Historic

Another reason today's teachers are frustratedI am a teacher in Anne Arundel County and read the article, "Schools try to hang on to teachers," in The Sun on Aug. 22.Your article was accurate and allowed readers to see some of the reasons teachers are unhappy.I would like to mention another reason for the decline in teacher recruiting in recent years -- the increase in unnecessary and redundant paper work.It seems that every couple of years some bureaucrats at the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE)

It's coming back.Westminster's Main Street, struggling to regain its status as a historic hub despite being surrounded by chain stores and restaurants on Route 140, was recently named one of seven areas in Maryland targeted for historical and commercial revitalization.The nearly three-mile stretch, resplendent with Victorian homes, buildings more than 100 years old, and even two reported ghosts in Cockey's Tavern and the Old Opera House, was placed on the state Department of Housing and Community Development's Main Street Maryland list this spring.

Appalled that city continues to set homicide records As a longtime resident and property owner, I am appalled at the murder rate in Baltimore City.While other cities such as New York have found successful ways to reduce murder and other major crimes, Baltimore keeps claiming new records. The mayor, police commissioner and City Council need to wake up and begin implementing changes that will make Baltimore a place where people want to live.It is inexcusable for this to be happening. More needs to happen to reduce drug traffic, increase treatment for addicts and return law and order to this city.

NORTH EAST -- Flames snapped through the roof, melted the windows of the house into crystal-like globs and then broke loose the mortar that had been holding the walls together. Most of the house fell. The sisters who grew up in it cried.For the North East Volunteer Fire Company, it was a job well done. Its members had been hired to burn the house down safely.What the firefighters had burned, though, was an irreplaceable historic landmark that until 1995 had been the oldest continuously occupied house in Cecil County, was registered with preservationists and dated to 1794.

ITS ATTRACTIONS and beauty are so varied that Maryland has long claimed to be America in miniature. As far as tourism goes, though, there is little reason for smugness. Visitors coming here do not spend as much or stay as long as the national average.A program started two years ago is trying to change that.So far, eight historic areas in Maryland have submitted blueprints for developing heritage tourism over the next 10 years and are hoping for matching funds from the state.The goal: Lure visitors to lesser-known ethnic and specialized attractions that will round out their itineraries and lengthen their stays.

The best of the old and the new have been blended together with style and savvy in a thoroughly modern yet historic show house in the heart of Annapolis.Volunteers from the Historic Annapolis Foundation and interior designers from Maryland, Washington and New York have transformed a neglected 18th-century rowhouse into a designer showcase that is just right for a family of the '90s."Every historic structure does not have to be a museum," said Sharon Kennedy, executive co-chair for the Slayton Show House.

ITS NAME MAY suggest grand pretensions, but the Greater New Windsor Committee combines high-minded goals with down to earth, hands-on work for the good of the community. The small group of concerned citizens has been working for a year to preserve and maintain stately but deteriorating old homes in the western Carroll County town of some 800 residents.With its labor, money and home-improvement expertise, the volunteer committee is trying to encourage owners of these aging structures to keep up their properties.

New Windsor will not be taking a place on the National Register of Historic Places. At least not yet.Angered that Carroll County's historic preservation planner prepared an application without local input, the Town Council voted unanimously last week to defer approving the list of nominated buildings until residents can review it."We should have been consulted," Councilwoman Rebecca H. Harman told county and state preservationists during the council meeting Tuesday. "You did this on your own and then said, 'Here it is,' to the mayor and Town Council."

New Windsor will not be taking a place on the National Register of Historic Places. At least not yet.Angered that Carroll County's historic preservation planner prepared an application without local input, the Town Council voted unanimously last week to defer approving the list of nominated buildings until residents can review it."We should have been consulted," Councilwoman Rebecca H. Harman told county and state preservationists during the council meeting Tuesday. "You did this on your own and then said, 'Here it is,' to the mayor and Town Council."

Where some see history, White Marsh shopkeeper Dale Raubenstine sees nothing more than a ramshackle bridge of crumbled asphalt, splintering wood and dull steel plates.With the bridge on Allender Road in eastern Baltimore County closed for a year, business is suffering at his Molly's Munchy Mart. And Raubenstine rejects explanations that replacement of the span -- barely 50 years old and made of recycled railroad material -- should continue to be delayed because of its history."I didn't see George Washington sleep here or anything like that," he said of the bridge, where work was to have begun this month.

Baltimore has long been known as a historic city, but this year it's getting an extra layer of historic designation that's expected to open doors in terms of assistance and attention from the federal government. Mayor Sheila Dixon and other public officials are scheduled to gather in Fells Point at 10:30 a.m. today to celebrate the creation of the Baltimore National Heritage Area, one of nine such districts designated in 2009 by Congress and President Barack Obama. A National Heritage Area is a place where the natural, cultural, historic and scenic resources are considered "uniquely representative" of the American experience.

Look around Baltimore and you will see a compendium of architectural styles and historic structures. From the dome of the Basilica and the Washington Monument tower to the elegant main building of the Maryland Institute College of Art and the magnificent Marburg Pavilion at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital, Baltimore is home to hundreds of landmark buildings that document its nearly 300-year history. Yet despite this rich architectural legacy, many Baltimore landmarks have survived the passage of time almost by accident; it wasn't until the late 1960s that serious efforts to preserve historic city structures got underway.

The fate of a 1920s cottage in the heart of Cockeysville could rest with the Baltimore County Landmarks Preservation Commission, which is being asked to decide if the home meets its criteria for historic designation. The house at Sherwood and Cedar Knoll roads overlooks a stretch of York Road known as Antique Row. The two-story home was designed and built by the Offutt family, known for its generations of attorneys and judges and its ties to the area's founding father Joshua F. Cockey.

Days after the city offered to save the Senator Theatre by turning it into a nonprofit business, owner Tom Kiefaber said he is working with the mayor's office to finalize the deal "as soon as possible." But gaining nonprofit status would likely mean big changes at the historic theater. As a nonprofit, it would not just show movies; it would need to provide educational and cultural programming as well. The new status would also mean a new role for Kiefaber, who would give up day-to-day control of the movie house, which has been run by his family for decades.

We have built no national temple but the Capitol," U.S. Rep. Rufus Choate of Massachusetts said in 1833. "We consult no common oracle but the Constitution."

Preservation board bestows awards The Harford County Historic Preservation Commission recently presented its annual awards to those in the county who have contributed significantly to the advancement of preserving historic structures and properties in the county. Recipients were: *Preservation Honor Award: County Executive David R. Craig for personal and public dedication to the preservation cause, especially in saving Tudor Hall, Proctor House and the former Board of Education building on Gordon Street.

CAMBRIDGE - A historic building dating to 1790 and most recently used as a law office was destroyed by fire in Cambridge yesterday morning, according to the state fire marshal's office. The 2 1/2-story building was originally a home but had been converted to offices. Deputy State Fire Marshal Joseph Zurolo said the structure has been vacant for the past five years. It had been up for sale for two years. Investigators are trying to determine what sparked the flames. No adjacent buildings were damaged, and no one was injured.

Four years ago, residents of the Turners Station area of Dundalk took stock of their community and found plenty of room for improvement. A lack of streetlights made some spots attractive to drug dealers. Alleys and sidewalks were crumbling and in need of repair. Some aging houses presented safety hazards, and zoning regulations dictated that vacant lots were too narrow for new homes big enough to attract families. Since then, the county has demolished properties on Sollers Point and Avondale roads, planted gardens and trees throughout the community, completed a traffic survey of several intersections and repaved roads.

GETTYSBURG, Pa. --Millions of Americans, young and old, have learned about one of the Civil War's decisive battles by filing into the Cyclorama Center here and peering at a huge circular painting depicting the climax of that epic three-day bloodbath. Yet on a landscape steeped in history, where statues and monuments abound, there is no plaque commemorating the work of this building's renowned architect, Richard Neutra, famous enough in his day to make the cover of Time magazine. In fact, though only 45 years old, the building's days are numbered, as construction proceeds on a new, more commodious visitors center on a less hallowed spot on the battlefield, away from where the fighting raged.

Hoping to make peace with Baltimore's preservationists, Mercy Medical Center has offered to spend $400,000 to spare one of a row of historic downtown houses and rebuild it in a city museum. Those fighting the downtown hospital's attempt to demolish the 1820s-era houses on St. Paul Place for a $292 million expansion call Mercy's gesture unacceptable and vow that they will pursue their goal of getting the hospital's demolition permit revoked. Top Mercy officials, searching for a compromise to ward off what could be a drawn-out battle with preservationists, said yesterday that they are willing to save the facade of one of the houses and would dedicate space in their new inpatient tower to an exhibit on the site's rich African-American history.