Fells Point

Susan Singer and her husband, Stephen Schulhoff, have been bringing nice things to Fells Point for about 10 years now, starting in 1997 when Singer opened a little retail home-furnishing store called Shades of Light. That business morphed into the big home-furnishing store Eclectic Elements, in its new South Broadway location since last year. In October, Schulhoff opened Eclectic Cafe and Creperie in an area carved out of the rambling retail space. Poor:]

Once in awhile, as Tony Norris says, you wake up from a snooze and do something. Norris, 68, decked out in a white turtleneck, is talking about the current affairs of Bertha's - his Fells Point pub that'll turn 35 next year. Why wait for some snappy anniversary? In this new year, Norris has awakened from a snooze and changed the place a bit. No big changes, mind you. For some folks, Fells Point has changed enough in recent years - with the arrival of mega-bars, the demolition of St. Stan's rectory to accommodate more condos and parking enforcement as rigid as any totalitarian regime.

When Luann Carra brings work home, she doesn't commute far. She takes a few steps from her gift shop into her kitchen. Her store, Zoe's Garden, is in what 11 years ago was the living and dining room of her Fells Point home. "I can do business stuff on the kitchen island," she said. But she also can whisk work away quickly and prepare dinner there. Or relax on the futon and watch TV. Neighborhood friends are a customer base. "People know that I live here," she said. "People will knock and I'm in my pajamas.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon met with a diverse group of Fells Point residents and business owners yesterday to assure them that an official-looking letter warning of a neighborhood curfew was a hoax. "We are working with the Police Department to get to the bottom of this and to find out what the whole motive is behind it," said Dixon, sitting with about two dozen residents at a long table in the back of Jimmy's Restaurant on Broadway. She said a full investigation into the incident is under way. "Please go back and tell your residents and community members that this is fake," she said.

Baltimore police arrested a man yesterday who was free on bond in an attempted-murder case and charged him in the bludgeoning death of a New Jersey conventioneer in June at a historic Fells Point hotel.Police apprehended Gary William Mick, 25, about 11 a.m. after a 12-hour stakeout of his mother's home in Anne Arundel County. They refused to reveal the location of the arrest, noting that an investigation is continuing.Mick was charged with first-degree murder and a deadly weapons count. He was being held last night at the Central Booking and Intake Center, awaiting a bail hearing.

THE WATERFRONT LAND once occupied by an AlliedSignal chrome plant represents a rare redevelopment opportunity. Its size and location -- a 27-acre peninsula adjoining Fells Point -- make it one of the most prestigious building sites in the city.For those reasons alone, city officials and AlliedSignal executives ought to be picky about what is built there.Years ago, AlliedSignal -- which has spent $100 million decontaminating the site -- acquired a permit to build a mixed-use development of offices and residences.

You get a taste of it in Fells Point, where Mexican eateries, Syrian-run convenience stores and Greek-owned machine repair shops dot the streets. There's a hint of it inside Goldman's Kosher Bakery on Reisterstown Road. A glimmer among the Vietnamese groceries in Southwest Baltimore.Head outside the city limits. You can sense it in Randallstown and traditionally white Dundalk and Essex, where an increasing number of middle-class African-Americans are buying homes. In the Korean groceries popping up in Ellicott City.

A Fells Point developer and campaign supporter of Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke gained boat docking rights to a popular harbor pier yesterday despite objections from area residents concerned about what might end up at the site.The Baltimore Board of Estimates agreed to lease 119 of 149 feet of docking space along a bulkhead on the west side of South Ann Street for seven years to Sewell A. "Skip" Brown III. Brown, appointed by Schmoke to Baltimore Development Corp., a nonprofit city recruiting arm, owns several companies with services ranging from transportation to real estate.

A statewide civil rights group has filed lawsuits against two Baltimore restaurants accusing them of failing to accommodate people with disabilities as required by federal law.More than 40 people -- many of them in wheelchairs or on crutches -- gathered Wednesday in Fells Point to close a five-week statewide campaign by ACCESS Maryland to bring attention to the failure of businesses to provide access to the disabled.As part of the campaign, the nonprofit agency has filed 14 federal lawsuits against hotels, clothing stores, banks, and the restaurants.

BALTIMORE HAS A Museum of Art, a Museum of Industry and a new children's museum.Now a local group is planning a different sort of attraction for a prominent location between Baltimore's Inner Harbor and the Fells Point historic district.The American Museum of Tattoo Art is the name of the venture that a group headed by West Baltimore resident Jeffrey Kilpatrick intends to open at 432-434 S. Bond St., at Eastern Avenue.Kilpatrick told members of Baltimore's Board of Municipal and Zoning Appeals this monththat he and several associates plan to open a museum on the history and art of tattooing, complete with exhibits, seminars, speakers and live demonstrations by tattoo artists.

Baltimore's liquor board has revoked the license of a Fells Point bar after police were called several times this spring to break up fights at the club, according to the panel's chairman. Cheerleaders, in the 700 block of S. Broadway, was also raided in the summer by federal authorities searching for four high-powered handguns that police said had been bought by the club's owner. Liquor commissioners said Thursday that they stripped the bar of its license after a series of attacks inside the club.

For years, Fells Point has been Baltimore's premiere Halloween hot spot. Every Halloween, thrill-seeking partyers bounce from bar to bar, swilling drinks and showing off costumes. Mayhem is unavoidable. But this weekend, other neighborhoods such as the Station North Arts and Entertainment District, Federal Hill and Remington are stepping up their Halloween celebrations, offering festivities for 20-somethings and children alike. "On the big drinking holidays, we've never put on a big show," said Joe Edwardsen, owner of Joe Squared, a Station North restaurant.

Betty Hyatt, a longtime Southeast Baltimore community activist who had been president and director of the Citizens of Washington Hill Inc., where she spent decades fighting for rehabilitated and new housing for community residents, died Wednesday of cancer at Joseph Richey Hospice. The Washington Hill resident was 83. "Betty Hyatt was a trailblazer and a gifted organizer. Had it not been for Betty, Washington Hill wouldn't be the vibrant, close-knit community it is today. Betty loved her city.

Fletcher's, a live music club in Fells Point, has closed pending a change of ownership. Co-owners Craig Boarman and Evan Tanner, who took over the club 18 months ago to open a Latin/sushi spot on the first floor, are no longer involved with Fletcher's. Building owner Bryan Burkert has taken over the Fells Point live music club, which he is currently rehabbing, he said. Fletcher's could reopen as a bar and live music venue in November, but that's just a guess, Burkert said. He has to hire staff and have the liquor license transferred back to his name.

There's a large pier on Baltimore's Canton waterfront that boasts picturesque views of the harbor and city skyline. Zoned for commercial use, it's within easy walking distance of shops, restaurants, boat slips and upscale condominiums. Yet it has defied redevelopment even as the harbor front has changed around it. Now this remnant of industrial waterfront - one of the last dormant stretches of Baltimore's redeveloped coastline - is coming up for auction Thursday. "It's a fabulous piece of property - if you can figure out what to do with it," said Dan Billig, a partner of A. J. Billig & Co., the firm scheduled to sell the vacant property at 11 a.m. Located off the 2300 block of Boston St., the concrete-and-asphalt pier is more than 50 years old and consists of about a third of an acre.

SATURDAY FELLS POINT FUN FESTIVAL: Normally, during the first weekend in October, hundreds of thousands of Baltimoreans converge on Fells Point for two days of festival food, beer garden revelry, craft browsing and Latin culture. This year's festival takes place from 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The festival will be on Fells Point's main streets, including Broadway and Thames. Go to preserva tionsociety.com. TASTE OF BETHESDA: Maybe you're in the mood for a red snapper taco, a roast beef slider or some shepherd's pie. Maybe you want all three, plus lots of other goodies.

Edwin George "Ed" Smith, a popular Fells Point bartender during the 1980s and 1990s, died of sepsis Sept. 21 at Good Samaritan Hospital. He was 60. Born and raised on Diller Avenue in Northeast Baltimore, Mr. Smith was a 1967 graduate of Polytechnic Institute. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1971 in accounting from the University of Baltimore. During the 1980s and 1990s, Mr. Smith tended bar at the Dead End Saloon in Fells Point. Earlier, he owned and operated a home remodeling business during the 1970s.

Beans & Bread, a soup kitchen in Fells Point, feeds 300 people a day. That's not expected to change, even if Beans & Bread wins city approval to build an addition. What would change is that the people who already line up for food would get to queue up inside the building instead of out on the sidewalk. Some of them would have a place to shower and wash their clothes. The expansion would also give Beans & Bread staff offices rather than cubicles, so when they're trying to help someone find services for, say, AIDS treatment, they can discuss that in private.

He was the millionaire businessman Mayor William Donald Schaefer called on more than two decades ago to help out with a big problem. Some 20 acres of lumberyards and warehouses between the then-newly redeveloped Inner Harbor and Fells Point faced an uncertain future. Schaefer wanted John Paterakis Sr., bakery magnate and campaign contributor, to do the city a favor and buy the land. For $11 million, Paterakis did, but the city backed down on a promise to buy back the industrial stretch later.

Using a new grant of federal stimulus money announced Tuesday, Baltimore plans to build a network of water taxis to carry workers year-round among the burgeoning neighborhoods of Canton, Fells Point and Locust Point. The grant will allow the city to make pier improvements and buy two additional boats, significantly expanding a free, commuter-oriented service that began on a small scale in May. The runs between Fells Point and Tide Point have attracted a regular daily ridership of about 90 in less than three months, said Jamie Kendrick, deputy director of the Baltimore Department of Transportation.