Industrial Exchange

Anne Hawkins, who sold sweaters and blankets she knitted and then signed the checks over to charity, died of emphysema Dec. 14 at Charlestown Retirement Community. She was 79. A retired bookkeeper and accountant, she savored liberal Democratic politics and social causes. After moving to Baltimore in 1991, she found she could sell her knitting at the Woman's Industrial Exchange, and she gave the proceeds to charities such as the Salvation Army, the Fuel Fund of Maryland and Beacon House in Washington, D.C. "She didn't suffer fools and hated sloppy sentimentalism," said her husband, John Hawkins, a retired public school math teacher.

Is that fresh pear or city chartreuse?" asks Jerry Edwards, as he paces about the Woman's Industrial Exchange. It's a few days before the Baltimore landmark's restaurant reopens under Edwards' management and the chef appears rather dazed by a vibrant green color his in-house designer, Travis Lee Moore, selected for what were the restaurant's formerly gray walls. "We were dying when Travis first put it up," Edwards says with a smile. "But we needed a color attack here." Attack is a favorite word of his; infuse is another.

Once unthinkable, hip modernity is arriving at a venerable downtown lunch spot: a plasma TV, a chartreuse paint scheme, chipotle mayo and self-service. The Woman's Industrial Exchange's former tearoom, for more than a century a genteel and leisurely midday rendezvous for a petite platter of chicken salad, tomato aspic, deviled egg and lemon tart, reopens Oct. 18 as the Chef's Express. The color scheme is "city chartreuse" and "fresh pear," with an exposed stainless-steel kitchen. The new restaurant's operators promise a plasma TV tuned to food channels.

Lucette Keelty Costa, a homemaker and former board president of the Woman's Industrial Exchange, died of lung disease Sunday at the Blakehurst retirement community in Towson. She was 85. Born in Baltimore and raised in Ten Hills, Lucette Keelty was a 1938 graduate of Mount de Sales Academy of the Visitation and studied painting at Georgian Court College in Lakewood, N.J. Mrs. Costa volunteered for many years at the Johns Hopkins and Union Memorial hospitals, and was board president of the Woman's Industrial Exchange on Charles Street about 40 years ago. Family members said she persuaded Mayor Thomas J. D'Alesandro Jr. to install a Christmas tree at the Washington Monument in Mount Vernon Place in the 1950s.

Rita Marie Hegarty Knox, a longtime Baltimore resident and former manager of the Woman's Industrial Exchange, died of pneumonia Wednesday at Spa Creek Center in Annapolis. She was 84. A native of Philadelphia, Rita Marie Hegarty graduated from Notre Dame Academy in Philadelphia in 1938. She moved to Baltimore in 1942 when she married Elmer Vincent Knox, a bridge, structural and ornamental ironworker who died in 1981. She moved to Towson four years ago. After raising five children, she returned to school and received an associate's degree in gerontology in 1978 from Baltimore City Community College.

First the restaurant and now the gift shop. The Woman's Industrial Exchange, which has served chicken salad and tomato aspic to generations of Baltimoreans from its North Charles Street storefront, has shuttered its craft shop at the same location with a promise to reopen early next month. "This is a bump in the road," said Helen Weiss, president of the volunteer board that runs the Exchange, which got its start in 1880. "I am confident that we will reopen bigger and better, and brighter and shinier."

The final lunch patrons arrived hungry, in search of those elusive yeasty rolls, the waitresses attired in aprons with big bows and of course, the tomato aspic they'd known since the days when Charles Street had two-way traffic. They were emphatic that Charles and Pleasant streets' bastion of old-style cooking needs to reopen. Roslyn DuPree, the restaurateur who had operated the Woman's Industrial Exchange's tea room since late 2003, withdrew this week after noting declining patronage.

A FEW MONTHS ago, I received that dreaded mint green slip, the summons to appear at the courthouse for jury duty. Everything in life is timing; and the idea of appearing at 8:15 a.m. at Lexington and St. Paul in December held no appeal. So I made the best of it, packed my unaddressed Christmas cards and a book for the day of waiting. A trip to the city courthouse points out the aftermath of all the city's crime news constantly before your eyes. It is a downer of all downers - to see young men being led around in shackles while their grandmothers sit crying on the oak benches in the corridors is not my recipe for an uplifting day. But maybe a hard dose of reality at this time of the year is not such a bad idea.

Anne Hawkins' knitting warms twice. Through the broadcasts of Howard Dean's scream and the New Hampshire primary returns, in movie theaters, on road trips and in her Catonsville living room, the 77-year-old woman knits nubby sweaters, soft blankets and stylish scarves to sell at Baltimore's Woman's Industrial Exchange. For the past 12 years, she has signed over every check for her work to charity - most recently the Fuel Fund of Maryland, which helps the poor pay utility bills, and Beacon House, a nonprofit organization for women and children in Washington.

The woman had bright white hair, a bright purple coat and bright red lipstick stretched into a happy grin. She arrived at the Woman's Industrial Exchange with three friends, all of a certain age, all wearing similarly thrilled expressions. This was clearly a happy homecoming for the old gang, and memories of the old days animated their lunchtime chatter. Even back then, the WIE was a majestic Baltimore institution, with a history stretching back to 1880. Maybe when these women were younger, they would eat at the Exchange and watch white-haired women reminisce about their youthful outings.