Original Northwood

According to "Beyond the White Marble Steps," a 1979 publication of the Citizens Planning and Housing Administration, the land that became Original Northwood was once estate property. In this case, the neighborhood's 540 acres included portions of the estates of John Work Garrett, Enoch Pratt and A. S. Abell. Today, it is a neighborhood of 368 houses with ample front and back yards and scores of large, old trees.Original Northwood, part of which is adjacent to Ednor Gardens, has the shape of a jigsaw puzzle piece.

Ellen C. Klages, a homemaker who earlier had worked in the registrar's office at the Johns Hopkins University, died July 21 of cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The Kingsville resident was 92. Ellen Cook, the daughter of a Hochschild Kohn department store sales clerk and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised on Lafayette Avenue near Broadway. After graduating in 1937 from the old Eastern High School on East North Avenue, Mrs. Klages worked at Morgan Millwork and then the old General Motors plant on Broening Highway.

Ethel Melcher Blakeslee, a longtime resident of Original Northwood who fought to save its elm trees, died June 5 at Union Memorial Hospital of a pulmonary embolism, after suffering complications from Parkinson's disease. She was 95 and lived for the past six years at Roland Park Place, after almost 60 years on Kelway Road in Northwood. Ethel Ramona Melcher was born in Baltimore, graduated from Forest Park High School and earned a teaching degree at what is now Towson University. She then earned a master's degree in biology at the Johns Hopkins University, where she met Kenneth W. Blakeslee in an art history class.

Albert Ernest Lietzau III, an insurance executive and former board chair of the Lutheran High School Association, died of cancer Oct. 24 at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was 74 and lived in Original Northwood. Born in Baltimore and raised in Eastwood, he attended Immanuel Lutheran School and was a 1954 graduate of Dundalk High School, where he was class valedictorian and sang in its operettas. He served in the Army National Guard and was called into active duty during the 1963 Cambridge riot.

As chairman of the Original Northwood Association's covenant committee, a group charged with enforcing rules on property standards in his Northeast Baltimore neighborhood, Robert T. Kean sometimes finds himself doing things that make him uncomfortable.Take, for example, the Sunday in August when he walked onto the front yard of Albert and Janet Cyford with a pair of bolt cutters and severed two "For Sale" signs the Cyfords' real estate agent had posted.Mr. Kean says he didn't want to cut down the signs, but the neighborhood covenant doesn't allow signs of any kind on property in Northwood.

ORIGINAL NORTHWOOD, the 1930s neighborhood that is applying for listing on the prestigious National Register of Historic Places, has many of the characteristics of tonier Roland Park (started in 1891), Guilford (1912) and Homeland (1924). And why not? It was built by the same development company to cater to wealthier families desiring suburban-style living.Because of its pedigree, Original Northwood, a community of 303 homes and apartments bounded by The Alameda, Loch Raven Boulevard and Cold Spring Lane, shows how the thinking of the Roland Park Co. progressed during a period that preceded the )

When Zhan Caplan sold his one-bedroom condominium in the Adams Morgan section of Washington, he knew Baltimore was where he wanted to buy his next home. But instead of choosing one of the city's hip neighborhoods like Charles Village, Federal Hill or Canton, he picked Original Northwood. The quiet North Baltimore community of about 370 homes is tucked between The Alameda on the west, Loch Raven Boulevard on the east, and Cold Spring Lane on the north. "I know people are really interested in Federal Hill and Canton.

In its advertisement in the June 6, 1931, edition of The Sun, the Roland Park Co. announced that 22 families had purchased homes in the new Northwood development since it opened in January of that year."

Residents of Original Northwood are confident they've come up with a lesson in what makes a lovely and livable neighborhood.Standing before the city's Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation recently, they ticked off their reasons why this home-proud Northeast Baltimore community, constructed during the depths of the Depression, should be listed on the prestigious National Register of Historic Places."

Having grown up in a Tudor-style rowhouse in Original Northwood, Jonathan Bandell knew the neighborhood well. Particularly a house a mere two doors from his parents - having lugged groceries there when he was a kid. So when the owner, an 88-year-old widow, decided it was time to leave her home of 50 years, she picked up the phone and called Bandell's mother, inquiring if she knew anyone who would be interested in buying the house. Of course, the buyer would have to be a good fit for the neighborhood, as well as someone devoted to taking care of the house.

Sure, it's a miracle of nature, an echo of a time in America, ornithologists say, when flocks of hundreds of millions of birds could darken the sky for hours as they passed over. But when thousands of crows choose your trees and your neighborhood for a winter roost, the "miracle" can mean raucous evenings and a messy walk to the car the next morning. "It's fascinating in a way, and problematic in another way," admitted Vicki Hoagland, of the Original Northwood section of Baltimore.

Elizabeth Chesonis, a homemaker and former Social Security Administration worker, died of cancer Sept. 24 at a hospice in Loveland, Colo. The former longtime Original Northwood resident was 85. Born Elizabeth Novozinsky in Dadofalwa, Czechoslovakia, she traveled with her mother in 1920 as steerage passengers aboard the SS Lafayette, arriving at Ellis Island in New York Harbor. After living in eastern Pennsylvania for several years, they moved to Curtis Bay in the early 1930s. Educated in city public schools, she worked at the SSA's downtown headquarters and then in the Candler Building in the 1940s.

Ethel Melcher Blakeslee, a longtime resident of Original Northwood who fought to save its elm trees, died June 5 at Union Memorial Hospital of a pulmonary embolism, after suffering complications from Parkinson's disease. She was 95 and lived for the past six years at Roland Park Place, after almost 60 years on Kelway Road in Northwood. Ethel Ramona Melcher was born in Baltimore, graduated from Forest Park High School and earned a teaching degree at what is now Towson University. She then earned a master's degree in biology at the Johns Hopkins University, where she met Kenneth W. Blakeslee in an art history class.

Residents from neighborhoods split into different election districts under Mayor Martin O'Malley's redistricting plan asked City Council members last night to help keep their communities together. At a public forum before the council's redistricting committee, about 20 residents from Original Northwood, Harlem Park, Darley Park and Washington Village asked the council to reject the mayor's map and draft one that provides them with a single council representative, not two. "Two council representatives dilute our voice," said Frank Gorman, of the Original Northwood Association.

When Zhan Caplan sold his one-bedroom condominium in the Adams Morgan section of Washington, he knew Baltimore was where he wanted to buy his next home. But instead of choosing one of the city's hip neighborhoods like Charles Village, Federal Hill or Canton, he picked Original Northwood. The quiet North Baltimore community of about 370 homes is tucked between The Alameda on the west, Loch Raven Boulevard on the east, and Cold Spring Lane on the north. "I know people are really interested in Federal Hill and Canton.

The sight of a red fox caught Susan Patry by surprise as she walked her dog in Original Northwood the other night. "I was just flabbergasted," she said.While one could hardly call the Northeast Baltimore neighborhood a nature preserve, there is a secluded feel. Both the layout of the neighborhood and its towering trees seem to give it shelter from the stress of the city."It's a nice little residential oasis in the middle of a lot of hustle and bustle," says Frank Gorman, a 51-year-old lawyer who has lived there for two decades.

Elizabeth Chesonis, a homemaker and former Social Security Administration worker, died of cancer Sept. 24 at a hospice in Loveland, Colo. The former longtime Original Northwood resident was 85. Born Elizabeth Novozinsky in Dadofalwa, Czechoslovakia, she traveled with her mother in 1920 as steerage passengers aboard the SS Lafayette, arriving at Ellis Island in New York Harbor. After living in eastern Pennsylvania for several years, they moved to Curtis Bay in the early 1930s. Educated in city public schools, she worked at the SSA's downtown headquarters and then in the Candler Building in the 1940s.