Orchard Street

NEW YORK -- Behind the facade caked with soot, beyond the peeling burlap wallpaper in the hall, the dimly lit rooms at 97 Orchard St. offer a glimpse of the sequel to the Ellis Island story.From Ellis Island, where they landed, new immigrants to the United States used to head to this six-story tenement or to buildings much like it. Over the decades, 97 Orchard St. would house more than 10,000 people from about 20 countries -- in apartments without electricity or running water.Now the building is the centerpiece of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

"The funny thing is that all these cars drive by on Paca Street," remarked Tom Kravitz, president of the neighborhood association, "yet no one knows they're in an historic neighborhood."Although small in size, Seton Hill is indeed a neighborhood unto itself, centered around a very important part of Baltimore's and the nation's history.Roughly bounded by Orchard, Franklin, Monument and Eutaw streets, it is both a Baltimore and National Register historic district made up of some of the city's earliest gable-roofed rowhouses.

Treasure Island'Watch as the Children's Theater Association brings the classic tale "Treasure Island" to life on the stage this weekend at the Baltimore Museum of Art. The Robert Louis Stevenson story involves a boy who sails the high seas and is abducted by pirates bound for an exotic island where long-lost treasure awaits them, or so they think. Audience members may get invited to join the crew, hoist mainsails, sing ancient sea chants and even join the mutiny along with Long John Silver.

From The Sun July 17-23, 1844July 18: The steamer Columbia, with a large party of ladies and gentlemen on board, yesterday afternoon left Commerce Street wharf for the vicinity of White Rocks, to witness another exhibition by Capt. Taylor, with his sub-marine apparatus.July 19: The Colonade buildings in Saratoga Street, which were recently partially destroyed by fire, have been re-built, the bathing establishment considerably enlarged, and fitted up in a handsome style.From The Sun July 17-23, 1894July 18: "Hopewell," the new summer home for children at Cloud Capped, on the Catonsville Short Line Railroad, was opened yesterday and was visited by a number of ladies from Baltimore.

Summit Properties wins major awardsSummit Properties of Baltimore and Charlotte, N.C., won three national awards this year in the "Pillars of the Industry" competition conducted by the National Association of Home Builders.At a banquet Friday during the home builders' annual convention in Las Vegas, Summit's property management arm, Summit Management Co., was named "Property Management Co. of the Year."Summit's 196-unit Waterloo Place apartment complex in Mount Vernon received the Best Midrise Apartments award, and its 202-unit Ashton Woods Apartments in Howard County received the Best Garden Apartments award.

The newly restored Orchard Street Church, already headquarters for the Baltimore Urban League, will be the home of a new museum devoted to the city's early African-American churches and their congregations.Members of the social services organization, which moved last fall to the restored church property at 512 Orchard St., recently approved a mission statement for the museum, planned as a second phase of construction.It will tell "the story of black churches in Baltimore, with a special emphasis on Orchard Street Church," said Nancy Brennan, executive director of the Baltimore City Life Museums, a consultant to the league.

Edna A. RedmondRan nursery schoolEdna A. Redmond, a retired nursery school director who was active in church work, died Friday of congestive heart failure at the Cherrywood Manor Nursing Home in Reisterstown. She was 97.A resident of Northwest Baltimore, she retired as director of the Interdenominational Nursery School in 1977, the year the school, which was located at Union Memorial United Methodist Church, closed.She joined the faculty of the school when it was started in 1943 at the old Orchard Street United Methodist Church.

For a decade and a half, efforts to rescue the old Orchard Street Methodist Church were a seemingly never-ending saga of false starts and frustrations. But when the Baltimore Urban League decided to acquire the badly vandalized landmark for its new headquarters, it injected enough credibility and clout to get things moving.Now that the $3.7 million restoration has been completed, it is heartening to report that the result is nothing short of spectacular.''I think we are going to be an anchor for the whole Druid Hill Avenue corridor,'' says Urban League president Roger I. Lyons.

A renovated church in an inner-city neighborhood isn't exactly the kind of place you'd expect to find a full-service bank -- even for a day.But yesterday, one of the nation's newest and largest banks set up shop downtown in the old Orchard Street Church, the new headquarters for the Baltimore Urban League. For just a day, dozens of NationsBank employees, dressed in white polo shirts with red insignia, took applications for consumer loans, credit cards and small business loans.In addition, they offered workshops on home mortgages and car financing and even provided free credit reports that typically cost $25.While banks are often perceived as either ignoring or "red-lining" low-income city neighborhoods, NationsBank says it's trying to reverse that image by making loans there.

The stained-glass windows have been replaced, the leaky roof has been rebuilt, and all signs of fire damage and vandalism are gone.After 17 years of neglect, the Orchard Street Church officially reopens today following its $3.7 million conversion to a new headquarters for the Baltimore Urban League.League directors have scheduled three days of festivities to mark the reopening of the 1882 church at 510 Orchard St. and an adjacent Sunday school that dates from 1903."We feel it's important that everybody in the community have an opportunity to see this restoration," said Urban League President Roger Lyons.

Orchard Street is the dividing line. On one side is Orchard Mews, a subsidized townhouse development built in the late 1970s. On the other side is Seton Hill, home to some of Baltimore's oldest rowhouses, built in the early 1800s and tucked away in a maze of narrow alleyways. They share a proud history that dates back to the days of the Underground Railroad and the Orchard Street Church, built by a former slave, and a compact area bounded by Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Pennsylvania and Druid Hill avenues.

A plainclothes Baltimore City police officer was shot twice in the face last night while attempting to make an undercover drug purchase in the Seton Hill neighborhood, officials said. The officer, a seven-year veteran of the force, was rushed to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was in critical but stable condition last night. His injuries were not considered life-threatening. The 33-year-old officer and his partner, also in plain clothes, were at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and Orchard Street shortly after 8 p.m. when they saw a group of people who appeared to be involved in drug transactions, said Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III. The officer was shot in the jaw and cheek when he tried to make an undercover purchase, Bealefeld said.

If the battle between city residents and city drug dealers is a battle of wills, it appears the drug dealers are winning, or at least have city agencies so confused that they can't keep a single street illuminated in a neighborhood that abuts downtown and Mount Vernon. The people who live in Seton Hill got a portable floodlight near Orchard Street and Pennsylvania Avenue to counter a drug market. The dealers who prefer to ply their trade in the dark broke the light by cutting the wires and bending the frame.

"She was one of those old-time people who raised a family, took care of her husband, was a regular churchgoer and sang in the choir," the Rev. Irvin C. Lochman said yesterday of his church's longest-attending and oldest member. He was remembering Irene Gladys Taylor, who died a week ago as she neared her 108th birthday. She was the matriarch of a Baltimore family that includes 87 living descendants across four generations. One of Maryland's oldest residents, Mrs. Taylor had a simple but rich life, raising her eight children while never smoking, touching alcohol or driving a car, with a marriage that lasted nearly 60 years until her husband's death in 1978.

Although urban legends abound in cities throughout the South, perhaps none have been more enduring than the tales of the existence of a slave escape tunnel beneath the Orchard Street Church in Baltimore's Seton Hill neighborhood. Despite the lack of authentic historical documentation to substantiate the claims, the location continues to be regarded by many as a 19th-century stop on the Underground Railroad. Much of the surviving oral history is filled with the buzz words that historians dread, such as "it is alleged," "oral tradition contends" and "what is believed to be."

At this weekend's Underground Railroad Tour, travel through time to the 19th century and discover what it was like to be a slave in search of freedom. The tour leads participants to a variety of sites that are crucial to black history. Many of these locations were stops on the historic Underground Railroad. One stop is at Orchard Street Church, founded by Truman Pratt in 1825. The church has a secret tunnel and hiding area that indicates that it was a stop on the Underground Railroad. "Orchard Street Church is the highlight of the tour because the legendary escape tunnel is there," says Tom Saunders, one of the Underground Railroad tour guides.

On June 16, 2003, NATHANIEL N. PERKINS of Darden Road. On Friday friends may call at Canaan Baptist Church, 713 Tessier Street (at Orchard Street) from 5 to 7 P.M. On Saturday, Mr. Perkins will lie in above church, family hour 10:30 A.M., celebration 11 A.M. Services entrusted to HARI P. CLOSE FUNERAL SERVICE, P.A., 410-327-3100.

Baltimore Urban League Inc., one of the city's venerable social organizations, is struggling financially and trying to raise money to balance the books and meet its payroll. "I think there's no secret in town that we've been struggling to generate as much financial support as we can," said Lenneal J. Henderson Jr., chairman of the league's board of directors. "We're trying to raise at least $600,000 or $700,000 in the next several months." All this comes as Roger I. Lyons, the league's long-serving president, sits at home, recovering from a mild heart attack and related medical problems.

Blanche D. Hughes, a teacher of French and Spanish who helped save Baltimore's historic Orchard Street Church, died of Alzheimer's disease Monday at the home of her daughter in Columbia. The former Baltimore resident was 96. In the 1960s, as the congregation was moving to a new home, Mrs. Hughes alerted the community to the significance of the old Orchard Street Methodist Church in Seton Hill. Because of her passion for local and Methodist history, she was elected chairwoman of the Committee for the Preservation of the Orchard Street Church.

"The funny thing is that all these cars drive by on Paca Street," remarked Tom Kravitz, president of the neighborhood association, "yet no one knows they're in an historic neighborhood."Although small in size, Seton Hill is indeed a neighborhood unto itself, centered around a very important part of Baltimore's and the nation's history.Roughly bounded by Orchard, Franklin, Monument and Eutaw streets, it is both a Baltimore and National Register historic district made up of some of the city's earliest gable-roofed rowhouses.