The 76-year-old die maker stops to chat with Patricia Flanagan. She is polishing up the last order of mint julep tumblers, another Kirk-Stieff product that has helped smooth out life's rough edges.

Most likely we all agree that the Boston bombing was cowardly, senseless, dastardly. It cries out for justice. And just about every cop in the universe was on this case, big time. But what about all the drone bombings in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Iraq? Aren't these cowardly and unconstitutional and senseless acts of injustice? Who gives those orders? Who carries them out? Innocent men, women and children are just wiped out in an instant! When will the murderers be brought to a court of law?

Northeast Foods of Baltimore, a commercial bakery owned by the Paterakis and Tsakalos families of Maryland, plans to build a $25.4 million bakery in Clayton, N.C. North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue and Northeast President Bill Paterakis announced Monday that Northeast will begin construction of the 80,000-square-foot facility this summer and open it in spring 2011. Expected to create 84 jobs over the next two years, the project will bring to six the number of states in which Northeast operates a baking facility, after Maryland, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Deadly industrial accidents in the developing world are tragically common, but the recent collapse of a garment factory in Bangladesh that took the lives of more than 500 workers has captured the American public's attention, and no wonder. Knowingly or unknowingly, most Americans at some point have purchased clothing or other items made in Bangladesh, where factory workers labor under sweatshop conditions and employers keep manufacturing costs down by ignoring safety and building code violations.

A large, two-alarm fire burned in an abandoned lacrosse ball factory in Kingsville on Monday afternoon, bringing between 80 and 100 firefighters to the scene, according to a Baltimore County fire spokesman. The old factory belonged to the Belko Corp., a rubber manufacturer, but has been abandoned for years, said Lt. Paul Massarelli, the spokesman. Fire personnel were first dispatched to the factory, near the intersection of Jericho Road and Woodberry Place in the Franklinville area, about 3:35 p.m., he said.

Lion Brothers is outsourcing again. Unpaid child laborers will design one of the Owings Mills company's newest embroidered emblems. That's a good thing, in this case. If the factory of the future is about fast turnarounds on custom orders produced close to the customer, Lion Brothers' new Girl Scout badge is a small but telling indicator that U.S. manufacturers might have a place in the global economy after all. President Barack Obama's blueprint for reviving American factories should help retain and perhaps create manufacturing jobs at the margins.

The Broom Factory has never been a risk to win any architectural awards. Hulking above the eastern regions of the harbor, it is a sloppy assemblage of boxy, mismatched red-brick structures resembling something put together by a child at the very beginning of a building-blocks career. A child without much artistic promise. And yet, the fact that the Broom Factory continues to exist at all as it approaches its 100th anniversary is one of those marvels of urban adaptability and regeneration that make cities such curious organisms.

Walking amid hundreds of sewing machines crammed together as a jackhammer pounds away, Edward Zitka surveys the transformation of London Fog Corp.'s last U.S. factory."

All the bluish carpet tacks sold nationally by Woolworth and WalMart stores pass through the hands and grocery scales of 11 women at a venerable East Baltimore plant.They hand-pack tacks at the Holland Manufacturing Co., better known around Little Italy as the "Tack Factory," at Bank Street and Central Avenue.Just a handful of blocks away from stylish Inner Harbor apartments, one of the few surviving downtown manufacturing plants turns out tons of brads, tacks and nails in little bright blue and yellow pasteboard boxes.

A Taneytown men's clothing factory that has been gathering dust and deteriorating since it closed nearly four years ago is scheduled for conversion to a warehouse and possibly offices."

Groundwater contamination from toxic waste dumped decades ago at a nearby factory in the Severn area has prompted widespread testing of residential wells and put eight homes on bottled water, state officials said. The eight households have been notified that they have unsafe levels of industrial solvents in their wells, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment, and two other homes have been found to have levels below those deemed to pose health risks. State officials said they are anxious to complete testing for the chemicals — including possible carcinogens — at dozens of other homes that had yet to respond to requests to check their wells.

Former MLB player Bill Ripken will headline a new charitable gala in Columbia May 9. The Grand Slam Gala also will include live and silent auctions, and athletic challenges. The Baseball Factory, a Columbia-based player recruitment and development operation, launched the gala event to support its Factory Foundation, a nonprofit designed to assist underprivileged student athletes. Dress is casual, and attendees are encouraged to wear their favorite jersey or hat. Food will be provided by Clyde's, with desserts from Elkridge Furnace Inn, Georgetown Cupcakes and Milk 'N Cookies.

Finally it's spring. That means baseball, hay fever and the start of painting season. "May through September are the biggest months for paint sales," says Mark Sposito, vice president of marketing for Sherwin-Williams' Eastern Division. As temperatures rise, so do the number of home painting projects, he notes. The Sherwin-Williams paint factory on Hollins Ferry Road is operating 24 hours a day, five days a week. Soon the plant will be working around the clock on weekends as well, says plant manager Mike Levitsky.

Historic Savage Mill, a restored two-centuries-old cotton mill, draws another notch in its evolutionary timeline as it welcomes its newest eatery, The Factory Grill and Bakery Too. Owners Karen and Ken Chamberlain had been working in the retail business for 15 years when they decided to open a restaurant. Despite having no professional culinary background, the couple had faith that, with a great entrepreneurial spirit and a little raw talent, they could achieve their dream. “We like food, and I like to cook,” says Karen.

Margel L. Burton, a retired factory worker and former longtime Dundalk resident, died March 29 from complications of pneumonia at Carolina Point Nursing Home in Durham, N.C. She was 81. The daughter of farmers, the former Margel Love Gray was born and raised in Gore, W.Va., where she graduated from high school. In 1949, she married Orlif Burton and moved to Baltimore. They later settled in North Point Village, where they lived for many years. Mr. Burton, who was a shipping manager for Glidden Corp., died in 1982.

Midshipmen at the Naval Academy could spend less time training at sea, some gates into Fort Meade could be shut down and routine maintenance at military installations across the state could be delayed under federal budget cuts set to begin Friday. Military bases in Maryland stand to lose $114 million in operational funding as part of the across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration. That is on top of the $359 million the Pentagon expects to save by furloughing 46,000 of its civilian workers in the state.

Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc. finally pulled the trigger yesterday on the long-speculated closing of its Hampstead sewing factory, a decision that the retailer said will create "substantial savings" but eliminate about 100 workers from the payroll.The 35,000-square-foot factory, which manufactures suit jackets and sports coats, will close in early February and may be sold or put to some other use.Already, 28 employees have been transferred to the company's tailoring division. The other workers will receive what was described as standard severance packages.

Marian G. Day, a retired factory supervisor and Hampden resident, died Friday of heart failure at Keswick Multi-Care Center. She was 77. She was born Marian Griner in Cape May Court House, N.J., the daughter of vaudevillians. "Our parents were in vaudeville and traveled the East Coast. In the winter, we lived in Carney," said her sister, Dorothy J. Smith of Haines City, Fla. Mrs. Day attended Baltimore County public schools. "In those days, after you left Parkville Junior High School, you went to Towson High School.

My Thai's first run wasn't very long - just over three years - but its good, clean Thai food found a following. When its first home was destroyed by a fire in December 2010, we wondered when and where the owners, Varattaya "Pui" and Brad Wales, would return. My Thai is back, and it's got a few things extra. Now located in the Tack Factory, on the edge of Little Italy, My Thai has almost twice as much floor space to work with as it did when it occupied the basement level of Mount Vernon's Park Plaza Building.

My Thai, originally located in Mount Vernon's Park Plaza building, has reopened in The Tack Factory at 1300 Bank St. The new My Thai occupies the nearly 6,000-square-foot space formerly held by another Thai restaurant, Lemongrass, and features exposed brick, a 40-foot bar, dark woods, and a combination of high top communal tables and traditional seating. The restaurant is open seven days a week for lunch and dinner, until midnight on Friday and Saturday. Developed by the husband-and-wife team of Brad and Varattaya "Pui" Wales and Jirat Suphrom-In, the original Charles Street restaurant, along with Donna's and Indigma, was destroyed by a fire in December 2010.