Reservoir Hill

Two men were stabbed yesterday -- one fatally-- in separate incidents in Baltimore. In the first incident, an unidentified man died after he was found stabbed in the throat on a sidewalk in Pigtown, police said. The victim was discovered about 5:15 p.m. in the 1300 block of W. Ostend St., said Agent Donny Moses, a police spokesman. The man was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he died. Police said they have no suspects. About 10:20 p.m., police were called to the 2300 block of McCulloh Street in Reservoir Hill, where they found another unidentified male victim who had been stabbed in the left forearm and leg. He was transported to Shock Trauma.

WHEN IT WAS constructed in 1914 overlooking Druid Park Lake in Northwest Baltimore, the Riviera apartment building was hailed as one of the "handsomest and most costly" residences in the city -- Maryland's equivalent of a mid-rise on the French Riviera.Vacant and rundown, the building is being readied for a rebirth -- a $7.8 million renovation designed to restore much of its luster and make it an attractive anchor of the Reservoir Hill community again.Pennrose Properties of Philadelphia and Reservoir Hill HOPE, a local nonprofit, plan to acquire the six-story building at 901 Druid Park Lake Drive and rehabilitate it to create 55 apartments, most with views of the lake.

IF THOUSANDS of city residents choose to move to their suburban dream houses each year, why aren't new houses being built in Baltimore with the same amenities -- multicar garages, cathedral ceilings, Palladian windows, big bathrooms and top-of-the-line kitchens?And if suburban buyers prefer the products of Ryland, Trafalgar and Washington Homes, why not contract with these same, familiar builders to do large developments in the city? After all, Ryland's two previous small projects -- Montgomery Square and Woodlands at Coldspring -- sold like hot cakes.

Two men were killed in separate shootings within 20 minutes of each other in adjacent neighborhoods yesterday afternoon.In the first, a 26-year-old man was shot in the head at the intersection of Druid Hill Avenue and Whitelock Street in Reservoir Hill about 3: 20 p.m. He died a short time later at Maryland General Hospital.About 20 minutes later, a 30-year-old man was shot three times in the back at North and Park avenues in Bolton Hill.Police did not report arrests in either shooting last night and had not released the names of the victims.

Glenn Robinson has a new four-bedroom, two-bath home in the Sandtown-Winchester community -- but what he appreciates most are the steps."Out here, we can sit out on the steps," Robinson said yesterday. "Our kids can play in the back, and we don't have to worry about them or worry about the wrong people hanging out on our steps."Robinson's is one of 14 families leasing homes in the new public housing neighborhood of Reservoir Hill 10, recently completed by the city's Department of Housing and Community Development.

This schedule will be in effect in Baltimore City tomorrow:City offices: closedParking meters: must feedTrash removal: no pickup; Quarantine Road Landfill and Northwest Transfer Station will be closedRecycling: citywide collections for tomorrow will take place TuesdayMayor's cleanup: West Baltimore neighborhoods of Sandtown, Reservoir Hill and Upton will be held Saturday; East Baltimore neighborhoods of Berea, Ellwood Park, O'Donnell Heights and Joseph Lee...

Glenda Gentner lives on the right street in the wrong neighborhood.She operates Gentner Bed and Breakfast from a rowhouse in the 2000 block of Park Ave., which has all the flair of a Manhattan penthouse.But beyond her courtyard garden of potted plants and goldfish ponds are several Reservoir Hill alleys that have become lined with minidumps. Heaped with up to 6 feet of trash -- the result of illegal dumping and overflow from residential back yards -- these minidumps have become feeding grounds for rats, and fodder in an escalating blame game.

This schedule will be in effect in Baltimore City today:City offices: closedParking meters: must feedTrash removal: no pickup; Quarantine Road Landfill and Northwest Transfer Station will be closedRecycling: citywide collections for today will take place TuesdayMayor's cleanup: West Baltimore neighborhoods of Sandtown, Reservoir Hill and Upton today will be held Saturday; East Baltimore neighborhoods of Berea, Ellwood Park, O'Donnell Heights and Joseph Lee...

Today, you can peer into a Reservoir Hill garden with a handmade playhouse with stained-glass windows. Tomorrow, you can climb a spiral staircase to a roof vegetable garden or behold a turquoise pergola with climbing roses in Charles Village.And look out for the elephant.Ordinarily, it's not polite to parade through strangers' gates and gardens, but it's the thing to do this weekend, when annual garden tours will be given throughout the city."People have no idea," said Val Kuciauskas, a Charles Village garden walk organizer, "what goes on in gardens in the city."

THE CENTERPIECE fountain of Druid Lake is functioning again, after years in disrepair. Its jets are a particularly impressive sight at night.The fountain's $165,000 overhaul symbolizes the gradual and long-overdue comeback of Druid Hill Park. The glass-bedecked Victorian arches of the 1888 Palm House and Conservatory on the western edge of the 745-acre park also have been repaired. Next to be refurbished in a multimillion-dollar program are the long greenhouses. Other crumbling landmarks are being fixed, including a 46-foot-high limestone tower that guards the park's eastern boundary near the Jones Falls Expressway.

The Internet bulletin boards in Baltimore's Bolton Hill neighborhood are filled with horror stories about crime - "another break in and robbery," or "another burglary," or even one titled "totally out of hand." People complain about violence, inaction by uncaring officers, reports not taken, arrests not made. So the recent posting by Joan Smith stands out. She was mugged on Mosher Street on July 21, a little after 5 in the morning, while cutting through the neighborhood to walk from her home in Reservoir Hill to the train station.

On Aug. 18 at 4:30 p.m., Chang K. Yim rolled down the two corrugated metal doors to his liquor store on North Avenue and secured each with locks. Doing the work himself and a half-hour before deadline, he avoided the spectacle of his store being padlocked by a police commander with television cameras rolling. This was the first test of police enforcing the city padlock ordinance that allowed Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III to keep Linden Bar and Liquors in Reservoir Hill closed for up to a year.

Police identify Reservoir Hill man found dead Sunday Baltimore police identified Monday a Reservoir Hill man whose stabbing death is being investigated as a homicide. Police were called about 11 a.m. Sunday to a residence in the 900 block of Brooks Lane to check on the well-being of Dana Richardson, 44, who had not been answering his door, said Officer Troy Harris, a police spokesman. Richardson was declared dead at the scene, police said. His body was taken to the state medical examiner's office for an autopsy.

Couple in hospital after motorcycle crash A husband and wife who crashed while riding a motorcycle on Route 29 in Columbia on Saturday afternoon remain hospitalized, authorities said. Shortly before 2 p.m., Timothy Danaher, 55, was operating a BMW R75/6 motorcycle with his wife, Diana Danaher, 52, as a passenger in the southbound lanes of the highway, near Seneca Drive, according to Howard County police. For an unknown reason, Danaher veered to the left and struck a guardrail. Both he and his wife were thrown off the bike, police said.

If gardeners are ever truly green, it is probably with envy, an emotion that commonly overtakes them when they see someone else's garden. That's never more true than on garden tours, when you pay for a ticket to see gardens that are nicer than yours. Home and garden tours clutter the calendar in late May and early June, when the weather might still be mild and the gardens are at their peak of color and freshness. Saturday and Sunday in Reservoir Hill, Charles Village and Annapolis' Murray Hill neighborhood, many "little gems" will be on display on self-guided walking tours.

As Remington Stone and his neighbors patrolled the alleys of Reservoir Hill on Saturday, he could see a sign of a neighborhood on the upswing. Compared with past years, he wasn't seeing as much residue of the drug trade. Stone was one of about 5,000 people in communities across the city who turned out on a brilliant, cloudless spring morning for Baltimore's annual Spring Cleanup. It was a day for city residents to come together, pull on work gloves, pick up brooms and rakes and enjoy a sense of shared purpose, neighborliness and urban camaraderie.

A real estate agent who heads the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, listing debt of $3.9 million, much of it stemming from real estate ventures caught up in the housing market slowdown. Vito Simone, president of the GBBR professional organization and a real estate investor, filed the petition with his wife, Gail, as joint debtor, in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Baltimore. The couple listed more than $487,000 in assets. Under a Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy, a trustee typically is appointed to liquidate certain assets and pay creditors.

City homicide detectives are investigating the shootings last night of a man and a woman in the 800 block of Chauncy Ave. in Reservoir Hill, one of whom died at a hospital. Their names and details of the double shooting were not available. The victims were found about 10:40 p.m. by police responding to a report of two people shot. A police spokesman said the victims were shot at least once in the upper body. Both victims were taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where the man later died.

Mention the name of Christopher Morley these days and maybe, just maybe, someone will remember that the Haverford, Pa.-born writer, essayist and Sherlock Holmes and Joseph Conrad scholar, whose eventual literary output reached 50 books during a prolific 35-year career, was the author of The Haunted Bookshop, Parnassus on Wheels and Kitty Foyle. The latter was made into a 1940 Hollywood film starring Dennis Morgan, Gladys Cooper and Ginger Rogers, who won an Oscar for Best Actress that year.

Pa. man gets 5-year term for armored car ruse A Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty this week to an attempted felony theft scheme in Baltimore County, after he posed as an armored car driver and tried to steal store deposits last year. Robert Allen Flanagan, 38, of Dallastown was sentenced in Baltimore County Circuit Court on Monday to five years in prison, according to court records. In September, Flanagan was sentenced to 10 years in Howard County for using the same scheme to steal almost $400,000 from a Bank of America branch in Ellicott City.