Financial District

Visitors to the British capital this summer should allot some of their time to its financial district -- not for investment purposes, but to take advantage of a three-week festival of concerts, opera, drama and films ranging from the classics to the distinctly oddball.The festival, to be held between June 25 and July 14, will offer nTC more than 100 events, featuring leading performers from Europe and the United States.British music critic Lance Onslow describes it as an occasion "sparkling with diversity.

Venable LLP will leave its Charles Center offices of nearly four decades for a new home at the eastern end of the Inner Harbor, continuing a shift from downtown's traditional financial district to newer buildings along the city's waterfront. The 450-person law firm will move in the spring to 750 E. Pratt St., where it will occupy nearly half the 18-story tower. The 150,000 square feet it will occupy has been vacant since the building opened in 2002. Venable, which is expanding, has been seeking larger and more modern quarters for about a year, Mike Baader, partner-in-charge of Venable's Baltimore office, said yesterday.

WITH THE Southern Hotel reduced to rubble, another corner of Baltimore's historic financial district is headed in the same direction. Despite pleas from local preservationists that the city preserve two buildings near the southeast corner of Redwood and Light streets, housing officials appear likely to allow a Bethesda-based developer to demolish them to make way for a 125-suite hotel. An administrative panel that met last month to review the case has concluded that the city acted properly in issuing demolition permits for the vacant structures, the former Sun Life Insurance Co. building at 109 E. Redwood St. and the former Fairfax Savings and Loan Building at 17 Light St. As a result, "the permits will stand," said John Milton Wesley, spokesman for the housing department.

STEVENSVILLE - It's two days after the election, and E.J. Pipkin is standing in the back of his trademark red F-150 pickup, waving at motorists, just as he's done practically nonstop for the past 15 months. Only this time, the burly Dundalk native, the son of a retired union electrician for Bethlehem Steel, is thanking voters for an overwhelming election-night victory over Democratic Sen. Walter M. Baker, 75, the chairman of the General Assembly's powerful Judicial Proceedings Committee.

NEW YORK -- After graduating from college this spring, Adam Hicks, a 22-year-old from Baltimore, landed a job as a trader with Salomon Brothers in New York. He looked for an apartment in several popular Manhattan neighborhoods -- the Upper East Side, Chelsea, Murray Hill -- but surprised himself by moving into a $2,280-per-month, one-bedroom loft on the 21st floor of a building whose previous tenant was the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co."I never thought I'd live on Wall Street," says Hicks, who shares his 45 Wall St. pad with two roommates.

Prominent developer Henry Knott Sr. has put his only remaining local office building up for auction in a move that could help illustrate just how low the values of Class B office buildings have fallen.Boston's Auction Co. will offer the American Building at 231 E. Baltimore St. for sale Sept. 29. The only tenant in the building will be a Roy Rogers outlet that pays $40,000 a year in rent. Its lease has two years remaining, plus a five-year option belonging to Hardee's Food Systems Inc., the parent of the Roy Rogers chain.

Chapin, Davis & Co. Inc. -- a brokerage house founded by Bedford Chapin in 1952 when the Dow Jones Industrial average was threatening the 150 barrier -- has been purchased by a local investment group, the company announced yesterday.The buyers are H. F. "Bert" Criste, chairman of Bank Maryland Corp., the parent of Towson-based Bank of Maryland; Walter L. McManus, treasurer of the bank holding company; and Dr. Chi Tsung Su, a prominent Baltimore plastic surgeon.The day-to-day operation of the company -- one of the first Baltimore-area brokerages to locate away from the Redwood Street financial district -- will be handled by David R. Clogg, Chapin's president and chief operating officer.

NEW YORK -- The other night in one of the city's most popular midtown steakhouses, every table on two floors was filled and there was standing room only at the restaurant's three bars. It was a balmy, shirtsleeves night uncommon for October, and New York was back. Or so it seemed at this one prominent feeding and watering hole, and on the busy midtown streets, about a month after the two terrorist attacks that had turned lower Manhattan's financial district into a war zone. As debris movers, firefighters and police continued to toil there, much of the rest of New York seemed to be heeding President Bush's advice to "get back to normal."

STEVENSVILLE - It's two days after the election, and E.J. Pipkin is standing in the back of his trademark red F-150 pickup, waving at motorists, just as he's done practically nonstop for the past 15 months. Only this time, the burly Dundalk native, the son of a retired union electrician for Bethlehem Steel, is thanking voters for an overwhelming election-night victory over Democratic Sen. Walter M. Baker, 75, the chairman of the General Assembly's powerful Judicial Proceedings Committee.

THE USUAL DRONE of lunchtime chatter slowly faded, then stopped. At Snyder's Willow Grove Restaurant, a man with Linthicum roots was describing his journey from the terror of the World Trade Center to the sanctuary of church, family and home. The man is William K. Sieglein, a 38-year-old manager with Gaithersburg-based Enterprise Security Management Services. He was eating at the restaurant with his father, Bill Sieglein, who still lives in Linthicum, and friend Harold Lewis, a former resident of the area.

NEW YORK -- The other night in one of the city's most popular midtown steakhouses, every table on two floors was filled and there was standing room only at the restaurant's three bars. It was a balmy, shirtsleeves night uncommon for October, and New York was back. Or so it seemed at this one prominent feeding and watering hole, and on the busy midtown streets, about a month after the two terrorist attacks that had turned lower Manhattan's financial district into a war zone. As debris movers, firefighters and police continued to toil there, much of the rest of New York seemed to be heeding President Bush's advice to "get back to normal."

THE USUAL DRONE of lunchtime chatter slowly faded, then stopped. At Snyder's Willow Grove Restaurant, a man with Linthicum roots was describing his journey from the terror of the World Trade Center to the sanctuary of church, family and home. The man is William K. Sieglein, a 38-year-old manager with Gaithersburg-based Enterprise Security Management Services. He was eating at the restaurant with his father, Bill Sieglein, who still lives in Linthicum, and friend Harold Lewis, a former resident of the area.

There are two ways downtown Baltimore could evolve over the next 20 years. It could become more like Atlanta, with glitzy office towers and hotels rising from a barren base of parking lots and public plazas. Or it could follow the model of San Francisco and Chicago, with well-preserved older buildings interspersed with contemporary structures. The path Baltimore takes may well depend on the outcome of a legal dispute involving Redwood Street, the one-time "Wall Street of the South" and heart of the city's historic financial district.

NEW YORK -- It took Paul Kothari 24 hours to become an official American capitalist. The online Wall Street publication he helped build, TheStreet.com, went public the morning of May 11, 1999, its stock value soaring in frenzied trading. That afternoon, a far-richer Kothari left the trading-floor excitement, climbed into a waiting car and arrived at a crowded immigration office in Newark, N.J., where the Indian immigrant promptly took an oath to become a U.S. citizen. Since his first weekend in the United States in 1976, when he watched the bicentennial fireworks over the Washington Monument, Kothari has been waiting for his wild ride on Wall Street.

WITH THE Southern Hotel reduced to rubble, another corner of Baltimore's historic financial district is headed in the same direction. Despite pleas from local preservationists that the city preserve two buildings near the southeast corner of Redwood and Light streets, housing officials appear likely to allow a Bethesda-based developer to demolish them to make way for a 125-suite hotel. An administrative panel that met last month to review the case has concluded that the city acted properly in issuing demolition permits for the vacant structures, the former Sun Life Insurance Co. building at 109 E. Redwood St. and the former Fairfax Savings and Loan Building at 17 Light St. As a result, "the permits will stand," said John Milton Wesley, spokesman for the housing department.

A LANDMARK ON Redwood Street that once appeared destined for demolition apparently has been spared from the wrecking ball. After months of studies, Baltimore officials say they believe they have found a way to build a parking garage near the heart of the city's financial district without tearing down one of its most significant structures, a former office building at 131 E. Redwood St. Owners of the vacant eight-story building, once headquarters...

NEW YORK -- It took Paul Kothari 24 hours to become an official American capitalist. The online Wall Street publication he helped build, TheStreet.com, went public the morning of May 11, 1999, its stock value soaring in frenzied trading. That afternoon, a far-richer Kothari left the trading-floor excitement, climbed into a waiting car and arrived at a crowded immigration office in Newark, N.J., where the Indian immigrant promptly took an oath to become a U.S. citizen. Since his first weekend in the United States in 1976, when he watched the bicentennial fireworks over the Washington Monument, Kothari has been waiting for his wild ride on Wall Street.

NEW YORK -- As the nation's financial pulse beat slowly back to life yesterday, the effects of Friday's bomb blast in the World Trade Center continued to devastate many of the city's businesses.Lower Manhattan was less crowded than usual as the center's 50,000 employees and 80,000 daily visitors were held back from entering the vast complex of shops and offices.Normally the city's most important commercial center, the World Trade Center yesterday was a high-rise ghost town that left some parts of downtown without their customary crowds and consumers.

NEW YORK -- After graduating from college this spring, Adam Hicks, a 22-year-old from Baltimore, landed a job as a trader with Salomon Brothers in New York. He looked for an apartment in several popular Manhattan neighborhoods -- the Upper East Side, Chelsea, Murray Hill -- but surprised himself by moving into a $2,280-per-month, one-bedroom loft on the 21st floor of a building whose previous tenant was the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co."I never thought I'd live on Wall Street," says Hicks, who shares his 45 Wall St. pad with two roommates.

Visitors to the British capital this summer should allot some of their time to its financial district -- not for investment purposes, but to take advantage of a three-week festival of concerts, opera, drama and films ranging from the classics to the distinctly oddball.The festival, to be held between June 25 and July 14, will offer nTC more than 100 events, featuring leading performers from Europe and the United States.British music critic Lance Onslow describes it as an occasion "sparkling with diversity.