Hammerjacks

Maryland Stadium Authority chairman John Moag said he hopes to resolve the negotiations with the owners of Hammerjacks nightclub next week over the purchase of the property; otherwise he will initiate legal proceedings to take the land."

When a wrecking ball crashed into Hammerjacks last spring, it seemed as if the Maryland Stadium Authority's protracted dealings to acquire the mammoth South Baltimore nightclub to use as a parking lot was over.Not quite.On Tuesday, the stadium authority filed suit against Hammerjacks, charging that the club had improperly failed to disclose that there was a lien for unpaid city property taxes on two of the three parcels the authority bought.Last month, the stadium authority paid off the debt -- about $40,000, including interest -- which had been purchased at a city auction by a group of investors, according to records and interviews.

Nightclub owner Damian Bohager thought something was fishy when the lights illuminating his $10,000-a- month billboard mysteriously kept going out Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights this summer, he says. The billboard advertising Bohager's nightclub in Fells Point stands directly across the street from his chief competitor: Hammerjacks on Guilford Avenue. Suspicious, Bohager hired private investigators who videotaped what he says is Hammerjacks' owner, Louis Principio, and the nightclub's general manager fiddling with the billboard's power box. The videotape then shows the lights going out. In a $4 million lawsuit filed yesterday, Bohager alleges that Principio has cost him thousands of dollars by turning off the lights.

The Maryland Stadium Authority, looking to acquire land for parking at Camden Yards, is deep in negotiations with property owners around Hammerjacks and has contacted some across Russell Street, including the owners of the land now occupied by the Staples Office Superstore.The stadium authority's leases require it to provide the Ravens with at least 4,000 parking spaces and the Orioles with 3,000. Before football stadium construction began, the location had about 5,000 spaces, of which an estimated 2,200 will be permanently lost to the football stadium.

Hammerjacks, once a Baltimore icon of heavy metal and rock, will close Saturday after the sale of its building to developers. The club never regained its legendary status after its reincarnation in 2000 in a two-story brick building on Guilford Avenue, where disc jockeys spinning dance club numbers and hip-hop were more common than live music. But in the days before the cavernous club under an Interstate 395 overpass was razed and paved over for Ravens stadium parking, bands such as Guns `N' Roses and the Ramones could practically make the expressway vibrate.

A Baltimore Circuit Court jury has awarded more than $300,000 in damages to a 22-year-old man who was severely beaten four years ago by bouncers at Hammerjacks nightclub.The verdict came Wednesday after 2 1/2 hours of deliberations and three days of testimony before Judge John N. Prevas. A lawyer for Hammerjacks said the club will appeal the decision.The jury awarded Daniel M. Bowen, now a Marine Corps corporal, $10,655 in medical expenses, $140,000 in compensatory damages and $150,000 in punitive damages.

What defines a city's musical identity is its clubs. It's not just a matter of taking a town's musical pulse; it has to do with expressing an attitude and defining a style.Maybe that's why the best-known clubs carry a cachet that goes well beyond whoever happens to be playing there at the moment. Think of CBGB's in New York, the Marquee in London, the Troubador in Los Angeles.Think of Hammerjacks.From its spot on South Howard Street beneath the Interstate 395 overpass, Hammerjacks has defined the Baltimore popular music scene for almost a dozen years.

The harder they rock, the harder they fall. And since 1977, no place has rocked harder than Hammerjacks, the legendary fortress on South Howard Street, nestled in an industrial no man's land where the Light Rail, an interstate overpass, Russell Street, Camden Yards and the rising Ravens stadium converge.At precisely 9 a.m., the club fell just as hard yesterday, when a wrecking ball disguised as a huge football scored through a makeshift goal post provided by the Well Hung sign company.Rubble rained, dust billowed and the two-story brick facade buckled.

What defines a city's musical identity is its clubs. It's not just a matter of taking a town's musical pulse; it has to do with expressing an attitude and defining a style.Maybe that's why the best-known clubs carry a cachet that goes well beyond whoever happens to be playing there at the moment. Think of CBGB's in New York, the Marquee in London, the Troubador in Los Angeles.Think of Hammerjacks.From its spot on South Howard Street beneath the Interstate 395 overpass, Hammerjacks has defined the Baltimore popular music scene for almost a dozen years.

Hammerjacks, the mammoth nightclub in the shadow of Camden Yards, has been purchased by the state to make way for stadium parking and will close within a few weeks.The Maryland Stadium Authority approved a $3.1 million agreement yesterday to buy three tracts of land at 1101, 1123 and 1125 S. Howard St. The parcels house Hammerjacks, sister nightclubs Louie Louies and Gridlock, and a warehouse.Hammerjacks opened under an Interstate 395 overpass in 1977 as a disco club and has adapted over the years to changing musical tastes, moving from disco to heavy metal to mainstream rock and finally contemporary black entertainment.