Fish Market

It's 4:30 a.m., and the Maryland Wholesale Seafood Market in Jessup is awash in activity. A hundred miles from the Atlantic Ocean, the smell of saltwater fills the air. Mounds of fresh fish - salmon, tuna, glistening red snapper - lie on beds of ice in the chill, dimly lit warehouse. Soft-shell crabs, hauled from the Chesapeake Bay hours before, wriggle in wooden boxes lined with newspaper. Amid the din of forklifts and hand trucks, warehouse workers in orange rubber suits patrol the loading docks, handling tons of fresh catch bound for seafood markets and restaurants throughout the Mid-Atlantic.

George Gilbert Ganjon, a retired Carroll County farmer who was a founder of the Downtown Farmers Market, died of kidney failure Aug. 1 at Dove House in Westminster. He was 82. Born in Baltimore, he grew up near the Hollins Market in the southwestern section of the city. He was a 1947 Catonsville High School graduate. He met his future wife, Alvina "Sis" Jackson, at the Cross Street Market in South Baltimore, where she, her parents and brothers ran produce and flower stalls.

POLICE LOG* Riviera Beach: Someone stole a fish saw, an air conditioner and two phones worth a total of $905 from a fish market in the first block of Somerset Road Tuesday night.

I applaud the article about the best "theme" for the Inner Harbor ("Best theme for the Inner Harbor: water" June 8) and agree that the growing number of residents must be considered. I walk along the promenade frequently and see scores of moms and dads with strollers, office workers headed to work and fellow city boosters. We are all walkers, all residents and all eager to see our city thrive. We have a treasure that we need to promote and to nurture. Waterfront Partnership is striving for a healthy harbor and intends to achieve that goal.

No Mo' Thompson'sNext summer you won't be able to get one of Thompson's famous crab cakes in Ocean City. In fact, Thompson's Sea Girt House will no longer exist. The 83rd Street restaurant (but not the name or the recipes) has been sold to Mohammed Manocheh, owner of the Mo's Seafood Factory chain.Manocheh has big plans for the site, including more outdoor seating, a wholesale and retail fish market and a sushi bar. Steamed crabs will be offered outdoors and in one dining room. "Also, meat's getting more popular," says Manocheh, "so we'll have more meat and seafood combinations."

WHAT IS IT? The Coelacanth is one of the rarest and most famous fish - a real piscine (PIE-seen), or fish, celebrity. It's amazingly beautiful, with a long, stocky body and silvery blue scales. Adults can be as long as 6 feet.WHY IS IT FAMOUS? In the 19th century, scientists found many coelacanth (SEE-luh-kanth) fossils, but no live specimens. They assumed the fish disappeared with the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Then in 1938, a dead coelacanth was found in a South African fish market.

Baltimore Original Sports BarWhere: 34 Market Place.Hours: 4 p.m.-2 a.m. Mondays to Fridays, noon-2 a.m. Saturdays, noon-midnight Sundays.Menu: Nachos, soft pretzels, Buffalo wings, pizza, onion rings, hot dogs, burgers and other stadium fare.Credit cards: AE, MC, V.Call: 244-0135.Unlike many theme bars, where the owners' wacky imagination is limited by modest square footage, the Baltimore Original Sports Bar has never been limited in either sports mania or floor space.Able to accommodate almost 1,000 patrons, this Market Place sports mecca has held its own while larger neighbors -- like the Power Plant and the Fish Market -- went belly up.The sports bar recently decided that after nearly four years of heavy-duty use, it was time for some renovations to take it "away from the warehouse look and make it look more like a clubhouse at home," according to promotions director Brian Taylor.

I applaud the article about the best "theme" for the Inner Harbor ("Best theme for the Inner Harbor: water" June 8) and agree that the growing number of residents must be considered. I walk along the promenade frequently and see scores of moms and dads with strollers, office workers headed to work and fellow city boosters. We are all walkers, all residents and all eager to see our city thrive. We have a treasure that we need to promote and to nurture. Waterfront Partnership is striving for a healthy harbor and intends to achieve that goal.

W. Riley Whorton Sr., a retired seafood wholesaler, died Wednesday of emphysema at his White Marsh home. He was 81 and had earlier lived in the Dunloggin section of Howard County. Until he retired in the late 1980s, he was one of Baltimore's largest wholesalers and sold fish, jumbo lump crab meat, lobster and shrimp to the city's best-known restaurants -- Tio Pepe, Marconi's and the now-closed Danny's. "They were quality people and ran a quality business," said Stephen George, who with his wife ran Haussner's, the Highlandtown restaurant that closed in 1999.

From The Sun Oct. 9-15, 1844* Oct. 14: Centre Market -- On Saturday there was an abundance of all sorts of provisions, but the fish market was particularly attractive. We have rarely seen so great a quantity of fine rock and perch.* Oct. 15: The Fall races at Canton, near this city, commence to-day. A number of the finest nags in the country are on the ground.From The Sun Oct. 9-15, 1894* Oct. 9: A Catholic Congress, colored, began its fifth national convention yesterday at St. Peter Claver's Hall on Carey Street.

People are sitting shoulder to shoulder at the deli counter, sipping coffee and biting into bacon-and-egg sandwiches. And folks are lined up to buy the bakery's fresh bread and pastries. But those are the only remaining signs of life at the Broadway Market, once a thriving food bazaar and an indispensable part of Fells Point life. The north leg of the historic marketplace is nearly half-empty, with the butcher, the fried-chicken people, the candy booth all gone. A neighborhood tavern owner, however, has an ambitious plan to bring back the market's vitality with stalls selling staples like produce and meat as well as high-end takeout foods that he hopes will attract the professionals who have been snapping up pricey homes nearby.

It's 4:30 a.m., and the Maryland Wholesale Seafood Market in Jessup is awash in activity. A hundred miles from the Atlantic Ocean, the smell of saltwater fills the air. Mounds of fresh fish - salmon, tuna, glistening red snapper - lie on beds of ice in the chill, dimly lit warehouse. Soft-shell crabs, hauled from the Chesapeake Bay hours before, wriggle in wooden boxes lined with newspaper. Amid the din of forklifts and hand trucks, warehouse workers in orange rubber suits patrol the loading docks, handling tons of fresh catch bound for seafood markets and restaurants throughout the Mid-Atlantic.

NEW YORK - At 4 a.m., when the fish are in and the market is at full tilt, a small corner of New York can forget these are the last of the old days. From the open-air stands of the historic Fulton Fish Market, the sick-sweet stink of fish floats up to the looming condos that are obscured by lingering darkness. On the same Manhattan waterfront where tourists stroll during the day, fishmongers and journeymen still hold sway each weeknight, midnight to dawn, talking tough and swinging hand-held metal hooks into fish crates, in a scene little changed since the fabled market began 170 years ago. But the old Fulton is headed for extinction.

`Fish Out of Water' The days are numbered for those "Fish Out of Water" sculptures all around Baltimore. Soon, unfortunately, they'll be, well, swimming with the fishes. On Oct. 25, they'll start to come down, with an official send-off at the Inner Harbor at noon. A couple of the fish will move on to the area outside the Walters Art Museum, on North Charles Street, and others will be taken to the Columbus Center for improvement and patchwork by their artists. All fish will be put up for auction in November at the Walters and online.

W. Riley Whorton Sr., a retired seafood wholesaler, died Wednesday of emphysema at his White Marsh home. He was 81 and had earlier lived in the Dunloggin section of Howard County. Until he retired in the late 1980s, he was one of Baltimore's largest wholesalers and sold fish, jumbo lump crab meat, lobster and shrimp to the city's best-known restaurants -- Tio Pepe, Marconi's and the now-closed Danny's. "They were quality people and ran a quality business," said Stephen George, who with his wife ran Haussner's, the Highlandtown restaurant that closed in 1999.

GROWING UP IN an Irish-American home, I ate a fair amount of corned beef. It was another form of brisket, one of our favorite Sunday dinners.I am not sure how my family became a clan of brisket eaters, instead of salmon lovers. My maternal grandmother, who was born in Ireland and lived with my family when I was a boy, seemed to prefer fresh fish as the entree of choice when "company" -- distant relatives or acquaintances from Ireland -- would visit our house for dinner.Once I tagged along with my grandmother when she went to the local fish market.

Pieces of column too short to use . . .Tackiana: Readers took exception to my characterization of a plastic-soda-bottle-Chinese-lantern-bird-nest as the highest form of tackiana. ("Tackiana" refers to all materials that are distinctively tacky, cheap, outlandishly unbecoming, extremely ridiculous.) Some felt the item, discovered at a flea market in Pennsylvania, constituted folk art. Someone said, "You haven't seen tackiana till you've seen my lawn ornament collection." Well, fine. We'll make it a contest.

GROWING UP IN an Irish-American home, I ate a fair amount of corned beef. It was another form of brisket, one of our favorite Sunday dinners.I am not sure how my family became a clan of brisket eaters, instead of salmon lovers. My maternal grandmother, who was born in Ireland and lived with my family when I was a boy, seemed to prefer fresh fish as the entree of choice when "company" -- distant relatives or acquaintances from Ireland -- would visit our house for dinner.Once I tagged along with my grandmother when she went to the local fish market.

WHAT IS IT? The Coelacanth is one of the rarest and most famous fish - a real piscine (PIE-seen), or fish, celebrity. It's amazingly beautiful, with a long, stocky body and silvery blue scales. Adults can be as long as 6 feet.WHY IS IT FAMOUS? In the 19th century, scientists found many coelacanth (SEE-luh-kanth) fossils, but no live specimens. They assumed the fish disappeared with the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Then in 1938, a dead coelacanth was found in a South African fish market.

No Mo' Thompson'sNext summer you won't be able to get one of Thompson's famous crab cakes in Ocean City. In fact, Thompson's Sea Girt House will no longer exist. The 83rd Street restaurant (but not the name or the recipes) has been sold to Mohammed Manocheh, owner of the Mo's Seafood Factory chain.Manocheh has big plans for the site, including more outdoor seating, a wholesale and retail fish market and a sushi bar. Steamed crabs will be offered outdoors and in one dining room. "Also, meat's getting more popular," says Manocheh, "so we'll have more meat and seafood combinations."