Greenmount Avenue

Before gangsta raps there were raps about libraries and teen-age pregnancy; before Dannemora State Prison and the killing bullets, there were pillow fights and the exuberance of youth.Tupac Amaru Shakur did not grow up in Baltimore. He was not a finished product when he left. But his years here encompassed that crucial time when childhood ends and self-discovery begins.He was 14 when he and his mother moved here from the Bronx in 1985. He called himself MC New York and won a rap contest sponsored by the Enoch Pratt Free Library.

The banner at Greenmount Avenue and Preston Street proclaims the Lillian Jones Apartments are coming. For the past year, I've watched this building take shape in a neighborhood that needed all the help it could get. Come spring, new tenants will begin moving into these 74 units of affordable housing. As City Councilman Carl Stokes told me, Greenmount and Preston had been a "horrible corner. " That's changed as work crews complete the apartment building and rebuild numerous adjacent rowhouses.

The banner at Greenmount Avenue and Preston Street proclaims the Lillian Jones Apartments are coming. For the past year, I've watched this building take shape in a neighborhood that needed all the help it could get. Come spring, new tenants will begin moving into these 74 units of affordable housing. As City Councilman Carl Stokes told me, Greenmount and Preston had been a "horrible corner. " That's changed as work crews complete the apartment building and rebuild numerous adjacent rowhouses.

While chatting with a neighbor this week, I learned she was planning to move to the 2200 block of Guilford Ave. She earned my respect for her decision to move to one of the newly renovated North Calvert Green homes, the sales name for fine 1890s rowhouses that have been made energy-efficient and renovated to the standard of the city's Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation. I have long thought that the most effective way to save a neighborhood is to settle there and make a difference.

Talk to Baltimore residents, and most say they want more police — and they don't mean speeding by in their cars from one call to the next. They want their neighborhood beat officer back, and they want him walking his post. But under the adage that too much of a good thing isn't always a good thing, some business owners along Greenmount Avenue see a flood of officers as an obstacle to their profits. Their patrons aren't always the type of people to embrace police, and too many officers can translate into fewer customers.

A 72-year-old man was shot inside a Greenmount Avenue carryout early Thursday, according to Baltimore police. An officer responded to the 2900 block of Greenmount Ave. in the Better Waverly neighborhood for a report of a shooting at Yau Bros. carryout at about 12:30 a.m., police said. The officer found the victim lying on the floor with a gunshot wound in his chest, according to police. The man was taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:15 a.m., police said.

The owner of a dress shop is so fearful of crime along Greenmount Avenue in Waverly that she keeps the door locked even when her shop is open. The man who runs a discount store a block away feels it is safe enough to stroll the avenue with his three young children. A young clerk who just started behind the counter of a doughnut shop is happy to have found work amid the sour economy, but says, "It's scary in here. " The proprietor of the avenue's most expensive restaurant is threatening to leave.

City police were investigating two afternoon shootings along Greenmount Avenue, which left at least one man dead. Officers were called about 1 p.m. for a report of a man in his 30s or 40s who had been shot at least once in the head in the 2400 block of Greenmount Ave. He was taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he was pronounced dead about 40 minutes later, police said. The shooting occurred on the sidewalk in front of a strip of homes that appeared to be mostly vacant, and homicide detectives and commanders from the Eastern District stood over the crime scene with Greenmount Avenue traffic blocked both ways.

Once a place to wind down during retirement, Johnston Square Apartments, a gray, fairly new multistory apartment complex for seniors along Greenmount Avenue in East Baltimore, has become a safe house. "The majority of people in here stay in here," said Theo Taylor, who rents one of the more than 200 apartments limited to people age 60 and up. "Don't even go out. At dark, everyone files in here. Don't even come out. They just listen to the gunshots. " It wasn't always like this, said residents who live between the 1000 and 2000 blocks of Greenmount Ave., a half-alive commercial corridor interspersed with boarded-up rowhouses, Chinese restaurants and bail bonds services.

On January 25,2010, ANDRE M. DAY. Friends may visit the family owned MARCH FUNERAL HOME EAST, 1101 E. North Avenue, on Friday after 8:30 a.m. The family will receive friends at St. Ann's Catholic Church, 2201 Greenmount Avenue, on Saturday at 10 a.m. Mass of Christian Burial will follow at 10:30 a.m.

Baltimore police on Thursday released two grainy surveillance images of a group of people walking across Greenmount Avenue on the night of a triple shooting there that left a 16-year-old boy dead, calling them "persons of interest" and asking for the public's help in identifying them. Officers responded to the 2700 block of Greenmount about 8 p.m. Nov. 20 for a report of shooting and found three victims - two men and Daniel Pearson, 16. All were transported to local hospitals. While the two men, ages 33 and 20, suffered non-life-threatening injuries, Pearson was pronounced dead.

Once a place to wind down during retirement, Johnston Square Apartments, a gray, fairly new multistory apartment complex for seniors along Greenmount Avenue in East Baltimore, has become a safe house. "The majority of people in here stay in here," said Theo Taylor, who rents one of the more than 200 apartments limited to people age 60 and up. "Don't even go out. At dark, everyone files in here. Don't even come out. They just listen to the gunshots. " It wasn't always like this, said residents who live between the 1000 and 2000 blocks of Greenmount Ave., a half-alive commercial corridor interspersed with boarded-up rowhouses, Chinese restaurants and bail bonds services.

A man was shot in the 1000 block of Greenmount Avenue in the Johnston Square neighborhood of East Baltimore Monday night, according to Baltimore police - adding another crime scene to a north-south corridor already left bloodied in recent days. Police responded to the scene about 10:15 and found the man shot, police said. Further details were not immediately available. On Nov. 20, 16-year-old Daniel Pearson was shot and killed and two men were shot and wounded in a triple shooting to the north, in the 2700 block of Greenmount.

Mary Elizabeth "Becky" Lipp, a homemaker who studied genealogy, died of pneumonia March 24 at the Charlestown Retirement Community. She was 101 and had lived in Govans. She was born Mary Elizabeth Barrett while her mother was traveling on a railroad train in Wilmington, Del. She was raised on a family farm in Fauquier County, Va., and moved to Baltimore as a young woman. She lived with cousins on Abell Avenue and worked nearby at the old Crown Five and Ten Cent Store on Greenmount Avenue in Waverly.

City police have identified two victims of recent fatal shootings: Jerry Isaac, 22, was killed Monday evening at a shopping center in the 2800 block of Greenmount Avenue, police said. A woman told police that people were fighting inside of a store, and when officers arrived they found Isaac, of the 300 block of E. 26 t h St., suffering from multiple gunshot wounds to his upper body. He was taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he died about an hour later, police said.

A man standing inside a Greenmount Avenue dollar store was fatally shot Monday night by a gunman outside the store, police said. The shooting was reported about 5:45 p.m. at a shopping center in the 2800 block of Greenmount Ave. in North Baltimore's Harwood neighborhood. Police said the gunman shot through a door, striking the victim inside. He was later pronounced dead. Police did not immediately identify the victim and did not give a description of the shooter or motive. The shopping center where the shooting occurred is a block south of a Chinese carryout that has been the site of four killings since 2009.

On January 3, 2010 MS. ALSTON. Visitation at 2140 N. Fulton Ave. on Friday 2 to 8 P.M. The family will receive friends at Memorial Institutional Church of God, 2018 Greenmount Avenue on Saturday at 11 A.M. Funeral at 11:30 A.M.

A man was shot in the 1000 block of Greenmount Avenue in the Johnston Square neighborhood of East Baltimore Monday night, according to Baltimore police - adding another crime scene to a north-south corridor already left bloodied in recent days. Police responded to the scene about 10:15 and found the man shot, police said. Further details were not immediately available. On Nov. 20, 16-year-old Daniel Pearson was shot and killed and two men were shot and wounded in a triple shooting to the north, in the 2700 block of Greenmount.

Waverly Main Street, the merchant association in the Waverly community, has not been "dormant," as you suggest in a recent article abut crime in the neighborhood, but it has not often been covered by The Sun in the 11 years since its founding ("Uncertain times on Greenmount," Nov. 30). Every year there has been a Miracle on Main Street holiday event. There were three Greenmount Avenue parades co-sponsored by the organization and there have been many special events such as the Taste of Waverly, a day-long block party, guided walking tours and the unveiling of a new historic marker at 33 r d Street and Greenmount Avenue.

The owner of a dress shop is so fearful of crime along Greenmount Avenue in Waverly that she keeps the door locked even when her shop is open. The man who runs a discount store a block away feels it is safe enough to stroll the avenue with his three young children. A young clerk who just started behind the counter of a doughnut shop is happy to have found work amid the sour economy, but says, "It's scary in here. " The proprietor of the avenue's most expensive restaurant is threatening to leave.