Harlem Park

City police identified two recent homicide victims yesterday as detectives took on yet another case - that of a man found fatally shot in the Harlem Park neighborhood. Terry Cheeks, 21, of the 1300 block of N. Calhoun St. was shot by an unknown assailant shortly before 1 a.m. in the 1800 block of W. Lanvale St., police said. In an unrelated killing, police identified James Leroy Burgess, 27, of the 2700 block of Pennsylvania Ave., as the man fatally shot about 3 a.m. Monday in the 2700 block of E. Madison St. A woman found partially nude and beaten to death early Monday was identified as Daniel D. Fell, 18, of the 2800 block of Fleetwood Ave. in Northeast Baltimore.

Baltimore police are investigating two separate overnight shootings in two city neighborhoods that have struggled with violence. A man was shot around 4 a.m. Saturday in Northwest Baltimore near Chalgrove and W. Garrison avenues in the Central Park Heights neighborhood in Northwest Baltimore. Shortly after 10 p.m. Friday, a man was shot in the 600 block of N. Fulton Avenue in the Harlem Park neighborhood of West Baltimore. At least three people have been killed in Central Park Heights since last year, according to police, including a 43-year-old man who was shot and stabbed in June in the 3200 block of Spaulding Avenue.

For three years, the National Committee for Citizens in Education worked to help 156 families whose children attended Harlem Park Middle School in West Baltimore. The program, "With and For Parents," was financed by the Prudential Foundation. In these excerpts from Network, the committee's newsletter, the director of "With and For Parents" reflects on the experience.Ms. ------ always apologized for her home when I visited. I was thinking as she did so that nothing wrong with her home was her fault.

ON THE SITE... Md. employers cut 7,500 jobs in May :  Maryland's unemployment rate increased to 6.8 percent, from 6.7 percent in April. That remains below the nation's rate of 8.2 percent in May, but the job losses were among the largest in the nation. Death of 1-year-old in West Baltimore ruled a homicide : A 22-year-old man has been charged with second-degree murder after police found the infant girl shortly after 10 a.m. Wednesday in a home in the 800 block of N. Stricker St. in Harlem Park.  Seven arrested at Starscape Festival on drug charges :  The attendees of the June 9-10 music festival at Fort Armistead Park were charged with possession of drugs including LSD, MDMA and marijuana.

Superintendent Walter G. Amprey is removing the principal of Harlem Park Middle School in West Baltimore, one of nine city public schools being run by a private company in a high-profile experiment.Dr. Amprey told school faculty about the impending change yesterday, a day after Principal Nicky Johnson told teachers she would be replaced, according to Nat Harrington, school spokesman.Ms. Johnson, who took over as principal at Harlem Park this school year, formerly was principal at Abbottston Elementary in North Baltimore, where she did an "excellent" job, said Mr. Harrington.

The Harlem Park community has formed a coalition to push the neighborhood's application to become one of the "village centers" in Baltimore's $100 million empowerment zone program.Baltimore's proposal calls for dividing the empowerment zones into village centers of no more than 9,000 residents. In each center, one school would provide morning, evening and weekend educational, recreational and cultural activities.Delores Farmer, president of the new Coalition to Empower Harlem Park, said the village center designation could bring $6 million to lead revitalization efforts in the West Baltimore community.

Barbara C. Ferguson almost moved to Glen Burnie.But then in 1972, a death in the family drew her back to Harlem Park, the West Baltimore neighborhood where she grew up, after living in East Baltimore. She has been there ever since.Harlem Park is poor and 99 percent black. The typical row house sells for about $25,000 and rents average a little over $200 a month, according to the 1990 census.But numbers don't tell the whole story, says Mrs. Ferguson, a 54-year-old social worker and longtime community activist.

Jasmine L. Gunthorpe, a community activist in Harlem Park, one of the city's poorest neighborhoods, died Tuesday of an aneurysm at University of Maryland Medical Center. She was 43 and lived in Rosemont in West Baltimore.At her death, the former welfare recipient was executive assistant at Harlem Park Revitalization Corp., where she had worked since 1995.Ms. Gunthorpe was a driving force behind Harlem Park Academy, a community-based school that was created in 1997 by the school system's New Schools Initiative.

Amid trash heaps and midday 40-ounce-beer drinkers, NationsBank Vice President Maria Johnson stood in Harlem Park and outlined the bank's goal of converting 24 blocks of urban blight into suburbanlike homes, complete with cul-de-sacs, manicured lawns and tree-lined streets. "This is no place I would send my child to play, but there is a percentage of the [suburban] population that we can bring back here," said Johnson, standing in a neighborhood that has lost 25 percent of its population since 1980.

The eyes of dozens of Harlem Park children twinkled yesterday when William Henderson wheeled a shiny new deluxe hot dog cart into a concrete park lined with ruined homes, vacant lots and drug addicts. Fatima Knight, 11, said the cart was the nicest thing she had seen in Harlem Park since five years ago, when she got a new pair of roller skates. Her brother, 10-year-old Rasheem, said it was the nicest thing he had seen since last summer, when neighborhood boys let him touch a new dirt bike.

Funeral services were held Wednesday for Michael Carter, a longtime Baltimore city schools advocate whose outspokeness landed him the position in the administration of CEO Andres Alonso as the director of the district's parent and community engagement office.  We wrote an obituary last week on Carter, who lost his battle with cancer last week, which included solemn, but colorful remarks and remembrances from a host of city school officials and...

Michael Penny Carter, a longtime public schools and community activist who had been director of family and community engagement for the Baltimore school system, died Tuesday of prostate cancer at a sister's home in West Baltimore. The Harlem Park resident was 63. "Michael's death is both a personal and professional loss. He meant a great deal to me," said Baltimore schools CEO Andrés Alonso. "He was a great man who cared so much about neighborhoods and schools, and he brought his own vision to his work.

A man was found dead in the 700 block of N. Carrollton Ave. shortly after 11 p.m. Tuesday, police said in a statement. The unidentified man had been shot, police said. The shooting took place in the West Baltimore neighborhood of Harlem Park. No other information was available Wednesday morning from the Baltimore Police Department, which is investigating the shooting. The immediate area remained blocked off early Wednesday as the investigation continued. steve.kilar@baltsun.com twitter.com/stevekilar

Inez Alice Chappell, a former Pennsylvania Avenue manicurist and thoroughbred racing fan, died Nov. 2 of heart failure at Seasons Hospice at Northwest Hospital Center. The Northwest Baltimore resident was 86. The daughter of an a-rab and a homemaker, Miss Chappell was born and raised in West Baltimore and Harlem Park. She was a 1943 graduate of the old Frederick Douglass High School and Cortez Peters Business School. For more than two decades, Miss Chappell worked as a manicurist at Pennsylvania Avenue barbershops.

Steps from a weathered bench proclaiming Baltimore the "Greatest City in America," a pool of blood marked the spot where a 16-year-old boy was fatally shot early Wednesday. Officers said Bruce Benn was shot in the head at about 1 a.m. while standing in the 1900 block of W. Lombard St., and taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead at about 3 a.m. Police did not provide additional details or indicate whether they knew of a motive or suspects. On Wednesday morning, people milling about the trash-strewn Carrollton Ridge neighborhood where the shooting occurred said they didn't know anything about what happened, while a police officer stood on a street corner as two detectives assigned to the case canvassed the area.

Police have identified a 45-year-old man fatally shot this week in West Baltimore as Kevin Seymore Lewis of the 600 block of N. Carey St., in the Harlem Park neighborhood. Lewis was shot in the side about 11:40 p.m. Monday in the 600 block of N. Carrollton Ave., about a block away from his home. He died at Maryland Shock Trauma Center a short time later. Lewis' wallet and cell phone were still with him when officers arrived, and police did not have a motive. Detectives are investigating and anyone with information is asked to call 410-396-2100.

TESSERACT is the name given to the program under which a profit-making Minneapolis firm has contracted to run nine inner-city Baltimore schools. The word, derived from a children's book, refers to the "fifth dimensional corridor for traveling to a destination one could never otherwise reach."But judging by the company's first exposure last week at Harlem Park Middle School, Tesseract has yet to enter the first and second dimensions.A group of about 100 parents expressed anger -- not just confusion -- over the plan to turn their school over to Educational Alternatives Inc. for five years.

When officials from Education Alternatives Inc. looked over the physical condition of Harlem Park Elementary and Middle schools in the summer, they saw a formidable task ahead.The two-school complex in West Baltimore, which occupies several blocks just off Harlem Avenue, was in need of major cleanup, particularly the middle school.Plumbing and toilets throughout that building were virtually "inoperable," according to Bob Parham, project manager for Johnson Controls World Services, the EAI corporate partner in charge of maintaining the schools.