Fire Museum

The Fire Museum of Maryland has received two anonymous donations totaling $185,000 that will help fund building improvements and pay for staff retention and utilities. A gift of $160,000 was left in the will of a longtime supporter, and interest from that gift will be used to help cover operating expenses and pay for visits by school groups, according to museum representative Rob Williams. A gift of $25,000 will be used to cover rising utility costs and other expenses, he said. The money comes just as public funding for history museums has been cut back due to the recession.

The helmet looks much the way it did when Morris Hunt wore it into a burning building on Leadenhall Street in the summer of 1965. He managed to get out, but he didn't survive. His daughter, Drue Jenkins, came to the Baltimore Fire Museum in the old station of Engine 6 on Gay Street, lifted the helmet off a shelf and put it on her head. She was just 2 years old when her father died, she said, and the helmet is "all I have left of him. " On Saturday, Jenkins and others came to the museum for Old-Timers Day, not just to reminisce about the station built in 1853 — it still has a hayloft from the days of horse-drawn engines — but to worry that the exhibition was the last.

The helmet looks much the way it did when Morris Hunt wore it into a burning building on Leadenhall Street in the summer of 1965. He managed to get out, but he didn't survive. His daughter, Drue Jenkins, came to the Baltimore Fire Museum in the old station of Engine 6 on Gay Street, lifted the helmet off a shelf and put it on her head. She was just 2 years old when her father died, she said, and the helmet is "all I have left of him. " On Saturday, Jenkins and others came to the museum for Old-Timers Day, not just to reminisce about the station built in 1853 — it still has a hayloft from the days of horse-drawn engines — but to worry that the exhibition was the last.

'Jersey Boys' The 50-year career of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons — the biggest group in rock and roll, at least until The Beatles came along — is chronicled, celebrated and otherwise revisited in this exuberant Tony Award-winning musical. Actors playing each of the four original members — Valli, Tommy DeVito, Bob Gaudio and Nick Massi — take turns telling the band's story, as it rises from obscurity to massive popularity, followed by dissension, infighting, and then acceptance and rediscovery (the trajectory of pretty-much every rock band, come to think of it)

Mission: To preserve and interpret the history of firefighting and to educate the public on fire safety and prevention. On display at the 20,000-square-foot facility in Lutherville are 42 hand-pulled, horse-drawn and motorized firetrucks dating from 1806.Latest accomplishment: Last month, the museum opened the Discovery Room, a hands-on children's exploration area. And last year, the museum acquired a Fire Safety House, a scaled-down version of a home filled with simulated smoke that teaches children and adults how to escape from a fire.

Stephen G. Heaver, a builder and developer whose fascination with fire trucks and apparatus led him to create the Fire Museum of Maryland, died Monday of lung failure at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The Lutherville resident was 80.Mr. Heaver loved fire trucks all his life. As a boy, he would sit on the curb near his Roland Park home -- around the corner from a fire station -- to watch them rumble past.He bought his first piece of fire equipment in 1962 and founded the Lutherville museum in 1971.

Shortly after the Great Fire of Baltimore started the morning of Feb. 7, 1904, J.E. Henry spent about a half-hour photographing the collapse of the Hurst building, where the blaze started. Meanwhile, A.C. Abadie was sent to film the fire using a motion picture camera that Thomas Edison had just patented. And after the fire had been extinguished, Julian Jenkel stood on the rooftop of the Elliott Cigar Manufacturer building and took pictures of the debris that covered more than 140 acres of downtown Baltimore.

Steve Heaver and Ed Rosen manhandled an unwieldy, 400-pound iron contraption into position -- the hose bed of a 1920 Seagrave fire engine being restored at the Fire Museum of Maryland.Elsewhere in the hangarlike building, John D. LaCosta was installing a jumper circuit on the old telephone fire alarm system, a type in use from the late 19th century until the 911 system was implemented in 1968 to cover all emergency services.Such work has been taking place on Tuesday evenings in the Lutherville museum since its founding in 1971.

Richard Flint knows his is a museum kids can't resist.Firetrucks and fire engines are like dinosaurs, says the executive director of the Fire Museum of Maryland in Lutherville. They're big and colorful and noisy, so they are utterly fascinating to children. In fact, according to the museum's most recent survey, the average age of youngsters who visit is 6.But what about teen-agers? Flint wonders. And adults?He doesn't want them to get the wrong idea about the place and miss out on discovering the country's colorful history of firefighting, from Colonial bucket brigades to horse-drawn steamers to motorized rigs.

Fire Museum of Maryland open for summer season LUTHERVILLE -- The Fire Museum of Maryland, which depicts the history of firefighting with exhibits, games and dozens of fire engines, is open for the summer season. The museum, at 1301 York Road, is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday through August, and Saturdays from September to December. Admission is $6 for adults; $5 for firefighters and senior citizens; and $4 for ages 3 to 18. Information: 410-321-7500.

Fire Museum donations to fund improvements The Fire Museum of Maryland has received two anonymous donations totaling $185,000 that will help fund building improvements and pay for staff retention and utilities. A gift of $160,000 was left in the will of a longtime supporter, and interest from that gift will be used to help cover operating expenses and pay for visits by school groups, according to museum representative Rob Williams. A gift of $25,000 will be used to cover rising utility costs and other expenses, he said.

The Fire Museum of Maryland has received two anonymous donations totaling $185,000 that will help fund building improvements and pay for staff retention and utilities. A gift of $160,000 was left in the will of a longtime supporter, and interest from that gift will be used to help cover operating expenses and pay for visits by school groups, according to museum representative Rob Williams. A gift of $25,000 will be used to cover rising utility costs and other expenses, he said. The money comes just as public funding for history museums has been cut back due to the recession.

STEAMED UP The Fire Museum of Maryland holds its 31st Annual Steam Show & Bull Roast on Saturday. The museum brings out its collection of steam engine models, including an 1899 engine. There will be contests for children and demonstrations of a horse-drawn hose wagon. Iconic Dalmations, long believed to have a calming effect on horses, will ride the engines and "guard" the horses. A fee applies for the bull roast. ....................... The steam show runs 11 a.m.-3 p.m. at the Fire Museum of Maryland, 1301 York Road, Lutherville.

Sex assault suspects sought in Woodlawn Baltimore County police are searching for two men wanted in the sexual assault of a woman Sunday in the Woodlawn area, authorities said. An 18-year-old woman was walking in the 2400 block of N. Rolling Road about 10 p.m. when she was approached by two men, one armed with a handgun, county police said. The men forced the woman behind a nearby apartment building, where one of them sexually assaulted her, police said. After the assault, the men fled.

As the first visitors were arriving at the B&O Railroad Museum's Ellicott City Station to see its annual holiday train display, Tom Sellars was reaching over the clear plastic wall with a yardstick, pulling a few wispy strings of dried glue off the plastic trees. "He's a fanatic for details," said Tony Zingarelli, who, with Sellars and Larry Harrington, spent a combined 750 hours building the display's tunnels, towns and tracks from scratch. The details -- from the blue light at the end of a tiny worker's blowtorch to a wire fence tied by hand onto several dozen posts -- require a lot of meticulous work, but model train buffs are eager to put their imagination to the test this holiday season.

Shortly after the Great Fire of Baltimore started the morning of Feb. 7, 1904, J.E. Henry spent about a half-hour photographing the collapse of the Hurst building, where the blaze started. Meanwhile, A.C. Abadie was sent to film the fire using a motion picture camera that Thomas Edison had just patented. And after the fire had been extinguished, Julian Jenkel stood on the rooftop of the Elliott Cigar Manufacturer building and took pictures of the debris that covered more than 140 acres of downtown Baltimore.

Family Holiday Celebration' Tear the children away from the television for a bit to experience a Colonial celebration in Historic Annapolis Wednesday. Traditional activities will include quoits and other games, posing for silhouette portraits, making homemade butter and more. Try on fashions including tricorns, waistcoats, mobcaps and gowns. A dance troupe from the Key School will demonstrate dances over 200 years old, and Die Liedersanger will perform traditional holiday carols.

Justices won't hear death row appealWASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday refused to hear the appeal of Maryland death row inmate Eugene Colvin-El, who was convicted of the 1980 murder of a Florida woman who was visiting Pikesville.The court's action was taken without comment except for a dissenting statement by Justice Harry A. Blackmun, who opposes capital punishment under all circumstances.Colvin-El was sentenced to death for killing Lena Buchman, 82, during a burglary at her daughter's Pikesville home.

When bagpipe music cut through the morning air on Light Street to signal the start of the Firehouse Expo 2005 parade yesterday, Saud Al-Mahrouq pranced and danced as 3-year-boys are likely to do when firetrucks pass by. Saud's curbside enthusiasm for each passing truck, engine and emergency vehicle - whether it was antique or the latest rig from a municipal or volunteer company - never waned as he waved at grownups in the parade painting downtown Baltimore...