Fleet Street

The Fleet Street spiritualist today remains as silent as the grave -- 50 years after she was strangled in one of the most bizarre murders of the century in Baltimore.Her colleagues in spiritualism certainly expected her to speak up soon after she had shaken off the initial trauma of her murder. The transition takes a period of adjustment, they agreed. Fifteen to 30 days, they suggested. But Emma A. Kefalos has not yet named her killer and the case remains unsolved. Apparently, it's not from lack of trying.

TOWSON -- A road where six people died in accidents last year will get special police attention in 1998. Officers from Baltimore County, Hampstead and the Maryland State Police will work together on Hanover Pike (Route 30), which runs through northwest Baltimore County and northeast Carroll County, county police say.The three agencies will use extra patrols to control crime and traffic problems in the area, police said.Police will check drivers' licenses and registrations, and check to see whether drivers have outstanding warrants.

They call this stretch of Broadway the "United Nations."This is the block where a Spanish band sings rap, where the old Irish priest at St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church says Masses in fluent Spanish, where the Baptist church is attended mainly by Native Americans. For some time, one Hispanic restaurant served Chinese food.People from more than a dozen different countries have made their home on Broadway between Pratt and Gough streets. For years, their different cultures, foods and languages have kept them apart.

Baltimore police have stripped five sites from the department's official list of towing garages after an investigation showed that the garages either did not exist or did not meet minimum standards.Maj. John J. McEntee Jr. said in an interview yesterday that a new list of police-authorized police towing garages becomes effective today. The garages on the department list, known officially as the Tow Board, share in the $1.5 million-a-year business of towing vehicles from crime and accident scenes throughout Baltimore.

Norman G. Hock Jr. was looking forward to two things: his forthcoming marriage to his childhood sweetheart and opening a home remodeling business.Instead, friends and relatives gathered Thursday at an East Baltimore funeral home to remember Mr. Hock, 31, who was killed Sunday night when the moped he was riding was hit by a van in the 2600 block of Fleet St. He died at the scene."

JUST BETWEEN Fells Point and Canton, tiny Castle Street stands as a well-worn monument to change.If you can find it, that is.The street sign at Fleet Street has been mangled by huge 18-wheelers, snagged trying to make the narrow turn to deliver cartons of fresh flowers to Chesapeake Wholesale Florists.The big picture looks like this: modern mode of transportation clashes with old-fashioned alley streets.It's a problem that has vexed the neighborhood for years, as the big hawgs enter and exit nearby Boston Street.

They're not saying "Doggone it" on Fleet Street anymore. Missing for several years, an offbeat Baltimore landmark that was the inspiration for a John Waters movie set is slowly returning to the red brick walls of the Luc his grooming and supply store in Highlandtown for nearly two decades.Soon, there will be a dozing dog. A Miss America dog. An aerobics dog. And if the years of auditioning hundreds of artists pays off, there may even be a Marilyn Monroe dog sashaying in the middle of Fleet Street.

The time is the spring of 1941 and the place is South Broadway. Nobody calls the place Fells Point.A local movie camera operator cranks away on an open car along the street, showing the Latrobe Monument, the old Leader Theatre, a Provident Savings Bank branch, St. Patrick's Church and the Broadway Market. A Cloverland Dairy sign stretches across its Fleet Street entrance.It's all a wonderful, pre-World War II Baltimore neighborhood.The streets are jam-packed with shoppers. The boys wear knickers.

The Baltimore Road Runners Club stages a third of its races, as well as its A Place for Your Pace program, in the pristine setting of the Loch Raven watershed.In the warmer months, when the pines that line Loch Raven Drive provide respite from the sun and heat, it is a blessing. In the winter, when temperatures fall below freezing and the wind kicks up as it did in Sunday's Valentine's 8-Miler, it can be a curse.Neville Anderson made the Valentine's an even tougher race when he went out at a 5-minute, 16-second first-mile pace, much to the surprise of first-place finisher Andy Passmore.

This is to announce, with all due respect for the occasion, a list of complaints from Florence Chenowith of East Baltimore, handed over by her attorney at law, Pauline B. Olsen of O'Donnell Street, which is to be taken with much seriousness even though it involves certain persons who still debate the condition of health of Elvis Presley."

Standing over one of the Colonial, brick sidewalks that help define Annapolis, the archaeologists began digging with trowels and shovels. The team from the University of Maryland carved a 4-foot-long trench along a sidewalk at Fleet and Cornhill streets - two of the oldest in the historic district. Bagging and tagging artifacts along the way, they scraped through the powdered remains of a red brick sidewalk from 1820 and a black layer of wood chips from 1740. Then they found something far more significant than the shards of pearlware, animal bones and the King George III penny that they uncovered in the layers above: a log street that archaeologists called the oldest remnant yet discovered of the Annapolis settlement.

Unique character Rodney Henry has opened a new pie hangout. He closed his Fleet Street pie shop last April, moving his pie operation -- Dangerously Delicious Pies -- to a nonwalk-in warehouse in West Baltimore, while he looked for a new, larger shop location. He's found it in Federal Hill, on Light Street just down from Cross Street. "It's got a really sweet pie counter, red walls, and it's a little classy," Henry says. Just check out the hardwood floors and a high tin ceiling. Henry says there are two "giant" display cases and about six or seven tables.

WONDERING IF YOU WERE GLIMPSED? / / Check out baltimoresun.com / glimpsed for additional photos of fashion-forward locals and a critique by fashion writer Tanika White of the styles she saw around town.

There's a little block just outside of the heart of Fells Point that may be somewhat overlooked. Since the 1900 block of Fleet St. is on the outskirts of the more happening area, businesses there have put together an event to turn some heads. Called the Fleet Street Fling, it runs all day Saturday. "It's just a nice little thing that brings the community together and gives us a chance to showcase our street," says Tom Rivers, one of the organizers of the event and the owner of restaurant and bar Ale Mary's.

As hobbies go, privy hunting is not pretty. It's not like, say, remodeling a '55 Chevy. It takes a different searching soul to dedicate months to digging 8 feet down into century-old outhouses in search of ... what? And do we really want to unearth what is buried in those old pits? These aren't ancient art galleries, after all. Introducing Spencer Henderson, Baltimore privy hunter, different soul. Equipped with a rake and shovel, sensible work clothes, a "Police K-9" visor and a vibrant mustache, the 55-year-old Henderson spent his summer in the trenches of Fells Point.

1837: Arunah Shepherdon Abell, a journeyman printer from Rhode Island, publishes the first issue of The Sun on May 17. 1847: On April 10, The Sun is first to report to President Polk the surrender of city of Vera Cruz, assuring a U.S. victory in the Mexican War. 1851: The Sun Iron Building opens Sept. 13, The five-story structure's design made it the forerunner of the contemporary skyscraper. 1888-1895: Mary Garrettson Evans was The Sun's first female reporter, she later was director of the Peabody Preparatory School.

The Baltimore City Department of Transportation today announced a number of road closures and detours that will affect traffic during Sunday's Greek Independence Day parade and the Seton Keough Gator Race. The Greek Independence Day parade will start at 2 p.m., leaving from Eastern Avenue and Haven Street. The parade will proceed east on Eastern Avenue to Ponca Street, then travel south along Ponca Street to the church parking lot near Fait Avenue, where it will end. The parade will begin forming about 11 a.m. along Eastern Avenue, near the underpass between Haven and Lehigh streets.

It was just one day after her mother and her fiance were shot outside at an ATM in the heart Fells Point, yet Shantai Ballard was thankful. The 20-year-old was thankful yesterday that her fiance, Adam Yewitt, still in the hospital because of a gunshot wound to the stomach, was conscious, walking and would probably be released in a few days. She was thankful her mother was already well enough to fry salmon with bacon in the East Baltimore rowhouse they just moved into. And she was thankful that she, nearly six months' pregnant, is OK, despite being held up at an ATM on Thanksgiving evening, a handgun placed against her. "I'm just so thankful that they are all right and that I'm all right," said Ballard, cooking dinner with her mother and a friend yesterday.

A portion of Lombard Street will close for construction starting today, according to city transportation officials. Lombard will be closed to through-traffic between Exeter and Albemarle streets. The work is expected to take about two weeks. Two detours will be available. Motorists can go north on Central Avenue, west on Fayette Street, south on President Street and back onto westbound Lombard. The other option is to go south onto Central, west on Fleet Street, north on President and then back onto westbound Lombard.

Greek parade to close streets in East Baltimore The Greek Independence Day parade, scheduled for tomorrow, will close several streets to traffic in East Baltimore beginning at 7 a.m. and continuing through the afternoon. The parade will start at 2 p.m. at Eastern Avenue and Haven Street, proceed east on Eastern to Ponca Street, and head south on Ponca to just south of Fait, where it will disband. The parade will begin forming at 11 a.m. along Eastern in the vicinity of the Eastern Avenue underpass between Haven and Lehigh streets.