Parking Lot

ON THE PARKING lot at the Northeast Market, behind Monument Street a few blocks east of Johns Hopkins Hospital, men wait to clean your car against your will. The unspoken intimidation is simple: OK the wiping, or say farewell to your car in its present undented, unsmashed, fully Dunlopped form."Wash your car?" this guy asks, striding toward me as I arrive at the market one sunny afternoon last week."No," I say, "I'm only gonna be a couple of minutes. But thanks for asking."There's the way to handle it: Keep the politeness, keep the peace, and keep moving past this guy and the five or six other young men out here mopping off cars.

A woman who was fatally shot was found about 10 last night in a late-model, blue Mercedes-Benz sedan on a shopping center parking lot in an upscale community of Arnold, Anne Arundel County police said.A short time later, a man surrendered to police and told them he had shot the victim and where she was. He was being interviewed by homicide detectives at Western District in Odenton.He was not identified, and police were withholding the victim's name pending notification of kin.Officer Debbie Mabe, a spokeswoman, said police went to the College Parkway Shopping Center, in the 1200 block of Bay Dale Drive in the Bay Hills section of Arnold, and found the body in the car, parked behind the Super Fresh supermarket.

ONCE AGAIN, Baltimore's historic Masonic Temple has been rescued from the wrecking ball.Baltimore's Department of Public Works has developed a plan that would enable the city to build a 570-space garage near Charles Street without razing any part of the seven-level meeting hall at 223-225 N. Charles St. or the six-story office building next to it, home of the Downtown Partnership.The latest plan, to be presented today to Baltimore's Planning Commission, calls for the $10 million garage to be constructed in place of the 115-space Allright parking lot east of the Masonic Temple.

A 12-year-old boy was recovering yesterday from injuries he received when he set fire to a bullet he found on a parking lot in Southeast Baltimore, police said. The bullet exploded, injuring his eye and hand.Brandon Locklear of the 1700 block of Nome Ave. was in fair condition yesterday at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Police said pieces of metal flew into his right eye and scratched his right hand.Agent Angelique Cook-Hayes, a police spokeswoman, said Brandon and a friend found the bullet about 10: 30 p.m. Thursday in the back of a parking lot in the 6400 block of Holabird St.She said Brandon used a lighter to set fire to the bullet.

Brooklyn Park residents are about to see an end to their years of fighting for one of six parking spots and a place in line at their post office.The U.S. Postal Service is planning to build a new post office in the community by 2000. Postal officials have said they expect the new office to be built in Brooklyn Park and not in neighboring Curtis Bay, though both areas will share the facility, as they have the old one."It's been on the list for quite a while, but Brooklyn Park has finally moved its way up," said Postal Service spokeswoman Deborah Yackley.

A 303-year-old city such as Annapolis suffers no dearth of Colonial charm. But what it sometimes does not have is modern inventions such as storm water management facilities.The state Department of Natural Resources put the finishing touches yesterday on a clean-water project in its Annapolis headquarters parking lot, and planners hope it will inspire managers of 74 other decades-old parking facilities in the area.Frank Dawson, director of the DNR's watershed restoration division, said his staff began researching the project two years ago when Friends of College Creek discovered that water contaminated with oil and refuse was running directly from the lots into the creek.

A 303-year-old city like Annapolis suffers no dearth of Colonial charm. But what it sometimes does not have is such modern inventions as storm water management facilities.The state Department of Natural Resources put the finishing touches yesterday on a clean-water project in its Annapolis headquarters parking lot that planners hope will inspire managers of 74 other decades-old parking facilities in the area.Frank Dawson, director of the DNR's watershed restoration division, said his staff began researching the project two years ago when Friends of College Creek discovered that water contaminated with oil and refuse was running directly from the lots into the creek.

City police were searching yesterday for the killer of a 51-year-old man who was shot Thursday night in the parking lot of a Giant Food store on Reisterstown Road in Northwest Baltimore.Cecil Eugene Harris of the 4100 block of Boarman Ave. was shot several times by someone standing on the opposite side of the parking lot fence, said Agent Angelique Cook-Hayes, a police spokeswoman.Cook-Hayes said Harris was repairing his car on the southeast side of the parking lot, in the 5900 block of Reisterstown Road, when he was shot from about six feet away about 11 p.m. He was pronounced dead at Sinai Hospital at 11: 55 p.m.The police spokeswoman said detectives know of no suspects or motive.

But is the food healthy?AT ANNE Arundel Medical Center's groundbreaking ceremony in Parole on Wednesday morning, a public relations executive looked quizzically at a man who popped into the tent midway and looked around."

Peter G. Angelos, bent on restoring Charles Center to the prominence it held decades ago, is hoping to rip up the plaza behind his 100 N. Charles St. skyscraper and replace it with a parking lot."The idea is to create parking for patrons of nearby shops, offices and guests of area hotels," said Wayne R. Gioioso Jr., president of Artemis Management & Development Inc., Angelos' real estate company.Angelos' plan to construct a surface lot with as many as 200 spaces in the plaza between the 22-story tower and Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.'s 39 W. Lexington St. headquarters would supply much-needed parking at a time when city officials are struggling to add spaces downtown.

Pity the poor mum. Once the symbol of Chinese royal houses, it has been reduced to a spot in the parking lot of big box stores. There is a place where chrysanthemums get the respect they deserve - the Baltimore Conservatory in Druid Hill Park where, until Nov. 15, mums will be the center of attention. All kinds of mums, from the giant football mums to the delicate spider mums to the humble garden mums. "Mums don't have the same status in the garden," agreed Kathryn Blom, who supervises the Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory and the Botanic Gardens.

Head-on collision kills 2 in Harford County Two drivers were killed in a head-on collision Friday evening in Belcamp, Harford County, state police said. Jared Todd Church, 34, of Bel Air, was driving a 2006 Honda Civic northbound on Route 543, south of Goat Hill Road, when the vehicle crossed the center line and hit a 2004 Nissan Titan driven by Mark David Stoneberg, 39, head-on about 9:50 p.m., according to investigators. Church died at the scene; Stoneberg was taken to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

This is Dan Lesko. Who are you?" That's the voice mail message on the Wilde Lake High School senior's cell phone. However, very few area skateboarders would have to pose that question back to Lesko, because they already know who he is. "He's the guy who made the whole skate park possible," said Howard High senior Dave Eassa, referring to the Skate Spot, a skateboarding area set to be unveiled April 25 at Centennial Park North. It will be the first of its kind in a county park. "He was really instrumental in the process," said Raul Delerme, chief of the capital projects and park planning division of the county Recreation And Parks Department.

An 18-year-old woman was in critical condition after being shot in the neck early yesterday in a parking lot at Robert E. Lee Park, Baltimore County police said. After the shooting, the woman walked to a Royal Farms convenience store at Falls Road and Lake Avenue, just north of the city line, and a store employee called police about 5 a.m., said Cpl. Michael Hill, a county police spokesman. The park is north of the store off Falls Road. The woman told police that she had been shot in the park but was unable to answer other questions before being taken to Sinai Hospital, where she remained in critical but stable condition, Hill said.

Peter Irving Cross Jr., former Baltimore parking lot owner and World War II veteran, died of renal failure Tuesday at Genesis Eldercare in Severna Park. He was 85. Mr. Cross was born and raised in Baltimore and was a 1940 graduate of Polytechnic Institute. During World War II, he enlisted in the Army and served with an infantry unit at the Battle of Saipan in the Pacific. Mr. Cross succeeded his father in operating P. Irving Cross & Son Parking in downtown Baltimore. Founded in 1920, the business owned and operated a parking lot just south of the Pennsylvania Railroad's old Calvert Station.

With sweeping views of the Susquehanna River in Havre de Grace's historic downtown and savory fare, the new owners of the Tidewater Grille promise patrons a dining experience worth the drive. What Ralph M. Shapot and Keith Sappington cannot guarantee is convenient parking. The nearest spaces will be fenced off for the next 18 months, while the nearby water plant undergoes a $7.7 million expansion. Unless diners are willing to park several blocks away and walk to the restaurant at the foot of Franklin Street, which is none too visible from the main city streets, the owners fear they will lose the life savings they sank into the venture.

A spat between Harford County and the city of Havre de Grace has landed in Circuit Court, where a judge has ordered the parties to immediately resolve their differences and allow work to continue on a long-planned upgrade to the water treatment plant in the city's downtown. The $7.7 million joint city and county project will take 18 months and shut down a prime parking lot along the city waterfront. The city along the Susquehanna River is a tourist destination, particularly during the summer, and the city has no parking garage.

With its logjam of chain restaurants, kitschy knick-knack vendors and congested tourist haunts, Baltimore's Inner Harbor, acclaimed as it might be, sorely lacks a spot where things are not. Tranquillity is just not one of the main attractions. However, a long-anticipated renovation of Rash Field, an underwhelming mish-mash on the harbor's southern side, could transform a significant swath of the waterfront into a 9-acre park with sweeping fields for picnicking, shaded promenades, water features and an educational playground for kids, and with a fenced-in area where dogs could run leash-free.

LAKE CITY, PA. / / Erie Bluffs State Park is Pennsylvania's newest and the 117th in the state system. The still-wild tract 12 miles west of Erie and just east of the Ohio line is long on potential and short on amenities. There are no facilities, no trails, no toilets, no signs. There is a small unmarked parking lot off state Route 5, but that's just about it. The nature-based park -- it was dedicated by Gov. Edward G. Rendell in mid-2004 -- features the largest tract of undeveloped land on Lake Erie along Pennsylvania's 60 miles of shoreline.

Zip Code: 21212 Location: Southeast corner of York Road and Northern Parkway, 7 miles north of downtown Baltimore and 2 miles south of downtown Towson Hours of operation: Retail stores are open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m.-6 p.m., and Sunday from 12 p.m.-5 p.m. Belvedere Square Market is open Monday through Friday 10 a.m.-7 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m.-7 p.m., and Sunday 10 a.m.-4 p.m. However, Louise's Bakery opens at 8 a.m., and Atwater's opens at...