Taubman

The Rouse Co. is likely to make a bid for the shopping mall portfolio of a Toronto-based company that includes the Towson Town Center.The Columbia-based developer's plan to bid on the TrizecHahn Corp.'s portfolio of 25 malls comes less than a month after it was thwarted in an effort to buy a New York mall owner.That acquisition would have doubled Rouse's size, making it one of the nation's top three retail property owners. Rouse lost the contest to acquire Corporate Property Investors Inc. when Simon DeBartolo Group Inc., of Indianapolis, bid $5.78 billion for CPI's 28 retail and office projects.

NEW YORK - Simon Property Group Inc., the world's largest mall owner, said yesterday that holders of 85 percent of the common stock in rival Taubman Centers Inc. agreed to its $4.25 billion tender offer. About 44.1 million of 52.2 million Taubman Centers shares were tendered as of Feb. 14, said Dan Gagnier, a spokesman for Simon Property, which is joined in its bid by Australia's Westfield America Inc. Taubman Centers recommended that investors reject the $20-a-share offer, and Simon Property had said it would abandon its bid if at least two-thirds of the shares weren't tendered.

NEW YORK -Sotheby's Holdings Inc. and its controlling shareholders, the family of jailed former Chairman A. Alfred Taubman, are no longer seeking to sell the art auction house. While there were "substantive discussions with a significant number of people" about a sale of the world's No. 2 auctioneer, terms for a "satisfactory transaction" couldn't be reached, said William Ruprecht, Sotheby's chief executive. The company began looking for a buyer in June. Sotheby's said its financial position has strengthened after the sale this month of its New York City headquarters for $175 million.

Tonight at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation in Upper Park Heights, they're packing up the prayer books, telling the rabbi to can the sermon and giving the organist the night off. It's not a revolt. It's Friday Night Live, a contemporary Sabbath service that will bring together Baltimore's four Reform congregations: Baltimore Hebrew, Temple Oheb Shalom, Temple Emanuel and Har Sinai. "It's got a little bit of jazz, a little bit of rock 'n' roll, a little bit of klezmer [a type of Jewish folk music]

Taller buildings could be looming over a major Towson intersection if a pair of proposed zoning changes are approved by Baltimore County.Owners of the Dulaney Plaza shopping center and Dulaney Valley garden apartments -- both at Dulaney Valley Road and Fairmount Avenue -- are seeking rezonings to allow more growth. The corner now is dominated by the Towson Town Center mall and the 12-story Sheraton Baltimore North hotel.If the rezoning is approved during the county's comprehensive rezoning, which is done every four years, the apartment complex's 18 acres at the intersection's northwest corner will be reclassified to allow 80 residential units per acre instead of the current 16.Robert A. Hoffman, attorney for Mary Ellen Brush, one of the complex's owners, said his client does not have specific plans for the property.

Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage, by Philip Taubman. Simon & Schuster. 464 pages. $27. It is hard to imagine a more bleak and dangerous world than the one Dwight Eisenhower faced when he became president in 1953. The United States was bogged down in a land war in Korea. Russia was ruled by a paranoid tyrant who not only possessed the atomic bomb but the missiles to deliver it as well. America was gripped by a growing anxiety -- not entirely unfounded -- that a "missile gap" made the country vulnerable to instantaneous annihilation.

On July 13, 2004 THEODORA(nee Graziano) MCCAFFRAY dear daughter of Lauretta Graziano and the late Dr. Theodore Graziano; beloved wife of Charles E. Mc Caffray, Jr.; devoted mother of Theodora B. Mc Caffray, M. Allyson Taubman, Michael George Mc Caffray and Molly Cerretani; dear sister of Michael Graziano and Katherine Martin. She is also survived by seven grandchildren and many loving nieces and nephews. Friends may call at the family owned Mitchell-Wiedefeld Funeral Home, Inc., 6500 York Road (at Overbrook)

Woodward & Lothrop Inc., a troubled Alexandria, Va.-based department store chain, told suppliers and creditors in a letter this week that it recorded a sales gain in 1992 for the first time in three years. The company also said its operating cash flow had improved by 37 percent.Joseph Gallucci, Woodies' chief financial officer, said the improved figures were an indication that the worst was over for the retailer, which operates Philadelphia's Wanamakers department stores in addition to Woodies.

Calling Towson a sleeping giant, business leaders gathered yesterday at Goucher College to explore ways to promote its attractions and stimulate a sluggish downtown area."

LIVERPOOL, England -- At Town Hall, the facade has sculpted heads of African peoples -- silent reminders of the victims of the slave trade that once helped make this city rich. Street names commemorate the places the slave merchants traded with -- Maryland Street, Virginia Street.For 75 years, Liverpool merchants and seamen dominated the infamous trans-Atlantic commerce in human beings -- until 1807, when Britain banned it. For the next half-century they traded in the cotton, tobacco and sugar that slave labor produced.