Main Entrance

A NEW "E.R." has come to town this month, and what an E.R. it is. This is not a fictionalized television emergency room, but a $16 million, 34,500-square-foot cutting-edge "emergency center" at Sinai Hospital that intends to break from the old E.R. concepts.Everyone dreads visiting an emergency room. The trauma of the waiting room -- and the wait -- is often worse than the reason for being there.Sinai decided to ask patients and their families what's wrong with emergency rooms. Then they modeled their "ER-7" on customer complaints.

Honor Frank and BrooksI have the perfect name for the new stadium at Camden Yards. My idea is the only one I've heard that comes close to bringing forth the essence of what is so special about Orioles baseball.The name should be Robinson Stadium. I see two statues serving as a gate to the main entrance -- Brooks on one side, Frank on the other. This dual-meaning name is also a sort of metaphor for racial harmony, and the aura surrounding Robinson Stadium certainly couldn't be a bad influence on the city of Baltimore.

The Nature Co., a specialty store that has been a popular fixture of Harborplace's Light Street pavilion since September of 1989, will open an expanded version Saturday that will become the chain's flagship.The 6,945-square-foot store, representing an investment of $2 million, will be the largest outlet in the country for the 71-store California-based chain, which sells art, books, clothing and other merchandise that encourages people to enjoy and protect nature. It will make the Nature Co. one of the largest stores in Harborplace and a prominent anchor for the north end of the Light Street pavilion.

For almost two years, Tim and Tami Satterfield have dreamed of transforming their turn-of-the-century Amish barn in Monkton into a modern home for them and their two children. The family will make their deadline of having all the work complete by next month, said Jay McCardle of McCardle custom homes, the builder. By last month, nearly all major renovation and construction was complete, and McCardle and his crew were doing some finishing touches, such as painting and removing Tyvek paper used to protect exposed wood beams during renovation.

An outdoor labyrinth surrounded by gardens and an interfaith pavilion will greet visitors and residents at Stadium Place, the senior housing and recreation project just getting under way on the 30 acres where Memorial Stadium once stood on East 33rd Street. "It will be a peaceful kind of entrance," said the Rev. John R. Sharp, president of Govans Ecumenical Development Corp., a church-based nonprofit redeveloping the site. "It makes a statement about Stadium Place growing out of the faith community.

When Baltimore graphic designer David Ashton first set foot in Oriole Park at Camden Yards last year, he felt at home instantly. "God, this is my place," he thought. "This is a terrific place."As he toured the stadium with Janet Marie Smith, Orioles vice president for planning and development, Mr. Ashton instinctively understood how to complete the unfinished stadium's vintage atmosphere. He made quick thumbnail sketches that later became the basis of his proposal.Mr. Ashton's proposal was selected from among the submissions of several larger graphics firms.

WHEN LUKE A. SHAW was a year old, his brother, left home to care for his little sibling, secured him with a belt in a tiny rocking chair by the fire place. Shaw rocked and rocked, until he pitched forward into the fire's dying embers. He landed on his forehead and hands. His sister and brother retrieved him, and his mother came home in time to find the flesh melting from his fingers.Three years later, Shaw remembers, there was a train ride and the consoling Baby Ruth candy bars his father plied him with as they traveled from their rural North Carolina home to the hospital in Gastonia.

The new Main Street entrance to the Bel Air Municipal Parking Garage has opened. The entrance, which is off of Burns Alley between Courtland Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, was put in to work in conjunction with the new Main Street surface lot the town opened in July on the site of the former BB&T building. Traffic that enters the Main Street lot has the option of using one of the metered spaces on the lot or, if no spaces are available or the weather is rainy or snowy, a motorist can simply drive through the surface lot, cross Burns Alley and enter the parking garage.

A committee created by the Carroll County commissioners has recommended an immediate moratorium on billboards, a ban on flashing signs and the addition of landscaping at "gateways," the places where motorists enter the county. As drivers on Route 140 cross into Carroll from Reisterstown, for example, they glimpse the pristine beauty of Liberty Reservoir. Then, as they drive through Finksburg, they're greeted by strip malls and a collection of billboards plugging everything from fast food to the power of Christ.