Terrace

Since moving nearly a year ago into my eighth-floor condominium unit, with its wide terrace wrapping around it on three sides, I've been walking on air. Gardening there is pure pleasure, the benefits of an earth-bound garden retained and most of its problems left behind. Those problems that do arise are easily dispensed with.My collection of containers provides the room to grow most if not all of the flowers I'm curious to try or would hate to do without. Unlike a regular flower bed, in a rectangular planter plants work well in pairs.

Two people were killed, and another man took his own life in a murder-suicide, over the Fourth of July weekend that also marked the city's 100th homicide of the year. The city's 100th homicide victim was shot multiple times in the head in Baltimore's Forest Park neighborhood Friday evening, police said. Matthew Drake, 34, was shot in the 3200 block of Chelsea Terrace in Forest Park. Drake was pronounced dead on the scene. Police had no suspects and did not offer a potential motive.

Ellicott Terrace Apartments, a low- and moderate-income housing complex dogged by financial problems, is seeking county, state and federal funds to keep up with its renovation and operating costs.Howard County officials say preservation of the privately owned, 60-unit complex near Ellicott City's historic district is vital to the county's push for more affordable housing."We want to preserve affordable housing," said Leonard Vaughan, executive director of the county's Department of Housing Community Development.

A stately colonial priced at $1.2 million will soon be available in northern Baltimore County's The Preserve at Hunt Valley. Custom built of stone and fiber cement siding in 2001, this home sits on a little more than two acres and backs into a wooded conservation area. Impeccably landscaped by Pinehurst Landscape Co., the property features a two-level terrace with a stone patio and fire pit. A spacious deck has been recently power-washed and stained. The property, at 104 Sagewood Court in Sparks, will be available for viewing starting next Sunday.

NEW YORK -- Jay Herman made his fortune on Wall Street as a floor trader for the Commodity Exchange and then retired to his farm - a garden in the sky in midtown Manhattan.A man who used to divine the price of wool from minute to minute, he is refreshingly offhand about how he gets all his stuff to grow on his three terraces on the 12th and 13th floors of the apartment building where he lives, on East 49th Street near Second Avenue.In this concrete and steel world grow figs, blueberries, blackberries, passion fruit, peaches, apples, currants, gooseberries, lemons, navel oranges and honeysuckle berries (and kiwis, if the vines would start producing)

FireNew Windsor: Firefighters responded at 11: 50 a.m. Tuesday for a fire alarm on Winwood Terrace. Units were out 37 minutes.

FIRE* Mount Airy: Mount Airy assisted Frederick County at a house fire on Molesworth Terrace at 4:28 p.m. yesterday. Units were still out early yesterday evening.

FIRE* Sykesville: Equipment from the Sykesville, Gamber and Winfield stations was sent to a house fire in the 5600 block of Strawbridge Terrace at 2:56 p.m. yesterday. Units were out of service for 44 minutes.

FireTaneytown: Firefighters from Taneytown, Harney and Union Bridge responded at 12: 21 p.m. Friday to a house fire in the 500 block of Trevanion Terrace. Units were out 30 minutes.

It's sad but true that this time of year the city's crab houses have been taken over by tourists. You may have to travel to find a place out-of-towners haven't discovered, one where the art of picking crabs is understood. (Hint: The mallet is used sparingly.) I suggest Mr. Bill's Terrace Inn, Crab House & Sports Bar in Essex. First of all, great name. Mr. Bill never owned the place, apparently. His son, Steve Eliades, named the restaurant after him when it opened in 1954. There is no terrace involved, of course, or even any windows for that matter.

It didn't take long to see why a retired city public schools teacher is hailed by her neighbors as Miss Auchentoroly or, to others, the Clean Up Lady. Barbara Anderson-Dandy is one of those Baltimore community dynamos who say they work behind the scenes - and do. It's just that they never stop working, and along the way have established a reservoir of good will. She says she loves the challenge of stewarding a highly visible city neighborhood perched at the edge of Druid Hill Park.

The hulking white duplex at 2108-2110 Mount Royal Terrace - a vacant eyesore for 20 years - is a financial and emotional drain on neighbors, who maintain a five-block stretch of historic homes that overlooks the Jones Falls Expressway and acts as the eastern border of Reservoir Hill. But for two nights this past weekend, residents gathered on the sidewalk in front of the empty house, watching it and imagining what it would be like if someone lived there. The occasion was an exhibit by two students at the nearby Maryland Institute College of Art, who used the 120-year-old home as a movie screen, with videos projected onto the plywood that covers the first-floor windows.

Talk to some of the old-timers along Annapolis' historic Clay Street, and they'll say the neighborhood has seen its ups and downs: Once a vibrant African-American enclave, replete with black-owned businesses, the neighborhood struggled in the wake of civil rights-era rioting and the crack epidemic. The area is changing again, with a $24 million revitalization of the city's two oldest public-housing complexes, Obery Court and College Creek Terrace. The structures are being torn down and rebuilt with the help of a private developer.

Howard County housing officials are planning a major overhaul of two Ellicott City public housing complexes and the nearby Roger Carter Recreation Center as plans to redevelop a third, Guilford Gardens, move closer to fruition. Hilltop Housing, the county's oldest public housing complex, just off the Main Street historic area of the county seat, would be transformed into a new mixed-income community able to support itself financially, according to county housing director Stacy L. Spann.

Residents of an aging Annapolis public housing community that is in the midst of a controversial redevelopment project said Wednesday that they have been without utilities repeatedly for the last two weeks. About two dozen residents of College Creek Terrace, a 70-year-old development in downtown Annapolis that is being redeveloped - along with nearby Obery Court - into a publicly funded and privately managed complex, aired their complaints to housing officials during a tense meeting in an outdoor courtyard.

The Fells Point setting is historic, but the four-level townhouse is sleek urban contemporary, down to the floating steel staircase and Brazilian hardwood floors. Highlighting the expansive space are floor-to-ceiling windows and terraces that provide bird's-eye views of Baltimore. The home, one of six Merchant's Row townhouses, was customized for lawyer Jennifer Bragg and her husband, physician Jonathan Jarrow. They bought it new just over two years ago. "What drew us to buy it was unparalleled space," said Bragg.

Distance, purse 1 3/16 miles, $1 million Weather 40 percent chance of rain, high 74 Gates open 8 a.m. (10 a.m. for Corporate Village, Turfside Terrace and Clubhouse Turn Reserved) TV ESPN: Noon Chs. 11, 4: 5 p.m. Radio WBAL (1090 AM): 5 p.m.

On June 3, 2007, HULLANE E. HILL devoted mother of Charles Hill, Marjorie Tubman, Carmilla Stokes, Cynthia Hill Turner, Patricia Smith, Rena Williams and Leonard Hill; beloved sister of Joseph Hill, Romaine Hale, Samuel Hill and Peggy Day. She is also survived by 17 grandchildren, 28 great-grandchildren 12 great-great-grandchildren and a host of other relatives and friends. Friends may call at the family owned MARCH FUNERAL HOME EAST, 1101 E. North Avenue on Thursday after 8 A.M., with family hour from 6-7:30 P.M. The family will receive friends at Shepard Community Baptist Church, 3001 Iona Terrace (at Harford Road)