Skyline

Transamerica Life Insurance Co. has begun putting up its namesake sign at 100 Light St., transforming Baltimore's skyline once again. About 800 employees of the arm of Dutch insurer Aegon are expected to move from the firm's current midtown Baltimore offices to Transamerica Tower over the next several months. The move fills a void in the building left behind by Legg Mason, which moved its employees to a new structure in Harbor East in 2009. Transamerica agreed last year to lease the top nine floors, or about 171,000 square feet, of the 35-story skyscraper.

Sitting atop the Belvedere like a brilliant Christmas ornament, the recently renovated 13th Floor will likely impress first-timers the moment its elevator doors open to the intimate space. First, they'll wonder: Is this view really of Baltimore? Then: Is this bar really in Baltimore? Aesthetically, the 13th Floor is that beautiful. The low-lit room feels illuminated - just enough - by the countless number of lights dotting downtown outside. But its lighting and dark decor keep the mood romantic, in a non-showy way. On a recent Friday night, a crowd of 25 quietly conversed and sipped expensive cocktails as a piano player provided a smooth, barely-there jazz soundtrack.

The big day is almost here.In just a few more days, the gilded Maryland National tower -- now renamed after its new owner, NationsBank -- will be lit up. An Art Deco gem will be illuminated as never before.There is more to come:On New Year's Eve, the World Trade Center overlooking the Inner Harbor will become a giant, permanent candle, when its 28-story tower will be bathed in light. On a clear night, it ought to be visible for up to 10 miles, serving as a lighthouse to those approaching Baltimore.

Each one weighs as much as 9,000 Tony Siragusas (the former Ravens defensive lineman) and at full extension rises as high as Baltimore's World Trade Center. Together, the port's four new cargo cranes are about to make a splash on the city's skyline. But first the gleaming white cranes, worth $40 million, must be rolled off the ship that brought them from China — without a splash. Coaxing them from the Zhen Hua 13 onto the dock requires delicate planning and brute force. Engineers and ironworkers at Seagirt Marine Terminal in Baltimore's port have already unloaded two of the cranes and are ready to move the final two before the month is out. On Sunday, the first crane came rolling off. On Tuesday morning, the second crane crept across the ship's deck on railroad tracks and crossed the 8-foot watery gap between the ship and its berth.

After days of looking at pictures of the beleaguered New York skyline, I decided I'd had enough. On a spectacularly clear fall afternoon, I took off for our own harbor and gazed across the Patapsco River. It was a calming, inspiring experience. My guide for this little Sunday afternoon excursion was my father, who suggested that we get out of the house, leave Charles Village, take in a few new sights, maybe have lunch. One of the maddening delights of old Baltimore is that you'd better know the place well or you'll never find the greatest stories the city has to offer.

NEW YORK -- Gol Berna Ozcan, a Turkish woman visiting from London, walked through the museum gallery to a painting of Manhattan in profile, then leaned forward and stared intently. "It looks like a beautiful piece of jewelry," she said, her brow knitted. "It's almost a mystical feeling to see the skyline." Just then, her son, Avram, 5, ran up and declared proudly, "I went up the World Trade Center when I was a baby!" If Avram and his mother are any indication, the reverence accorded the city's skyline has only heightened with the destruction of its crown, the twin towers.

A glass skyscraper soaring 59 stories and 717 feet would become Baltimore's tallest building, with a distinctive, slender shape that would dominate the city's skyline, under a concept approved yesterday by the city's design panel. The tower would rise in the shape of a parallelogram on Light Street between the Hyatt Regency and Harbor Court hotels. It would contain luxury condominiums and a boutique hotel atop street-level shops, restaurants and parking. It would be nearly 200 feet higher than the Legg Mason Building at 100 Light St., now the city's tallest.

The skyline of Baltimore is changing yet again. And whether your vantage point is Camden Yards, Federal Hill or Little Italy, not everyone is pleased with the view. A drive along Key Highway nowadays has the claustrophobic feel of a concrete canyon, the facades of new waterfront residences walling off the harbor. From Little Italy, the eye stumbles over a collection of apartment towers en route to the water. Then there's the constricted view from Camden Yards, a field of vision compromised by the imposing new convention center hotel.

A start-up insurance company that promises to offer more affordable insurance policies to city residents and small businesses will announce today that it plans to begin operations in mid-summer of 2001. American Skyline Insurance Co., with headquarters at 14 Light St. in Baltimore, will offer standard personal and commercial insurance coverage to customers in Baltimore and Washington, including policies for automobile owners, homeowners and small business owners, said the company's chief executive officer, Earnest E. Hines.

American Skyline Insurance Co., launched four years ago with exuberant backing from Baltimore leaders concerned that high auto insurance premiums were driving residents from the city, has been halted by state regulators from taking additional policies because of financial problems. The order from the Maryland Insurance Administration forbids American Skyline from renewing current policies when they expire. It remains in effect until the company can prove it is financially solvent. The state insurance commissioner said the company couldn't support its operating costs after losing $27 million in roughly three years and the loss of its lead investor.

Exelon Corp.'s pledge to build a new Baltimore headquarters as part of its proposed buyout of Constellation Energy could alter the city's skyline, injecting fresh life into the traditional downtown business district or further expanding the waterfront corporate center east of the harbor. While Exelon is not revealing its short list of possible sites for the new building, local real estate brokers and others have identified several attractive potential locations, including some in the core business center and one between Harbor East and Fells Point.

Transamerica Life Insurance Co. has begun putting up its namesake sign at 100 Light St., transforming Baltimore's skyline once again. About 800 employees of the arm of Dutch insurer Aegon are expected to move from the firm's current midtown Baltimore offices to Transamerica Tower over the next several months. The move fills a void in the building left behind by Legg Mason, which moved its employees to a new structure in Harbor East in 2009. Transamerica agreed last year to lease the top nine floors, or about 171,000 square feet, of the 35-story skyscraper.

I can recall a time in the late 1970s when the Inner Harbor was a wasteland and the city's skyline was a line of frightening black silhouettes. We have the vision of William Donald Schaefer, the man I have always referred to as our "crazy uncle" mayor, to thank for remaking the Inner Harbor into a national treasure. May he rest in peace. Jaye Dansicker, Sparks

Mario L. Schack, an award-winning architect and educator who influenced Baltimore's skyline with his buildings and his critique of others' designs, died Thursday at Gilchrest Hospice Care of complications from surgery he had in October. The Riderwood-Lake Falls-area resident was 81. Over a career that spanned more than five decades, Mr. Schack balanced jobs as an architecture professor and department chairman at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and a partner in several Baltimore-based design firms, including RTKL Associates; Marks, Cooke, Schack and Thomas (now Marks, Thomas Architects)

Citizen Schaefer. Even with the Orwellian, William Randolph Hearst overtones, the title of Maryland Public Television's new documentary seems just right. Yes, William Donald Schaefer was a councilman, a four-term mayor, a two-term governor and comptroller. But these were just titles. He never stopped seeing himself as Don Schaefer, homeowner, a Baltimorean like his father who planted flowers in the backyard, who swept the alleys and wanted garbage collected on time. He thought the city could be greater than its citizens dared to hope, but he knew a greater city would be built from the alleys up. When he saw efforts that made a Baltimore neighborhood brighter, he inducted the homeowner into what he called The Order of the Rose.

The new harborside Morgan Stanley building reminds me of just how much Baltimore invested in - and was changed by - the relaxed credit and available money of the past financial cycle. The highly visible structure now going up on an eastern tip of Fells Point is one of the dozens of projects conceived and executed during this boom decade. Look around Baltimore and observe the physical legacy of the Alan Greenspan-Freddie Mac economy.

When Earnest Eugene Hines crafted insurance policies for Allstate Insurance Co. in the 1970s and 1980s, he was told to focus on the suburbs. After all, more people were moving to suburbia, with its booming new-home construction and increasing concentration of automobiles. But after 25 years in the insurance industry, Hines, along with a team of industry veterans, decided to break the mold and focus on insurance products designed for city residents. "Companies that are successful in America focus on something," said Hines, 52, chief executive of start-up American Skyline Insurance Co., yesterday at a press conference at the company's headquarters at 14 Light St. "Our focus is ... automobiles, homeowners and small commercial businesses."

When crowds gather at Baltimore's Inner Harbor tonight to ring in the New Year, the city skyline will provide the backdrop for a spectacular fireworks display that begins at midnight.But in future years the skyline itself may be part of the pyrotechnics, with more than three dozen buildings illuminated nightly to create a dazzling, year-round light show.That's the vision behind "Brighten Baltimore," a campaign designed to convince property owners and managers to light up Baltimore's architectural treasures to increase the perception of safety and vitality downtown.

For homeowner Michael G. Curry, it was the beautiful city views that drew him to trade a 40-room Guilford mansion for a three-bedroom condominium in HarborView Tower. "No matter where you are in the unit, you see the skyline, you see the water -- even in the master bath," says Curry, who purchased the unit about five years ago and has completely renovated it from top to bottom, removing walls to better configure the space. The condo, one of the few three-bedroom models available at HarborView, has an open floor plan with multiple rooms offering city and Inner Harbor views, including the living area, the dining room and the master bedroom.