Super Pride

William Lloyd "Little Willie" Adams, who went from being a numbers runner on the streets of Baltimore to the city's first prominent African-American venture capitalist, bankrolling numerous black-owned businesses such as Parks Sausage and Super Pride supermarkets, died Monday from pneumonia at Roland Park Place. He was 97 and had been in declining health in recent years. "Little Willie was an institution in Baltimore. And as far as the black community was concerned, he brought black entrepreneurs into the formerly all-white business community," former Mayor Thomas J. D'Alesandro III said Tuesday.

Rite Aid agreed Thursday to allow construction of a ShopRite supermarket in West Baltimore's Howard Park neighborhood to move forward. The move appears to eliminate the final impediment to the long-awaited grocery store. A groundbreaking has been scheduled for May 7 and construction should be complete within 10 months, said Howard S. Klein, general counsel of Klein's ShopRite of Maryland. "We have been working on this project since I was a member of the City Council representing this district," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said.

Exhibit East Baltimore beautification See an exhibit that explores beautifying an East Baltimore neighborhood. The Maryland Institute College of Art's Super Pride Project is at the Contem porary Museum, 100 W. Centre St., $5 for adults, $3 for students. 410-783-5720 or go to contemporary.org.

Charles T. Burns' parents wanted him to become a lawyer. Instead, the Morgan graduate got into the numbers racket after seeing his first cousin, Thurgood Marshall, unable to find legal work.Yet when Mr. Burns opened his first grocery store in 1938 on Baltimore's Madison Avenue, he insisted, "In any business it is not a question of color, it is a question of giving people what they want, when they want it, accompanied by equal and better service."In 1970, Mr. Burns bought a bankrupt supermarket.

The city planning commission approved plans for a supermarket in Northeast Baltimore yesterday. Mars won permission to open a 42,500-square-foot store at Loch Raven Boulevard and Northern Parkway, on the former site of a Super Pride that closed several years ago. The project also will include a 5,600-square-foot retail strip center, plus one or two more free-standing stores. Officials have been trying to attract more markets to the city after losing about 15 percent of them in two years.

Marshall Klein, fourth-generation scion of the Klein's grocery store family, is proud of the sweet potato pies stacked near the entrance to his newest supermarket, ShopRite of Perring Crossing in Parkville. "We steam the potatoes ourselves," and on a busy day 50 pies go through the check out aisles, Klein said Wednesday as he balanced his 6-foot-5-inch frame on a folding chair in the community room of the new store off Perring Parkway just north of the city. The pies — like the store's urban setting — are new for the Klein family, which has run grocery stores in Harford County for almost 90 years.

Ten Maryland companies are included in Black Enterprise magazine's 100 biggest black-owned businesses in 1997.Pulsar Data Systems Inc. of Lanham ranked No. 9 with 1997 revenue of $151 million.Other Maryland companies in the top 50 were Baltimore-based Stop Shop Save Food Markets, No. 22 with sales of $86.5 million; Baltimore-based La-Van Hawkins Urban City Foods, Burger King, No. 24 at $86.4 million; Forestville-based Pepsi-Cola of Washington, D.C. LP, No. 32 at $61 million; Baltimore-based Super Pride Markets, No. 47 at $42.5 million; and Lanham-based Washington Cable Supply Inc., No. 48 at $42 million.

Deacon James Willie Byrd, a retired supermarket department manager who had also worked as a barber and a welder, died Friday at Bon Secours Hospital after a heart attack. He was 75 and lived on North Bentalou Street.Services for Mr. Byrd were being held tonight at the New Shiloh Baptist Church, 2100 N. Monroe St.He had retired this year as a seafood department manager in a Super Pride store and had earlier held the same position in a Pantry Pride store.A native of Winnsboro, S.C., Mr. Byrd became a member of Blackjack Baptist Church there as a child and was a graduate of a South Carolina high school.

Cherry Hill's long wait for a supermarket is over, and residents of the isolated Baltimore community south of the Hanover Street bridge couldn't be happier. The neighborhood's 11,000 residents have been without a full-service grocery since October 2000, when the Super Pride supermarket closed. For months, residents have taken buses, the light rail, taxis and hacks out of the neighborhood to buy the fresh produce, baked goods and meats the local corner stores did not stock. Catholic Charities, which owns the shopping center where the market is located, and city officials spent months trying to find a grocer for Cherry Hill.

A faded sign above the former Howard Park Super Pride store was gently lifted off the dilapidated vacant building with a crane Saturday, marking the start of construction of a new, long-awaited supermarket in the city. The Howard Park neighborhood, which is just south of Northern Parkway and borders Baltimore County to the west and the Forest Park Golf Course to the south, has been without a local grocery store for 12 years since the Super Pride was boarded up. Community leaders have worked with the city to bring back another grocer, but they've faced an uphill battle attracting developers, especially in poor economic times, while adjusting to several changes in political leadership.