Lexington Street

People who never bought a pair of shoelaces along old Lexington Street are now identifying it as a superblock - a chunk of downtown real estate that made news when Peter G. Angelos and David Hillman filed a lawsuit against the Baltimore Development Corp. This block was indeed super, once, when it seemed as if half the city converged there for everyday needs. The heart of the block was its array of five-and-dimes - Woolworth's, Grant's, McCrory's and Kresge's. The soul of the block was its diverse, unpretentious people.

Will this be the year when that elusive magic touch arrives at Howard and Lexington? My eyes have glazed over while I've read stacks and more stacks of redevelopment plans for Baltimore's old downtown shopping district. Seriously. There were proposals for Lexington Street during the mayoral administration of Theodore R. McKeldin. That's a long time for a place to be ailing - 40 years and counting. And because I enjoyed so many good times in this part of Baltimore, I hope that it can make the transition to a new day. Other places have been reconstituted and recovered a lot faster.

Baltimore's spending board approved a land swap yesterday that will allow developers to move ahead with plans to revitalize a blighted swath of the west side with new apartments, shops and offices. The approval paves the way for the long-stalled superblock area in Baltimore's old retail district to be developed by two teams - one led by a New York developer and the other a partnership between the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation and the Cordish Co. But the city still needs to obtain a key parcel now owned by a retailer who has vowed to hang on. The swap approved by the city's Board of Estimates was agreed to in March by the city and the Weinberg Foundation, one of the biggest property owners in the renewal area.

A nonprofit group proposing to build 345 apartments, dozens of stores, a multiscreen theater and parking garages on the west side of Baltimore's downtown wants tax breaks from the city to help pay for the project, according to details released yesterday.The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation is also asking the city to reopen a pedestrian-only section of Lexington Street to traffic and remove dozens of lighted arches over Howard Street, according to the proposal.City officials have not decided whether to approve the proposal.

THE CITY is abuzz about recently announced plans to rebuild the west side of downtown, between Charles Center and the University of Maryland's downtown campus.Plans call for new office buildings, apartments, shops and entertainment complexes.Quite expectedly, the focal point of the new west side will be Howard and Lexington streets -- the heart of the old downtown shopping district. Over the years, when developers or city fathers have had a new idea about improving the quality of urban life in Baltimore, they have returned repeatedly to that area.

The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation is proposing to invest $71 million to rebuild a beleaguered downtown landmark -- its decaying Stewart's department store on Howard Street -- while building an adjoining middle-income apartment complex and parking garage on Lexington Street.The foundation has unveiled a plan to remake the Stewart's building, an 1899 department store that closed in 1979, into a call center, a building outfitted with telephone lines for private mail-order catalog sales, credit card account assistance and telemarketers.

On Eutaw Street at the top of Lexington yesterday, a guy with flowers in his hands walks up to a fellow selling the Final Call newspaper and asks for the exact spot where James Quarles took a shot from a city policeman and fell over dead because he would not drop his knife.The Final Call is Louis Farrakhan's newspaper. The fellow selling the paper points east toward Howard Street, and the guy with the flowers starts walking. The Final Call is Farrakhan's weekly cry to choose up sides by race.

Demolition of the five high-rise building at the Lexington Terrace public housing complex in West Baltimore is set for 10 a.m. Saturday, and will wake about secopnds to complete, city officials said.The streets near the site will be closed to vehicles and pedestrians from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. The area is bounded by Greene Street on the east, Calhoun Street on the west, Baltimore Street on the South and Franklin Street on the north.The public may view the demolition from Baltimore Street at Fremont Avenue, Lexington Street at Greene Street and Saratoga Street at Greene Street.

I can't think about Easter shopping without missing the teeming, never-boring Lexington Street I knew in the 1950s and early '60s.From Charles Street on the east to Lexington Market on the west, this stretch of macadam and streetcar rail was one huge mass of scurrying humanity on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter Sunday.It was as if people firmly refused to shop until that day, then they burst out of their homes for their big-time downtown buying spree. It was a spring rite.I'm thinking of a golden period when the street still had so many shoe, five-and-dime, variety, candy and specialty shops, as well as big department stores and movie houses.

IT WAS THE afternoon of Labor Day and I found myself in the elevator of what is now the Value City department store at the Westview Mall. I glanced around. There was that pink color, the shade Hutzler Bros. used to paint the walls of its department stores. This spot was, of course, a former Hutzler operation now occupied by a different store.This time of the year, I especially think of Howard Street. It was here that you met your friends, bought your bedsheets and saw Audrey Hepburn in "My Fair Lady."

On June 17, 2009 CLARADINE M. ROBERTSON. Friends may visit the family owned MARCH FUNERAL HOME WEST, INC., 4300 Wabash Avenue on Monday after 1 p.m. The family will receive friends on Tuesday 10:30 a.m. at United Glorious Church of Christ Apostolic, 1215 W. Lexington Street. Funeral Services to follow at 11:00 a.m.

On June 13, 2009, THYRKIELD D. BARNES. On Wednesday, friends may call at the VAUGHN C. GREENE FUNERAL SERVICES, 4101 Edmondson Avenue from 4 to 8 P.M. On Thursday, Mrs. Barnes will lie in state at Allen AME Church, 1130 W. Lexington Street, where the family will receive friends from 11 to 11:30 A.M with services to follow. Inquiries to (410) 233-2400.

I wince every time I hear another forecast for downtown Baltimore's Lexington Street. The block between Park Avenue and Howard Street, where so many Baltimoreans once shopped, is to be reconstructed as apartments and some shops, maybe a hotel, too. I'm making a preservation pitch for the overlooked 1934 gem, the Read's drugstore at the corner of Howard and Lexington. I don't think of Baltimore as having many truly modern buildings in the sense of streamlined art deco-moderne structures.

Developers of a $150 million project to revitalize a crucial piece of Baltimore's west side met opposition yesterday from city preservationists, who say the developers need to save more of the old retail district. A plan presented yesterday to a city design panel showed a 28-story, T-shaped apartment tower, a 120-room boutique hotel with a restaurant and small- and medium-size stores in an area bounded by Lexington, Howard and Fayette streets and Park Avenue. The developer, Lexington Square Partners, told the Urban Design and Architectural Review Panel it plans to preserve at least two buildings it considers significant.

On May 4, 2008 MR. McBRIDE Visitation at 2140 N. Fulton Avenue, on Thursday, 10A.M.-3P.M. The family will receive friends at Allen A.M.E. Church, 1130 W. Lexington Street on Thursday at 6P.M. Funeral at 6:30P.M.

In a crumbling building on West Lexington Street where rain has punched a hole through the roof, Boris Kalikhman stepped gingerly around missing floorboards and planned his comeback. Ever since urban renewal forced the jeweler out seven years ago from a different spot on the so-called "superblock" - really a collection of blighted blocks around the Lexington Street pedestrian mall - he has been plotting a return. He wanted back in on Baltimore's west side even as renewal plans stalled and left the area worse off. But now, projects big and small are on the verge of happening.

Baltimore's long-stalled superblock project has cleared two of the last remaining hurdles, a move that city officials say should allow redevelopment of a blighted swath of downtown's west side to begin next year. The Board of Estimates approved deals for several properties considered crucial to the project after years of opposition from their owners. One of the owners also agreed to drop a lawsuit challenging the validity of the city's choice of developer Lexington Square Partners at a closed meeting three years ago. That suit, which was due for retrial in Baltimore Circuit Court, could have resulted in lengthy delays.

The last big development parcel in Baltimore's superblock project would be filled with 152 new apartments, shops, some offices and a parking garage, under a proposal by a west-side property owner and a former city housing official. Baltimore Development Corp. said yesterday that it received one proposal for the block of parking lots and vacant buildings bounded by Park Avenue and Clay, Liberty and Lexington streets. The BDC, the city's development arm, had offered the site for redevelopment in April in hopes of continuing momentum in revitalizing the deteriorated heart of the city's old retail district.

On August 4, 2007; ETHEL M. BROOKS. On Thursday friends may call VAUGHN C. GREENE FUNERAL SERVICES (RANDALLSTOWN), 8728 Liberty Rd., from 4-8 p.m. On Friday, Mrs. Brooks will lie in-state at St. James United Methodist Church, 1901 W. Lexington Street, where the family will receive friends 10-10:30 a.m. with services to follow. Inquiries to 410-655-0015.

Baltimore's spending board approved a land swap yesterday that will allow developers to move ahead with plans to revitalize a blighted swath of the west side with new apartments, shops and offices. The approval paves the way for the long-stalled superblock area in Baltimore's old retail district to be developed by two teams - one led by a New York developer and the other a partnership between the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation and the Cordish Co. But the city still needs to obtain a key parcel now owned by a retailer who has vowed to hang on. The swap approved by the city's Board of Estimates was agreed to in March by the city and the Weinberg Foundation, one of the biggest property owners in the renewal area.