Pigtown

Baltimore's economic-development arm said Tuesday that it is requesting proposals from firms for a mixed-use redevelopment of five properties in the Pigtown neighborhood. The properties — at 925, 927, 929, 931 and 937 Washington Blvd. — are a mix of commercial and residential space. The Baltimore Development Corp. said it wants developers to propose plans that will anchor the Pigtown/Washington Village Business District. The quasi-public agency wants to see proposals to rehabilitate the buildings "to the largest extent possible.

George Edward "Hunky" Sauerhoff, a political aide and fundraiser who was the founder and president of the Loyal Sons of Pigtown, died May 12 of heart failure at FutureCare Cherrywood Healthcare and Rehabilitation Centre in Reisterstown. The unofficial mayor of Pigtown was 79. "In his day, he was a hurricane. He had so much energy that it just spilled out of his pores," said Michael Olesker, author and former Baltimore Sun columnist. "And he had great, great affection for Pigtown, where he simply knew everyone.

It started about 30 years ago — no one seems to recall the exact date — when three men who'd grown up together in Pigtown took a vacant lot at the corner of Ward and Bayard streets, sank two metal pegs into the ground and started tossing horseshoes back and forth. None of the three — not Roy Whitney, not his cousin Emory Green, not Emory's little brother, Leon — had a clue they were founding a tradition. "We started playing for the fun of it, then word got around, people started coming from other neighborhoods, and it kept on growing," Leon Green, 62, said Saturday afternoon as rhythm and blues music, the smell of burgers on barbecues and the "clink" of horseshoes filled the air at the First Annual Horseshoe Tournament at the Pit In Pigtown.

Pigtown resident Daryl Landy believes he's one of a growing number of Americans striving for better, not bigger, living quarters, and last week he launched a new online magazine devoted to living, working and playing in small spaces. Rohous Magazine went live Wednesday. The electronic magazine, available on iPads and the Internet by subscription, will highlight home furnishings, products, decor and do-it-yourself projects. It will feature a different city each month (the first issue focuses on Baltimore)

A 25-year-old man shot last month in Cherry Hill has died from his injuries, and officers were investigating the discovery of a decomposing body in a vacant Pigtown rowhouse. Larry Griffin, 25, was walking in the 2900 block of Spelman Road at about 3 p.m. on May 22 when two unknown men drove up in a newer-model Dodge Magnum with tinted windows, chrome rims and a North Carolina tag, police said. The men chased Griffin and began shooting with a semiautomatic handgun, striking him in both legs and his abdomen.

Baltimore city fire officials are investigating the cause of a fire that started on the roof of a rowhouse in Pigtown Sunday afternoon. Fire officials responded to a call about a fire at 1169 Sargeant Street at 4:21 p.m., said Fire Captain Roman Clark. When officers arrived smoke was billowing from the roof and the occupants had evacuated. The fire had spread to the two neighboring homes as well, Clark said. The fire was extinguished quickly but extra time was needed for cleanup because more water than typical was used to extinguish the fire, Clark said.

For a man who was only 21 years old, Rasheed Abdullah seems to have made a lot of people angry. Police called him a drug dealer and neighbors in Pigtown wanted to throw him out, and in the last three years alone he was arrested at least 16 times. On Sunday morning, someone shot him in the head and killed him. Abdullah's was the second fatal shooting in the neighborhood in a little more than two weeks. On July 1, James Lofton, who was also 21, was gunned down on the 1100 block of S. Carey St., a few doors from Abdullah's home, and Baltimore police are looking into whether the two killings were related.

Eight people were taken to area hospitals for evaluation for possible carbon monoxide exposure at a Pigtown rowhome, fire officials said Wednesday. Officials with the Baltimore Firefighters Union Local 734 said the people were evacuated from a three-story house in the 800 block of Washington Blvd. at about 5 p.m. Fire Department spokesman Kevin Cartwright confirmed that the home was evacuated as a precaution for a possible carbon monoxide leak, but he said none of the victims suffered any serious or life-threatening illness.

Paul's Place Outreach Center is a wide-ranging community center in Southwest Baltimore's Pigtown neighborhood. The center has a dining room where lunch is served five days a week. Paul's Place also includes a clothing center, literacy program and computer lab, as well as programs for children. The mission of Paul's Place is to improve the quality of life in Southwest Baltimore, according center's Web site. A quote in the dining room reads, "Hope, personal dignity and growth in a welcoming, safe and respectful environment."

For generations, this downtown neighborhood close to Camden Yards has seemed almost Dickensian: a working-class district where humor, pathos, pride and concern for the people next door take the edge off hard times.With its narrow streets, weathered buildings and scraggly skyline, Pigtown evokes a 19th-century Baltimore where people walked to work for the railroad, set clocks by the whistles and swept soot off the sidewalks.Oddball things often happened. In the early part of this century, the spectacle of pigs being driven through the streets, from stockyards to slaughterhouse, was commonplace.

I usually enjoy Dan Rodricks ' columns, even when I don't fully agree with them. This one — about the recent Maryland Court of Appeals decision deeming any "pit bull" or "pit bull mix" dog to be inherently dangerous — I simply find dismaying ("Pit bulls: Own one at your risk," April 30). I live in the Pigtown neighborhood of Baltimore. When my suburban friends come visit, they hold their kids close, and they look askance at some of my more "unusual" neighbors. Some of them are only too happy to hop back in their cars and scurry back to the counties.

Long before ecdysiast Blaze Starr became the reigning Queen of The Block, there was the legendary Bettye Mills, who arose from humble Pigtown origins to become one of the tenderloin district's more memorable characters and nightclub owners — which in those days The Baltimore Sun politely called "cabarets. " What brought Mills' name back in the news was the death earlier this month of her son-in-law, James Thomas Lee "Jimmy" Stubbs, 95, who in the late 1940s was day manager of Mills' Stork Club, whose name was later changed to the Bettye Mills' Club.

Baltimore city fire officials are investigating the cause of a fire that started on the roof of a rowhouse in Pigtown Sunday afternoon. Fire officials responded to a call about a fire at 1169 Sargeant Street at 4:21 p.m., said Fire Captain Roman Clark. When officers arrived smoke was billowing from the roof and the occupants had evacuated. The fire had spread to the two neighboring homes as well, Clark said. The fire was extinguished quickly but extra time was needed for cleanup because more water than typical was used to extinguish the fire, Clark said.

As I try to recall the moment when my concern really set in, I remember walking into a dark, narrow hallway inside the front door of a brick rowhouse in Pigtown. My real estate agent, Clay Tucker, scanned the walls for the light switch. When he found it, I almost wished he hadn't. We passed by the dingy white, peeling walls to the winding staircase for the second-floor, $975-a-month apartment. I scanned the no-frills place and compared the space to my house in South Carolina. Our mortgage is $1,040 a month for a three bedroom, one-and-a-half bath ranch house on a quarter acre with granite countertops, a fenced-in yard dotted with big shade trees and a car port.

It isn't often that I find myself agreeing with columnist Dan Rodricks , but his idea of more really local TV and less redundant reporting is one I've had myself ("Let's put more 'local' in local TV," March 11). Why not add even more topics to his list? How about a 30-minute spotlight on local historical sites, of which our area has literally hundreds. Or a scenic cruise segment, for which, again, there are many candidates in our region? You could ask for viewers' home video input.

Few places are left unexplored for Jennifer Petrin Johannes. Over the years, the 38-year-old public high-school art teacher has been to six continents, 27 countries and 43 states. She also shares her passion for traveling with her students, taking them on trips to Egypt, China and Australia. Johannes grew up in Demarest, N.J., but has called Pigtown her home for the last seven years. When she isn't traveling, she enjoys making jewelry and cooking. Currently, she and her students are shipping over 3000 books to a school in Kenya that she visited in 2010.

A man was fatally stabbed Tuesday afternoon after an argument turned deadly in Pigtown, police said. The man, who was not identified, was found stabbed in the chest and back at about 4:45 p.m. in the 1100 block of W. Cross St., said Anthony Guglielmi, the department's chief spokesman. The victim was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later. Guglielmi said police did not have a suspect. The killing is the sixth in the Southern District this year, which had none at this time last year.

Pigtown -- or, as some upscale residents and real estate people prefer, Washington Village -- is a largely blue-collar area west of Martin Luther King Boulevard. Although it is within sight of Oriole Park, it has so far received few benefits from the baseball stadium. In fact, Washington Boulevard, the neighborhood's main street, has never looked as squalid and unkempt as it does today.Mercifully, change is in the air.Last year, an old elementary school at Washington Boulevard and Carey Street was transformed into senior citizen apartments, a conversion that won architectural plaudits.

Chris Taylor peered down the street at the house. It was a vacant. And it was a problem. He'd been getting calls for weeks about this property, about the teenagers hanging out there, the drug dealing and prostitution. He dialed a number, placed his cell phone against his ear, and began walking around the side of the building toward the alley. As Taylor's phone connected to the person on the other end, he saw a door open. A young man walked out and pulled his hoodie over his head, casting a shadow on his face.

Andy York recently bought a T-shirt that captures how he feels about his city. The design includes various implements of violence that include brass knuckles, a switchblade, a noose and a brick in the shape of a heart. "It all comes down to self-deprecating humor," said York, a Pigtown resident who plans to wear the tee to live music events or festivals. "I would be really upset if someone from Pittsburgh was wearing a shirt like that. " Elected officials and tourism industry leaders have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing slogans to emphasize Baltimore's finer points.