Reservoir Hill

According to tax records the landlord at the Reservoir Hill complex ('The ugly just won't go away' at troubled apartment complex," Aug. 18) is paying in excess of $100,000 in property taxes per annum. Additionally, the landlord pays for all its own services, such as trash removal, water, lighting etc. What exactly are these taxes for if not for police service? It would seem that if the property is crime ridden the police are not doing an effective job in keeping the area safe. Instead of passing the buck the mayor and police commissioner should take responsibility for the safety of the neighborhood that they are obligated to provide.

Police on Friday identified a man killed earlier this week in Reservoir Hill and continue to search for a suspect. Andre Evans, 20, was shot to death after an argument grew into an altercation in the stairwell of a building in the 2500 block of Eutaw Place about 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Baltimore police said. Homicide detectives continue to investigate the case. Early Friday, police said a man was shot in the leg in the Patterson Park neighborhood. Police have no suspects in the shooting, which took place at about 1:40 a.m. in the 100 block of S. Bouldin St. jgeorge@baltsun.com Twitter.com/justingeorge

A city police officer who heard gunshots Friday afternoon quickly responded and saw a man shooting a handgun, and the officer fired at least one round himself before the gunmen escaped, according to a department spokesman. Police said the armed man jumped into the passenger seat of a silver-colored car that sped away from West North Avenue and McCulloh Street about 3:15 p.m., leaving behind two victims suffering from gunshot wounds. Both were taken to area hospitals for treatment.

With the city putting together a plan for adding 10,000 families to Baltimore, this is a good time for interested Baltimoreans to weigh in. I'm told that the plan will be driven by the best possible data - a great place to start. But the plan needs to address a critical question: Who is going to want to live here during the next decade? Some of the trends that are driving Baltimore's nascent revival will prove almost impossible to determine based on the opinions of the city's current population, many of whom live here because of ties to family and friends or because housing is relatively affordable, not because they particularly want to live in a city.

A convicted sex offender who was cleared by a jury of rape charges in September has been linked through DNA to two other rapes, including a November attack on a woman in her Reservoir Hill home, court records show. Nelson Bernard Clifford of the 800 block of Brooks Lane was charged Dec. 6 with raping a woman at knifepoint after breaking into her home while she was sleeping about 9 p.m. Nov. 12, according to charging documents. Police say he blindfolded her, bound her hands and threatened to slash her face.

Baltimore police are investigating the homicide of a 38-year-old man found early Monday in Reservoir Hill. The victim, Edward Bardney, was found at 12:55 a.m. lying on a curb in the 2200 block of Linden Ave., about a block north of North Avenue, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, police said. Bardney was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead at about 1:35 a.m. Police said the suspect approached Bardney and fired at him as he tried to flee, then ran away on foot.

A 16-year-old boy was fatally shot in the Reservoir Hill neighborhood early Thursday morning, according to Baltimore Police. An officer responded to a call for a shooting at 12:48 a.m. in the 700 block of W. North Avenue, police said. He found the victim lying in the courtyard with a gunshot wound. A medical crew took him to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead at 1:28 a.m. Investigators have no suspects or motive at this time, police say. Officials have also released the identity of a man who was shot in the 1500 block of Carswell Street Tuesday night.

Neighbors know it as "Murder Mall. " Police say the Reservoir Hill housing complex and its surroundings have seen three shootings and two homicides so far this year. "No other area in my district has seen this kind of violence," police Maj. Dennis Smith of the Central District said of the Madison Park North complex. In recent months, Smith said, drug dealers shot a man they thought was stealing from narcotics stashes. Another man was stabbed 90 times after an altercation at a birthday party.

When more than 300 people turned out recently to tour six vacant wrecks in Reservoir Hill, it was clear evidence of tremendous curiosity in what once was one of Baltimore's most desirable neighborhoods. The question now is how to turn this faith in the city's future into buyer demand. The answer: Continue bringing in suburbanites, particularly from the Washington area, who recognize the inherent value of the area's tarnished Victorian and Edwardian houses and have the deep pockets to restore them.

The Esplanade, the Emersonian and Temple Gardens are Reservoir Hill's grande dames.Like much of Reservoir Hill, these once-fashionable apartment buildings constructed between 1912 and 1926 are in sad shape. They have distinctive features that qualify them for the National Register of Historic Structures. But quality tenants have moved elsewhere and the buildings fell into receivership in 1991.The city recently approved $10.2 million in loans to developer Israel Roizman, who plans to spend a total of $35.4 million to rehabilitate the three high-rises.

On any given day, you might find 27-year-old Teddy Krolik in the neighborhood of Reservoir Hill operating a Bobcat tractor in a rubble-strewn vacant lot, dropping by the home of an elderly woman to see if she needs a ride to a community meeting later that day, or checking out the progress of a recently installed urban farm. Krolik's job as environmental and sanitation program director of Baltimore's Reservoir Hill Improvement Council (RHIC) Inc., created to assist Reservoir Hill residents in finding solutions to their community's social and environmental issues, didn't come with a precise list of job responsibilities.

In the beginning, the search for a new home was all about studio space for artist Tendai Johnson, an instructor at Montgomery College. When his former work space in a large building in Washington's Chinatown was sold and working in his house in the H Street corridor became impossible, he and his family made the move north to Baltimore. Realtor Marci Yankelov of Century 21 found them a three-story stone Victorian townhouse in Baltimore's Reservoir Hill neighborhood. It was love at first sight.

Three Marylanders have been indicted for mortgage fraud related to homes in Baltimore's Reservoir Hill neighborhood, federal prosecutors announced Friday. Kimberly Eileen McMillian, 45, of Baltimore, Olutoyin Oladosu, 53, of Lanham, and Glenroy Emanuel Day, Sr., 73, of Baltimore, were indicted by a grand jury Wednesday on charges of conspiracy to commit and committing wire fraud, the U.S. Attorney's Office for Maryland said in a statement. McMillian, prosecutors allege, pretended to be a real estate agent representing New York investors interested in buying properties in Baltimore.

Two men were shot Monday morning just off Pennsylvania Avenue, one of whom died Monday evening at Maryland Shock Trauma Center. Police were called to the 600 block of Pitcher St. at about 11:30 a.m. for a report of a shooting, and found a 24-year-old man suffering from a gunshot wound to the head in the 1500 block of Shields Place, in the Upton Courts complex, according to Sgt. Eric Kowalczyk, a spokesman.  The man, who police identified Tuesday...

A man who was shot Saturday afternoon in Baltimore's Reservoir Hill neighborhood died a short time later from his injuries, police said. It was the second fatal shooting in Baltimore in less than 24 hours. Police responded to a report of a shooting about 2:05 p.m. and found the victim, who had not been identified Saturday evening, outside in the 800 block of Brooks Lane. He was taken to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he died, police said. Police said the victim had been approached by at least one person, who shot him at least once.

Baltimore's scenic reservoirs could be transformed into lakes criss-crossed by rowboats as the city removes them from the water supply to comply with a federal health mandate. To meet the 2006 federal water safety rule to protect drinking water from contaminants, the city is spending tens of millions of dollars to install underground tanks to replace the reservoirs. The Department of Public Works will fill its small reservoir in Guilford to install tanks there, but other reservoirs will be decommissioned by 2018 and could become places for recreation.

One of the great mysteries of Baltimore is that Reservoir Hill has never quite become as stable as such other restoration neighborhood as Butchers Hill or Federal Hill. Yet that community south of Druid Hill Park has superb housing stock, ranging from turn-of-the-century Victorian mansions on Eutaw Street to well-constructed and spacious rowhouses on nearby side streets.It is accurate to say that Reservoir Hill today is worse off than it was a decade ago. Happily, the community, bounded by Druid Hill Park, Madison Avenue, Jones Falls Expressway and North Avenue, now has an unusual opportunity to reclaim itself.

Baltimore police are asking for the public's help in identifying a man they say fatally shot another man in the city's Reservoir Hill neighborhood on July 5. Police say the suspect, of whom they released a composite sketch Thursday, is a black man likely between the ages of 18 and 22. He is about 5 feet 8 inches tall and 140 pounds, with a thin build, police said. Police say he fatally shot Lance Johnson, 40, about 1:25 a.m. in the 2300 block of North Eutaw Place. Police identified Johnson as being transgender, but said there was no indication that the shooting was a hate crime.

Each spring my enthusiasm for Baltimore neighborhood house and garden tours outpaces my ability to walk them all. I recently visited Reservoir Hill and Charles Village, but missed Dickeyville and Butcher's Hill. Maybe next year. Tours that emphasize spring gardens invariably involve a turn through a city back alley. I learned to love these much-maligned city thoroughfares as a child, when my mother, never an enthusiastic auto driver, used sturdy steel and wicker baby carriages to navigate behind-the-scenes Baltimore.