Home In Baltimore

For sale (maybe): Brick 2 story, 4 BR Arcadia home w/basement and deck, room for four kids, two dogs, a judge and the governor. Two months into his term, Gov. Martin O'Malley has been told, it seems, that the time has come to sell the family's Walther Avenue home in Baltimore. The first family has been living more or less full time at the governor's mansion in Annapolis since January, and O'Malley said his wife, Judge Catherine Curran O'Malley, is pushing to sell their home of 12 years.

Bob Turley, a hard-throwing right-hander who won the Orioles' first home game, died of liver cancer early Saturday morning, according to his son Terry Turley. He was 82. Turley pitched one season for the Orioles in 1954, their first in Baltimore, and he started the first big league game at Memorial Stadium. He was traded to the New York Yankees, with whom he won the Cy Young Award in 1958. The April 15, 1954 opener at Memorial Stadium was a 3-1 victory over the Chicago White Sox played in front of 46,354 fans.

He has traveled to so many cities and countries since the Olympics ended, when he wakes up in the morning, it's almost impossible for Michael Phelps to remember the date, or even what day it is. Is today Friday? Or is it Thursday? Without looking at his BlackBerry, he has no clue. Luckily for him, he has people - mainly his agent, Peter Carlisle, and his media manager, Drew Johnson, both of Octagon - to tell him where his schedules dictate that he needs to be. His schedule called for him to be in Baltimore yesterday, marking just the second time he has been home since he won eight gold medals in Beijing.

It was standing room only Thursday as family, friends and admirers of Robert Francell Chew said goodbye with a spirited and moving celebration of life ceremony for the actor known as Proposition Joe. More than 100 persons crowded into the chapel at the Calvin B. Scruggs Funeral Home in east Baltimore on a cold, snow-dusted morning. They ranged from other Baltimore actors who had won featured roles in HBO's "The Wire," like Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, to Raymond Parker, the high school music teacher who rook Chew under his wing at Patterson High, taught him to sing Italian opera and helped him get an audition that led to a four-year scholarship at Morgan State University.

Dick and Karen Cook's Baltimore is a safe haven where neighbors at a halfway house for recovering alcoholics watch over them from a porch nearby.Ruby Glover's Baltimore is an oasis of goodwill and lifelong friendships in the world's biggest small town.To them, Baltimore is not just a city of crime and poor schools that loses population every year. They stand their ground, and they will not be moved.Ten staunch Baltimoreans recently talked about why they stay. All have the financial means to leave.

Reynoud Duplessis and three of his children recently sat in M&T Bank Stadium, rooting for their home team. As they watched the Ravens play the Carolina Panthers, they kept a close watch on the ticker of scores under the scoreboard. "Let's go, Saints," screamed Nicholas Duplessis, 20. "Way to go, Joe [Horn]," yelled his sister Phylissa, 19. There was a time when they would be in the Superdome watching the New Orleans Saints play. But not anymore. During the Ravens' game in October, a picture of the Duplessis family appeared on the JumboTron, reminding the members of why they were in Baltimore.

ERROL KENNETH JACKSON, SR., native of St. Louis, MO and former resident of Atlanta, GA, passed away suddenly in his home in Baltimore, MD on Saturday, July 18, 2009. Funeral arrangements to be announced.

Donald E. Brown: The place of death of retired journalism professor Donald E. Brown, who died Dec. 18 at Church Home in Baltimore, was incorrectly reported in yesterday's editions.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 12/27/96

On December 25, 2005, ROBERT ZIEGELSTEIN, husband of Annette Ziegelstein; beloved father of Joel and Roy Ziegelstein; brother of Lore Solanch; grandfather of Shari, David, Andrew, Kate, Danielle and Matthew. Also survived by other loving relatives and friends. Services were held at Sharon Gardens in Valhalla, NY. The Ziegelstein family will be receiving friends and family at their home in Baltimore. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Marylanders in trouble on their mortgages are getting more help from their lenders than homeowners in the country as a whole, a new report suggests. A sign (right) advertising the auction of a foreclosed home in Baltimore indicates that the problem remains pressing for the state. [Article on Page 2D]

A two-alarm fire tore through three attached rowhomes in West Baltimore on Wednesday night, leaving their rear facades badly charred, bringing dozens of firefighters to the scene and displacing residents, according to the Baltimore Fire Department. Firefighters responded to the 2300 block of Whittier Avenue, in the city's Parkview/Woodbrook neighborhood near Mondawmin Mall, about 7:40 p.m. and found heavy fire on the third floor of one of the homes, which was occupied, said Captain Roman Clark, a Fire Department spokesman.

While the Baltimore Ravens' rout of the Cincinnati Bengals Monday was catnip for local fans, the national ratings news was not so good for ESPN and "Monday Night Football. " Blowouts do not make for big ratings. The national overnight Nielsen rating for the opener of Season 43 of MNF was 8.1 in households. That's down 23 percent from last year's opener between the New England Patriots and the Miami Dolphins that scored 10.6. In terms of viewers, Monday's game was seen by 10.9 million.

St. John's United Methodist Church in Lutherville boasts just 40 parishioners, but its members are proud of the large impact they can make with their volunteer efforts. The most recent, the Baltimore County Christian Workcamp, provided a team of parish volunteers that has traveled the county and country doing service work in the past with the unique opportunity to give back close to home. "It doesn't matter where you are," said Carol Anders of Lutherville as she stood in front of this year's work site, on Stanmore Road in Towson.

That whooshing sound you hear is a huge sigh of relief from the Pier Homes' developer and financier. The last of the luxury townhomes -- a project built on piers in Baltimore's Inner Harbor -- just sold, six years after the first buyers moved in. McWilliams Ballard, a Washington-based real estate sales team that took over the Pier Homes at HarborView project two years ago, announced the final settlements Wednesday. (They're not all on the record yet online, but nearly all are.)

Zillow says nearly a third of mortgaged homes in the Baltimore region are worth less than the loan amount -- far more underwater homeowners than other estimates suggest. The most frequently quoted figures, from real estate data firm CoreLogic, put the underwater crowd in the region at just under 20 percent . The big spread between the two companies' estimates are national, not just local. Zillow, a real estate site, says it worked with credit bureau TransUnion to get the exact loan balance for mortgaged homes -- including home equity lines -- so it didn't have to start with the original loan balance and estimate the amount paid off. Both companies estimate home values, Zillow with its Zestimate . Nationally, Zillow says 31 percent of mortgaged homes were underwater during the first three months of the year, same as its estimate for the Baltimore metro area.

A nonprofit affordable-housing builder says it will rehab at least 500 vacant Baltimore homes -- in a partnership that includes the Ravens' Ray Lewis -- and intends to start soon. The North Carolina-based Builders of Hope is announcing the "Bring It Home" initiative today. It says it has secured about $100 million from an investor who wants to remain anonymous and plans to use up to $30 million of that rehabilitating vacant homes in Baltimore and Atlanta. Lewis and the United Athletes Foundation are involved in the effort , along with debt-counseling group Consumer Education Services Inc. In Baltimore, Builders of Hope is working with Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's Vacants to Value program.

MILLER, E. Zachary Services held Monday, August 13 11am at Ohr Kodesh in Chevy Chase MD. Internment Beth Tfiloh Cemetary in Baltimore MD. Arrangements by Hines-Rinaldi Funeral Home, MD. The family will be sitting shiva at the Nathanson home in Baltimore starting on Monday evening. Contact Ohr Kodesh, 301.589.3880 for additional information.

Dennis Patrick Lantz Sr., a salesman and thoroughbred racing enthusiast, died Wednesday of a brain tumor at the Joseph Richey Hospice. The Baltimore Highlands resident was 41. Born in Baltimore and raised in Pigtown, Mr. Lantz attended Southwestern High School and played baseball in youth leagues at Carroll Park. As a teenager, he sold subscriptions to the old News American and later worked for Callen Publishing. Before his illness, he was a salesman for Allied Distributing in Westminster.

A 31-year-old man was shot and killed during a robbery Wednesday night inside his home in North Baltimore, according to city police. Police said that just before 10 p.m., two armed men entered a home in the 2800 block of W. Garrison Ave. and demanded money from the victim and a second person. After assaulting the victim, the suspects began looking through the home, police said. When the victim began to fight back, he was shot in the face. The victim, who has not been identified pending notification of relatives, was pronounced dead at the scene.

It's easy to miss the little two-story, boarded-up house behind the Historical Society of Baltimore County in Cockeysville. Known as "the Pest House," it was once a haven for patients suffering from contagious diseases, such as smallpox. Built in 1872, it's been empty for decades. But efforts to convert it into a research center for county African-American history would take the old stone building beyond its dreary past into a brighter future, provided fundraisers can obtain more than $300,000 for the renovation job. Lead organizer Louis S. Diggs, for whom the center would be named, has written a dozen books on early African-American life in the county, exploring the history of Piney Grove, Turners Station, Catonsville, and Belltown in Owings Mills.