Fountain

This week, Watchdog updates readers about an unresolved problem. Update: The fountain in the Druid Hill Park reservoir is going to remain out of commission for the time being. Watchdog last updated the condition of the landmark in 2009, explaining that phragmites, an invasive water plant, had clogged the fountain's lines. At the time, officials with Baltimore's Department of Public Works had planned to have the fountain restored to working order in 2010. But more than two years have passed, and nothing has changed.

Now that zombie Guns 'n' Roses is on the road, Slash has decided to go on tour too. He'll be performing at Rams Head Live May 3; Axl is at the Fillmore next week, February 23 . Slash is performing with Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators, who collaborated with him on his upcoming album, to be released this Spring. Tickets, at $35, go on sale Friday. Rams Head is hosting another acclaimed guitarist, Kurt Vile, March 22. He's promoting his most recent album, "Smoke Ring For My Halo.

After living here in Columbia for 34 years, I thought I had become inured to the oddities and missteps of amateur government. Well, a decorative fountain meant for children to play in the middle of Symphony Woods ("Reviews mixed for planned fountain," Feb. 2) certainly ranks up there with bad software decisions and water flumes that break down. Has anyone ever sat near that same kind of fountain now operating in Fairfax, Va.? What you see there is a constant parade of parents and children and noisy adolescents.

After living here in Columbia for 34 years, I thought I had become inured to the oddities and missteps of amateur government. Well, a decorative fountain meant for children to play in the middle of Symphony Woods ("Reviews mixed for planned fountain," Feb. 2) certainly ranks up there with bad software decisions and water flumes that break down. Has anyone ever sat near that same kind of fountain now operating in Fairfax, Va.? What you see there is a constant parade of parents and children and noisy adolescents.

Pub Date: 4/28/97

On October 19, 2004, JANET PAIGE FOUNTAIN; beloved sister of Willard D. Fountain and his wife Betsy and Susan Carter Fountain and her companion Sewell Pennewell and the late Harry A. Fountain, Jr. Also survived by nieces, nephews and cousins. A Memorial Service will be held at the Ruck Towson Funeral Home, Inc., 1050 York Road, (Beltway exit 26A), on Saturday, at 2 P.M. Interment private.

THE PROBLEM -- A fountain in Druid Hill Park went dry. THE BACKSTORY -- The Druid Lake Fountain, built in 1959, has had its share of troubles. It functioned until 1992 - even when a decomposed body turned up in 18 inches of water in 1969 - but then broke down. It was fixed in 1998, then had to be shut off again. Then, in 2004, after a $700,000 rehabilitation, the fountain in the lake shot water 12 to 25 feet in the air against a backdrop of red-amber and blue lights. It was hailed as the rebirth of the Reservoir Hill neighborhood, and in some ways part of a rebirth of a city enjoying a comeback from years of crime and abandonment.

On May 13, 2005, HOWARD JAMES; beloved husband of Marlene R. Fountain (nee Sklar); brother-in-law of Toby Bussard and the late Edward Bussard; uncle of Mike and Robin Bussard, Tim and Irene Hartman; great-uncle of Nichole and Rachel Bussard, Adam and Emilie Hartman. Services at ECKHARDT FUNERAL CHAPEL, P.A., 11605 Reisterstown Road, Owings Mills, Tuesday at 10:30 A.M. Interment in Garrison Forest Veterans Cemetery. Friends may call Monday 7 to 9 P.M.

What could be better than to relax to the soothing sounds of a gurgling fountain on a warm summer night? You needn't have a ton of space or money to bring the delight of bubbling water to your home or patio. Beckett Corp., a Dallas company that has been making pumps for more than 40 years, has a kit to help create container water gardens that will accentuate any home, office or patio. The kit includes a pump filter, fountain nozzle and extension tube. You simply choose your container and add water.

There is one campaign promise Gov.-elect Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. shouldn't have trouble keeping: turning on Comptroller William Donald Schaefer's beloved fountain at the governor's mansion. Schaefer wrote an angry letter last month to the secretary of the Department of General Services - which oversees the grounds of the governor's mansion - accusing someone in the agency of allowing the fountain to deteriorate since Gov. Parris N. Glendening turned it off 18 months ago. "I have been advised that the fountain in the garden of the governor's mansion has been allowed to deteriorate and is in need of serious repair," the former governor wrote to Secretary Peta N. Richkus.

Lost City Diner materialized in Charles North last August. Now, the fountain shop and late-night stop has shut itself down. Don't worry, though — its owner, Joy Martin, said it's an intermission. Martin, who also own the Club Charles, gave no firm date for the reopening of Lost City. In an email, she said she's "just closing to do some renovations to the kitchen and try to get my sign up. " When Lost City Diner opened suddenly last summer, it seemed to be the final chapter of a long-running serial that played out for years on the corner of Charles and Lanvale streets, half a block up from the Club Charles Lost City Diner, when it revealed itself, was beautiful, with antique fixtures and fanciful retro-industrial elements gorgeously evoking the giddy atmosphere of a Buck Rogers serial from the 1930s.

There are currently two major projects being proposed by the Columbia Association. One is to remodel or rebuild the Hobbit's Glen clubhouse for $5 million to $6 million to a level of use beyond its current capacity. It would have programs of use closer to Cattail Creek Country Club and possibly Turf Valley level. The other project is the proposed improvements to the Symphony Woods park that would include new pedestrian ways into the central areas of the current wooded open space but no budget to build now a beautiful fountain that would benefit more Columbians than the Hobbit's facility.

For months now, about a dozen gurgling water fountains have helped move the water around Marley and Furnace Creeks in Glen Burnie, and some residents say, restored the health of the long-polluted waterways — evidenced, in their view, by a newfound abundance of fish and other creatures. Anne Arundel County Councilman John J. Grasso, who came up with the idea to install the fountains in stagnant waterways around his district as a quick fix to decades of pollution, says the fountains have been a huge success.

This week, Watchdog updates readers about an unresolved problem. Update: The fountain in the Druid Hill Park reservoir is going to remain out of commission for the time being. Watchdog last updated the condition of the landmark in 2009, explaining that phragmites, an invasive water plant, had clogged the fountain's lines. At the time, officials with Baltimore's Department of Public Works had planned to have the fountain restored to working order in 2010. But more than two years have passed, and nothing has changed.

The problem: Drinking fountains near Rash Field on the Inner Harbor promenade weren't working. The back story: Everyone expects the street furniture along Baltimore's avenues and byways to experience wear and tear now and then. But it's troubling when some damage appears to be caused deliberately. That seems to be the case with this week's Watchdog. Marcus Mencarini regularly runs along the Harbor Promenade from his Fells Point home. He said he has noticed that as long ago as last summer one of the two drinking fountains near Rash Field, between the Rusty Scupper restaurant and the Maryland Science Center , was not working.

She fell in love with ballet as a child, as many young girls do, and Susan Savage didn't lack for promise. She learned her first plies and pirouettes at a feeder school for the Royal Academy of Dance in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. But when she turned 13, her family pulled up roots and moved to West Texas, a part of the world known more for football than for fouettes en tournant (spins with a sideway kick). "Not exactly a hotbed for my life's passion," she says. Fifty years later, Savage got a chance to return to the pastime she never got out of her system.

Authorities are investigating the death of a 19-year-old Brooklyn Park mechanic who was found dead in a fountain in front of a Pasadena nightclub yesterday morning. Jason David Hunt of the 3500 block of Fifth Ave. was pulled from a fountain in front of The Famous McDoogals Night Club on Fort Smallwood Road by friends about 1:50 a.m., according to police reports. Paramedics took him to North Arundel Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Hunt's death is being investigated as "suspicious" until detectives can determine that it was accidental or as the result of a criminal act, said Officer Charles Ravenell, a county police spokesman.

It seems fitting that "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" is about the search for the fountain of youth, because the fourth installment in this theme park ride-derived movie series shows signs of growing old. Although Johnny Depp remains sly and swaggering as Captain Jack Sparrow, his audience-wooing attitude isn't quite enough to carry this picture. It's a long movie that's needlessly drawn out as Sparrow and several longtime antagonists vie to find those magic waters.