Harford Road

A 24-year-old Baltimore man was shot dead and a 23-year-old man was seriously injured Friday night after gunfire from an unidentified third person erupted at the 19th Hole, a bar and package goods store on Harford Road, police said.Dwayne Reed of the 5800 block of Glenkirk Court was pronounced dead at the bar in the 2700 block of Harford Road, according to police.Police would not release the name of the 23-year-old victim because his next of kin had not been notified, but said he was taken to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

A triple shooting near a Harford Road bar early yesterday has residents upset and calling for a city crackdown on what they say has become a chronic nuisance. David Desmarais, president of the Moravia-Walther Community Association, said he was awakened by the commotion and went outside to find a dozen police cars and ambulances a few hundred yards from his home, near the Cameo Lounge in the 4700 block of Harford Road. Desmarais said it is the second incident involving gunfire near the bar since April, and tops a list of neighbors' complains about patrons littering, urinating and noisily moving through the nearby residential streets after closing time.

A Pep Boys supercenter is coming to Harford Road with a plan to tear down the quaint Bond Lumber Co. building there, despite a struggle by some neighbors to save the building.With city permits in hand, a company spokesman said groundbreaking is set for Monday. He said the auto service and parts store will occupy 18,200 square feet and is to open in January as one of five Pep Boys stores in Baltimore.Legal appeals to halt construction led by local resident Richard Dowd, a 32-year-old graphic designer, have been unsuccessful.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake climbed into a cherry picker Wednesday morning, rising above Harford Road to install a new surveillance camera in Northeast Baltimore, one of 33 the city is adding to a network that has grown to nearly 600. The new cameras, which have been installed along East North Avenue and will eventually spring up along Harford and Belair roads around Clifton Park, are funded by federal and local grants. Rawlings-Blake has overseen the addition of 100 cameras to the network since taking office.

THERE WAS A TIME when Old Harford Road was a rather quiet residential street, as evidenced by its two-lane nature and rows of tidy houses.But today, the road is used as a cut-through to locations in Parkville, Perry Hall and even Towson. In fact, it's a great shortcut to avoid the traffic of its congested twin sister, Harford Road.And lately, drivers have become brazen on Old Harford. They speed, pass illegally and grow impatient when residents of those neat little houses try to pull into and out of their driveways.

Residents along a two-mile stretch of Harford Road, which for years has been in a downward spiral of urban blight, took a glimpse into the future of what could be done to revitalize their area and preserve property values.Last Tuesday night at Morgan State University, the Harford Road Partnership (HARP) ended a weeklong master planning workshop for the revitalization of Harford Road south of the Hamilton Business district. Residents and business owners listened as Mike Watkins, senior designer at Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., and Robert Gibbs, a retail consultant with the same firm, showed renderings of how the commercial strip could be rejuvenated and returned to the surrounding neighborhoods.

The neighborhoods bordering Harford Road in Northeast Baltimore are some of the city's most charming. Even Mayor Martin O'Malley lives there. Harford Road, however, is a different story, some residents say. "It's ugly," said Jeff Sattler, president of the Neighborhoods of Greater Lauraville Association. Now, after five years of planning, Sattler's group and city officials are moving ahead with a $4 million plan to change the look of the street along a two-mile stretch. The project calls for installing 20 raised medians with trees, from Argonne Drive to Bayonne Avenue, that residents hope will transform the heavily traveled road into a more scenic, slower and safer boulevard.

Andy Todaro jokes that his tiny Montebello Delicatessen on Harford Road is an "oasis in the desert."In a deteriorated business strip a few blocks north of Herring Run Park in Northeast Baltimore, he has two sidewalk tables framed by lush magenta petunias and a Pepsi sign that has misspelled his deli's name for more than 15 years.It's hardly Harborplace. But Todaro and his neighbors hope his little sidewalk cafe is a sign of the rejuvenation of the Harford Road commercial corridor -- from Parkside Drive to Echodale Avenue.

A police officer was fatally shot and another wounded last night in East Baltimore when a man opened fire with a powerful handgun, apparently without provocation. According to Ragina C. Averella, a police spokeswoman, Officers Michael J. Cowdery and Tiffany Walker, working a plainclothes detail, stopped two men about 10:10 p.m. in the 2300 block of Harford Road for questioning. While they were talking to them, another came around a corner and began firing a .357-caliber Magnum, hitting Cowdery in the head and upper torso, Averella said.

As he struggled to realize his dream of opening a Parkville gun shop, Rob Shiflett turned to the figure he considers top gun: God himself.His prayers answered, Shiflett, a self-described born-again Christian, decided to return the favor. The Army veteran named the Harford Road gun shop he opened in August Christian Soldier.Some local ministers have not taken kindly to the name, but Shiflett, 37, is standing his ground, arguing that modern spiritual warfare calls for contemporary weaponry.