Lombard Street

In a move that could remake a key leg of downtown, Baltimore City Community College is considering putting its Inner Harbor campus on the market. Faced with cramped, aging buildings, a desire to expand and a shortage of money, the school's leaders are investigating whether the answer to those problems lies in selling the valuable Lombard Street site. They've convened a real estate task force and hope to soon hire a consultant to help them realize the property's "fullest commercial potential."

THE EASTERN edge of Baltimore's downtown is about to change beyond recognition.Already, a $184 million cancer complex is rising at Broadway and Orleans streets, next to Johns Hopkins Hospital. Neither of its two structures is a skyscraper; nevertheless, their combined square footage equals the 30-story Alex. Brown Building plus the 30-story Blaustein Building.The two buildings are several months from completion. Even so, they have made city officials realize the magnitude of the potential change as one of Baltimore's biggest employers grows even bigger.

A District Court judge ruled yesterday that a man charged with shooting a lawyer on a downtown Baltimore street Tuesday should be held in jail without bail until a psychiatric evaluation can be conducted.Richard Kenneth Geier, 23, is accused of chasing Jeffrey Martin Yeatman, 29, a product liability lawyer for Piper & Marbury, and firing a bullet that struck him in the shoulder. Yeatman was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was in fair condition yesterday.Geier -- charged with attempted murder, assault and reckless endangerment -- sat stiffly in a room at the Central Booking and Intake Center as his image was broadcast by video camera to Judge Ben C. Clyburn's courtroom in Eastside District Court.

An unidentified German investor has purchased a 19-story office building in downtown Baltimore for $29 million.Denver-based real estate investment company Amstar Group Ltd. bought the building at 300 E. Lombard St. on behalf of a German investor or group of investors, said Philip C. Iglehart, executive vice president/principal of Colliers Pinkard, which brokered the deal for a J. P. Morgan affiliate that owned the property."

Baltimore's annual St. Patrick's Day parade -- expected to draw a crowd of 200,000 -- will begin at 2 p.m. today at Charles and Centre streets. The parade will head south on Charles Street to Pratt Street and turn east on Pratt, disbanding at Market Place.The three-hour parade will begin forming at 1 p.m. next to the Washington Monument. Charles Street traffic will be diverted east on Centre Street to Calvert Street. Charles Street will be closed between Conway and Madison streets at 1: 30 p.m. At the same time, Centre Street traffic will be diverted south onto Cathedral Street.

Eighty blind people will be trained at the National Federation for the Blind, 1800 Johnson St., and placed in jobs throughout the country at United Parcel Service under a $488,400 grant by the U.S. Department of Labor, the federation said.The trainees, ages 18 to 65, will be trained in information access technology, problem solving and other skills.Applicants must be clients of state rehabilitation agencies, be able to read and write in Braille and use computers at a basic level. Information: 410-659-9314.

Imagine standing on a wharf at Lombard Street overlooking the harbor. That's just what folks did in the early 18th century, when Baltimore's port stretched a few blocks north of where it is now -- all the way to Water Street.You'll be able to retrace the harbor's former edges and discover the city's rich maritime history during walking tours and a variety of other activities offered this weekend as part of Portfest, an annual harbor celebration."Today Pratt Street is the harbor's edge and few people realize that the street's high risers are actually the curtain behind which is a stage to Baltimore 200 years ago," says Jamie Hunt, organizer and leader of the Portfest walking tours.

The huge slabs of concrete that made up the Holocaust Memorial in downtown Baltimore never really spoke to Leo Bretholz.On his pilgrimages, he wondered what tourists and schoolchildren would think looking at the cold, imposing monument that had been despoiled by trash, condoms and dirty needles.This week, Jewish leaders began a $400,000 overhaul that includes transforming the monolith into a more literal and readily understood symbol of the Holocaust: a railroad freight car."We hope it will be more open, a little more friendly to the eye, a little more thought-provoking," says Bretholz, 76, a proponent of the redesign.

150 years ago in The SunMay 13: Demolition of the Oldest House in this City -- The correspondent of the National Intelligencer from this city, notices the fact that workmen are now engaged in tearing down the very oldest house in Baltimore; to erect in its stead an elegant new warehouse. This venerable building, situated at South Calvert and Mercer streets, has weathered the storms of more than one hundred winters.May 15: We learn that as the apparatus of the New Market Fire Company were passing the corner of Hanover and Lombard streets, on their way to a fire, on Thursday night, they were saluted by a volley of bricks and missiles, from a party stationed in Lombard Street.

ONE OF THE first buildings constructed in downtown Baltimore after the Great Fire of 1904 was, logically enough, a firehouse.Nearly 100 years later, that building is about to become a pioneer of another sort.Baltimore City Community College has leased the former city firehouse at 10 S. Gay St. for use as its Business and Continuing Education Center starting this month.Situated two blocks from the Market Place Metro stop, it will be a new setting for many of the college's noncredit courses in literacy, computer training and business management.

A couple of weeks ago in my Table Talk column I wrote about oZ. Chophouse in Maple Lawn closing. It wasn't all bad news, however, because it was being taken over by Jordan Naftal of Jordan's Steakhouse in Ellicott City and Carlos Venegas of Ranazul in Maple Lawn. The new place would be named Carlos and Jordan's Steakhouse. Then came the surprising news last week that the landlord had locked Naftal out of his Ellicott City restaurant for failing to pay the rent. "Monday morning while I was working at the new location getting it ready," Naftal told me, "I found out from a prep cook that the landlord illegally locked us out. I spent the rest of the last 36 hours talking with employees, vendors, the landlord, prospective investors, the bank, friends and relatives."

On August 22, 2009, Services at SOL LEVINSON & BROS., INC., 8900 Reisterstown Road, at Mount Wilson Lane on Monday, August 24, at 1 PM. Interment Har Sinai Cemetery - Garrison Forest Road. In lieu of flowers, donations in his memory may be made to The Medical Alumni Association of the University of Maryland, Inc. 522 W. Lombard Street, Baltimore, MD 21201-1636. In mourning at 2304 Velvet Ridge Drive, Owings Mills, MD 21117 and 2509 Willow Glen Drive (21209). sollevinson.com

On August 7, 2009, MARION. Visitation 2140 N. Fulton Avenue, Friday 3 to 8 P.M. Family will receive friends Saturday 10:30 A.M at Kedesh House of Prayer Christian Church, 2500 W. Lombard Street. Funeral to follow at 11 A.M.

On July 15, 2009, JOSIE LEWATOWSKI; beloved daughter of the late Joseph and Helen (nee Vienna) Lewatowski; dear sister of Jimmy Lewatowski and the late Joseph and John Lewatowski. Also survived by many loving relatives and friends. Family and friends may gather at the family owned LILLY and ZEILER, INC. FUNERAL HOME, 1901 Eastern Avenue on Thursday from 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. Funeral services at St. Michael's Church (Lombard Street), on Friday at 10 A.M. Interment private

The owner of Attman's Delicatessen, a mainstay of Baltimore's Corned Beef Row for decades, is exploring plans to build a new restaurant next to its existing one, which would be renovated for new uses. The restaurateur is scheduled to meet with Baltimore's Urban Design and Architectural Review Panel next month to present plans for a one-story delicatessen that would rise at 1101 E. Lombard Street, next to the current deli at 1019 E. Lombard Street. Attman's is one of three delis that line Corned Beef Row, along with Lenny's and Weis'.

Crews will begin a road-resurfacing project on Lombard Street on Wednesday that will cause lane closures and lead to downtown traffic delays until completion in late fall, the city Department of Transportation announced. Workers expect to keep at least three lanes of traffic open during the first construction phase, between Light and President streets, and at least two lanes open during the later phase, between Light Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard. Parking restrictions and extended work hours will be used to reduce congestion, but officials encouraged drivers to plan for longer commutes and to consider alternative transportation.

In the coming weeks, someone will have to crawl into a 40-inch pipe where it marries a smaller pipe, which happened to burst under Lombard Street, and apply a rubber seal to prevent disaster from happening again. For years, Baltimore officials have warned that the city's centuries-old network of water pipes is crumbling. But few seem to care - until they break. Late last month, a fracture in a 77-year-old pipe during a morning rush-hour flooded downtown streets, shutting down Baltimore's business district for a day and tangling traffic for several more.

The expected traffic disruptions from city plans to resurface Lombard Street might not be so bad after all. As the city reopened the main westbound artery through downtown Baltimore early Thursday after last week's water main break, officials announced revised plans for the coming work on Lombard - changes that are expected to reduce the duration and severity of the lane closings that will be necessary. In March, city transporation officials announced a resurfacing program that would have involved closing half the capacity of Lombard Street for about a year.

Downtown drivers can expect about a year of traffic misery as city transportation officials launch an ambitious rebuilding project that will at times claim half the capacity of Lombard Street - Baltimore's principal westbound artery across the central business district. Beginning as early as May, the city will close some lanes of Lombard Street for the $2.6 million project, potentially the most disruptive downtown road work in recent years. Lombard, a block north of harbor-front Pratt Street, is one of Baltimore's busiest streets.

If Maryland is America in miniature, says Jeannette Belliveau, then Upper Fells Point is Baltimore in miniature. With quintessential front steps, brick rowhouses, corner stores and bars, residents say they have some of all that is best about Baltimore. This is a neighborhood with both an old-fashioned hardware store and a community theater. "Saying it's diverse sounds like a cliche, but here it really is true," says Belliveau, a writer and the secretary of the Upper Fells Point Improvement Association, an active community group.