Fayette

A 41-year-old Baltimore man died at Johns Hopkins Hospital last night after he was shot numerous times about 10: 15 p.m. in the 2500 block of E. Fayette St., city police said.Milton James Wright of the 400 block of Glover St. was arguing with another man when the man drew a gun and shot him, police said. They said the shooter fled and was being sought.Pub Date: 9/02/98

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's administration is asking Baltimore's City Council to award a hefty tax break to a long-stalled west-side development project. Under legislation introduced by the administration, apartments to be built as part of the "Superblock" project near Lexington and Howard streets would receive a deep discount on property taxes for 20 years. City officials said it would not be feasible for the developers to build the 269-unit apartment building and 650-space underground garage without a tax incentive.

The owner of a downtown office building has gone to court to force a now-closed Baltimore advertising agency into involuntary bankruptcy, saying the agency owes $53,000 in lease fees.Fayette Realty Holding Co. Inc. of New York filed its petition in U.S. District Court Wednesday against the Barton-Gillet Co.The small, 75-year-old ad agency closed in April. It had moved from Gay Street offices to One Center Plaza at 120 W. Fayette St. in October 1994.Fayette Realty, an affiliate of J. P. Morgan Investment Management Co. in New York, took control of the 152,000-square-foot One Center Plaza in January 1994 after its developer, the Manekin Corp.

As of 9 a.m. Tuesday, traffic was slow on the JFX southbound at Fayette Street, due to an accident. Accidents were slowing traffic on I-70 eastbound near I-695 in Baltimore County, U.S. 50 westbound near Davidsonville Road in Anne Arundel County, Monkton Road near Falls Road in Baltimore County, Route 152 at Trimble Road in Joppa, Route 140 near the Liberty Reservoir Bridge in Reisterstown and Route 75 near Jones Road in Libertytown. There were no major delays reported on Baltimore area transit systems.

First, city officials lured Bank One to the 1000 block of E. Fayette St. across from the main post office, where the company opened a check-processing facility last year that is expected to generate 500 jobs. Then came Chesapeake Advertising, which recently broke ground on a building in the 900 block of E. Fayette, with plans to employ about 75 people when it opens. Now Baltimore Development Corp. officials are trying to decide who will purchase three remaining properties on East Fayette Street and two others on Baltimore Street to join those businesses in what's called the East Fayette Street Corridor Business Center.

I WAS WALKING across Fayette Street to catch a bus home. The rain had stopped, and old downtown Baltimore, as opposed to our totally recast harbor, presented itself at 10:30 p.m., not an hour when the well-trod corner at Howard and Fayette is supposed to look its best. Only a few minutes earlier, I was into a memory reverie, thinking about the old Town Theatre, where I saw Around the World in 80 Days and some other 1950s Technicolor banquets. I thought about how my grandfather went on about the vaudeville and burlesque clowns he'd enjoyed here.

Thousands of taxpayers celebrated Procrastinator's Night yesterday -- an unofficial holiday marked by long lines in and around Baltimore's main post office in the crush to beat the midnight deadline for filing federal and state returns.They came by car and truck, taxi and bus, motorcycle and 10-speed bike, some even walking on crutches braving bumper-to-bumper madness on East Fayette Street, outside the only postal facility in the metropolitan area open until the Internal Revenue Service witching hour.

A glimpse over the television director's shoulder shows the next transformation involving the corner of West Fayette and Monroe. Two video screens, each the size of a compact disc box, display views from two cameras capturing a scene distilled from a book detailing a year in a West Baltimore neighborhood overrun by illegal drugs.Actors are portraying the sadness of a real father and the alienation of a real teen-age son. In take after take the boy turns away from his father's soft-spoken plea to stay in school, stepping off the curb outside the corner bar, turning his back on his old man, dropping his dreadlocked head and walking out of the picture.

The last call was for a guy named "Boo."Then a power saw and a crowbar brought down the last of six illegal pay phones at the infamous corner of Fayette and Monroe streets -- a notorious drug corner in West Baltimore.City Councilman Martin O'Malley -- stirred by reports of hundreds of illegal pay phones in Baltimore that are used as vehicles for prostitution and illicit drug sales -- prodded officials of the city Department of Public Works during a hearing yesterday to leave the council chamber and cut the phone down.

What can 250 city employees, from police officers to pothole fillers, accomplish in one day at a cost of $9,000?They cleared 20 storm drains, boarded up eight houses, painted 15 signposts, caught two stray dogs, trimmed seven trees, arrested 15 suspected drug dealers, seized three handguns and confiscated $900 in suspected crack cocaine and heroin.Workers from nine city agencies and one state agency converged on a 52-square block area in West and Southwest Baltimore yesterday to launch a weeklong cleanup of economically depressed neighborhoods with festering drug problems.

As of 9 a.m. Monday, traffic was slow at Fayette Street and Linwood Avenue in Baltimore City, due to an accident. There were no major delays reported on Baltimore area transit systems.

Colleges No. 1 Terps men lose in soccer at Clemson, 2-1 The No. 1 Maryland men's soccer team (13-2-2, 4-2-1 Atlantic Coast Conference), sporting a makeshift backline, fell, 2-1, at Clemson (6-8-1, 3-4 ACC) on a cold, rainy Friday night. John Stertzer scored his team-leading 13th goal of the season for the Terps , who played a man up for the majority of the match after a red card was issued to the Tigers' Jack Metcalf in the 23rd minute. Stertzer's header flicked over goalkeeper Cody Mizell from 8 yards after a free kick from Taylor Kemp in the 36th minute.

As of 9:30 a.m., all northbound lanes of the Jones Falls Expressway were closed between Fayette Street and North Avenue due to an accident. In Elkridge, Montgomery Road is closed in both directions between Landing and Hunt Club roads because of a sinkhole. Route 100 is the suggested alternate. There were no major delays on Baltimore area mass transit systems.

Hundreds of East Baltimore residents who have been without water since Saturday will have to wait a few more hours while city public works crews repair another problem that arose Monday afternoon, a Public Works spokesman said. City crews have repaired problems with smaller lines that arose after an earlier water main repair and were restoring running water when the sealing on the repair clamps failed, Bob Murrow of the Baltimore Department of Public Works said. The 20-inch main was repaired by 4:23 a.m. Monday morning, but three additional small water service lines also broke when they started allowing water to flow through the repaired main, Murrow said.

Baltimore Police say an 8-year-old boy who was reported missing Saturday has been found. The city police said via its Twitter account Sunday that Darrell Anthony Brown was found. tricia.bishop@baltsun.com Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

City police are investigating a fatal shooting that occurred Saturday afternoon on Fayette Street in West Baltimore. A 25-year-old man was shot in the head at about 3:30 p.m. in the 2100 block of West Fayette St., less than a block from Bon Secours Hospital. Police did not release the man's identity. Traffic was still being diverted off Fayette to North Pulaski Street almost two hours later, while police knocked on doors collecting information. While some looked on from a nearby bus stop by the hospital, others strolled by the yellow police tape to peer down the street.

WITH WATER to one side and other barriers to growth on the other, it's logical that downtown would begin to expand eastward well north of the harbor. The city should do whatever it can to jump-start that process.The City Council is considering a plan to acquire underused land on Fayette Street near the main post office for development into a business park. The property has the added advantage of being in Baltimore's federal empowerment zone, which means businesses locating there could take advantage of federal tax incentives.

The body of a 35-year-old man was found this morning at rush hour in a stairwell on a downtown street, a death that police say they consider suspicious. The corpse, on the south side of the 100 block of E. Fayette Street, between St. Paul and Calvert streets, was discovered by a passerby at about 8:30 a.m. and had not been removed almost an hour later. It lies at the bottom of steps leading to the door of a basement-level flower shop, and is not easily visible from the street. Det. Donny Moses of the Baltimore police said at the scene that the man was carrying identification and a backpack, was lying in a fetal position and showed no outward signs of trauma.

A fatal car accident in the northbound lanes of the Jones Falls Expressway on Monday morning closed several lanes of the highway between Fayette Street and North Avenue for about five hours, according to city police. Police say the accident happened about 1 a.m., killing an unidentified person. Traffic investigators have not released details on the cause of the accident. brent.jones@baltsun.com Sign up for Baltimore Sun local news text alerts