Pulaski

Three-hundred and thirty-something-year-old Baltimore County is suffering an identity crisis.The suburb is no longer the stuff of Barry Levinson's "Avalon," or home to Ward and the Beaver. You can sense the transformation in the debate over a changing school system, in the heightened fear over crime. There's concern about the aesthetics of a growing county seat, about threats to rural zoning, about the continued loss of job security in the industrial east, about the urbanization that has spawned political redistricting in the west and about the fast-growing retiree population.

A pedestrian who was killed on Pulaski Highway in Middle River on Saturday night has been identified as 60-year-old Dianna Rae Brooks, Baltimore County Police said Sunday. Brooks, who police said they have no fixed address for, was standing on the eastbound side of the highway (Route 40) near Holly Drive shortly before 7 p.m. when she was struck by a Ford F-150, police said. Brooks was pronounced dead while being transported to Franklin Square Hospital, police said. The driver of the Ford pickup truck, who has not been identified, remained at the scene, police said.

Wanda lifts a swollen hand to her face, scratches her nose and tells the eternal lie about quitting the heroin habit.Her eyelids are at half-mast, and her voice is the low grumble of the junkie as she talks about life on the street in the white glow of the Marylander Motel sign on Pulaski Highway."

As of 9 a.m. Tuesday, traffic was slow on Pulaski Highway and Rossville Boulevard, due to an accident. Accidents were slowing traffic at North Point Road and Quad Avenue in Dundalk, Cross Country Boulevard and Greenspring Avenue in Baltimore County, and the inner loop of I-695 at the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore City. A utility problem was slowing traffic at Perring Parkway and Hillsway Avenue in Baltimore County. There were no major delays reported on Baltimore area transit systems.

When the Baltimore City Council imposed a five-year moratorium on further incinerator construction, few could have anticipated that the emotionally charged issue would be revived so soon. But here is the City Council -- just two years later -- again pondering the explosive question.The reason is a proposal by the aging Pulaski incinerator's owner, Willard Hackerman. He wants to replace the East Baltimore facility's five polluting furnaces with a new $300 million waste-to-energy plant at no cost to the city.

Settling Pulaski Highway incinerator operator Willard J. Hackerman's lawsuit against the city may have saved millions of dollars for City Hall, but the settlement leaves open the future of that disposal site near the Baltimore City line.Mr. Hackerman filed a $75 million suit in 1993, claiming the City Council's imposition of a five-year moratorium on new incinerator construction prevented him from repairing air pollution problems replacing his 38-year-old facility.The city privatized the incinerator in 1981 during the Schaefer administration and sold it to Mr. Hackerman, a supporter of the mayor, for $41 million -- but the city also had heavy expenses for using the plant.

A female pedestrian was killed last night after she was struck by a truck while attempting to cross Pulaski Highway in White Marsh, Baltimore County police reported. The victim - whose name was not immediately released - was struck about 10 p.m. in the 11000 block of Pulaski near the Williamsburg Inn. She was pronounced dead at Franklin Square Hospital Center, police said.

In a lengthy article in last Sunday's Sun, staff writer Joe Nawrozki described the descent of Pulaski Highway, particularly around the Baltimore city-county line. In a scene resembling "a Third World country," one police official said, 80 to 100 prostitutes work a five-mile stretch of the road that's chock-a-block with no-tell motels. The hookers rounded up on Pulaski by police in recent months have included a grandmother, a mother-daughter team and a woman who was seven months pregnant; the johns have included locals, long-distance travelers and even a minister who told police he was just trying to spread the word of the Lord.

THE DISREPAIR of Baltimore's parks has been the subject of much recent concern, prompting intervention by Mayor Martin O'Malley and promises from City Hall that things will be different. The situation was not helped by a midsummer storm that wrought havoc throughout Patterson Park, ripping several large old trees completely out of the ground and breaking a number of others beyond repair. Though not well-publicized, the damage was readily apparent to park visitors and passers-by, as city crews continued the cleanup of broken limbs and downed foliage for several weeks.

A gunman opened fire at a car traveling on North Pulaski Street in West Baltimore yesterday afternoon, killing one man and injuring another, police said. Police identified the dead man, Anthony Carlest, 35, of the 4200 block of Labyrinth Road in Northwest Baltimore, as the driver of the car. Melvin McAllister, 39, of the 2400 block of W. Baltimore St. in West Baltimore was shot in the back and was listed in good condition at Maryland Shock Trauma Center, police said. Detective Dave Peckoo said the shooting occurred about 2:25 p.m. while the men were driving a Ford Escort in the 300 block of N. Pulaski St. A gunman fired numerous shots through the back windshield of the car, striking both men, Peckoo said.

Baltimore officials have finalized the $1.1 million sale of a 19-acre "brownfields" site on Pulaski Highway to construction magnate Willard Hackerman, who plans to develop a big-box store or warehouses or both, a city economic development official said Tuesday. The sale of the lot, the former site of a waste incinerator, was completed Friday, said M.J. "Jay" Brodie, president of the Baltimore Development Corp. The city's Planning Commission approved a "planned unit development" designation for the property a day earlier, allowing the uses proposed by Hackerman, president and chief executive of the Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. Hackerman formed Pulaski Limited Partnership to develop the Northeast Baltimore site and still needs City Council approval to proceed.

The former site of a waste incinerator in Northeast Baltimore could be developed into a big-box store or warehouses or a combination under a plan being proposed by construction magnate Willard Hackerman, who has a contract to purchase the vacant, 19-acre site on Pulaski Highway from the city for more than $1 million. Hackerman, president and chief executive of the Whiting-Turner Contracting Co., has asked the city to designate the 6709 Pulaski Highway parcel a planned unit development, which would allow him to proceed with one of three scenarios.

With their similar-sounding first names and look-alike dress, brothers Ja'Quis Lucciano Manigo and Tyquis Tyuan Moore enjoyed making people guess which was which. "Pick one," the younger brother, Ja'Quis, would playfully demand. It was just one of the games the two played together. The other was football. They wore the red of the Arbutus Golden Eagles. So it was appropriate that their silver and white caskets, side by side at a church altar, were adorned with placards with a red letter "A. " Their teammates wore their jerseys to the funeral Friday.

Their children in bed, the chores done, Amber Way and Michelle Manigo met on adjoining front porches to chat about their kids and exchange gossip making the rounds on South Pulaski Street. They parted just before 1 a.m., retiring to their neighboring rowhouses. Less than 30 minutes later, half of the Southwest Baltimore block was in flames. Way and her boyfriend rushed their daughters out the back door and into the street. There they saw neighbors who had also fled their homes.

Joshua Pulaski, of Bel Air, and Michele Sauserman, of Altoona, Pa., were married June 18 at St. Margaret Church in Bel Air. The bride's friends - Marissa Lupino, Amber Slep, Cara Cole, Annie Legouri and Michelle Hicks - were bridesmaids. Teresa Miller was matron of honor while Teresa's daughter, Kierra Miller, was a junior bridesmaid. The bride's niece, Jaylynn Leaper, was the flower girl. The groom was attended by his brother, Jordan, his uncle, Jeff Smith, his friend, Michael Blake, Michele Blake's cousin Vaughn Weyandt.

Agnes Irene Hudnall Smith, a retired housekeeper who lived to be 105, died in her sleep July 26 at Catonsville Commons Nursing Home. She formerly lived in West Baltimore. Born Agnes Irene Hudnall in Northumberland County, Va., she attended grade school in a one-room schoolhouse. As a young woman, she moved to Baltimore and entered domestic service as a cook's helper, nanny, cook and companion. She retired more than 35 years ago as a housekeeper. "She was joyous and fiercely independent," said her cousin, Frank M. Conaway, clerk of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City.

A 19-year-old Perry Hall man was gravely injured and on life support last night after the car he was driving on Pulaski Highway in White Marsh struck the rear of a tractor-trailer, shearing off the car's roof, Baltimore County police said. The injured man, Bryan Patrick Walbrecher of the 4500 block of King George Court, was driving a 1995 Saturn west in the 9300 block of Pulaski at 6:20 p.m., well above the 50-mph limit, when he struck the rear of the rig as it was crossing the westbound lane from Dryden Oil Co. to turn east on the highway, said Officer Stephen Forster.

It was dark when the man in the red Jeep Cherokee pulled up to the willowy blonde standing on the shoulder of Pulaski Highway at 68th Street. He was ready to buy and she was ready to sell. But they were both a little wary."Are you a cop?" he inquired."No, are you?" she snapped."No," he said.Both were lying.He turned out to be an off-duty state trooper. She turned out to be an on-duty Baltimore County police officer. She was working undercover to arrest men who solicit prostitutes along a section of Pulaski Highway that straddles the city-county line near Rosedale.

A Middle River man was killed Wednesday night after he stepped into the path of a large pickup truck while attempting to cross Pulaski Highway near Middle River Road, Baltimore County police said. The man's identity was withheld pending notification of his family. Shortly before 6:30 p.m., the man ran across the eastbound lanes in the 9500 block of Pulaski Highway near the Colonial Motel just east of Middle River, then climbed over a nearly 4-foot tall concrete barrier separating the east- and westbound lanes.