Union Square

Gunfire on an MTA bus in West Baltimore left one person dead and two others wounded as the driver and other passengers fled in panic last night, city police said.At least 20 passengers were on the bus when the shooting occurred about 7 p.m. in the 100 block of S. Gilmor St., near Union Square.Mass Transit Administration spokesman Anthony Brown said at least two of the passengers and the driver, a 10-year MTA employee, sustained minor injuries in the rush to get off the bus when the gunfire broke out. They were taken to University of Maryland Medical Center and Bon Secours Hospital.

This Saturday morning will offer Baltimoreans a cornucopia of choices. There will be yard sales galore, neighborhood cleanups and events like the 9 a.m. opening day parade through Pigtown for the Carroll Park Little League.Meanwhile, the Citizens Planning and Housing Association is sponsoring its Neighbor to Neighbor festival, a day-long session of strategizing at the Baltimore City College, 33rd Street and the Alameda. The first part, from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., will be devoted to a variety of workshops and information-sharing; the afternoon will offer neighborhood displays, resource information and entertainment.

Union Square couple turns a townhouse that had been apartments into an art showcase Walking through the spacious, ornately decorated rooms of Debby and Francis Rahl's Victorian townhouse overlooking Union Square, it is hard not to gasp at a sales price of $60,000. "The neighborhood was a lot different back then," said Debby Rahl, noting they had bought the home in Southwest Baltimore in 1980. "There were a number of vacant [houses] and multifamily rentals. And more crime." Still, Debby Rahl, who grew up in the northeast neighborhood of Hamilton, didn't want to leave the city.

In his 130-year-old Victorian rowhouse near Union Square, Paul Taylor has settled into a lifestyle that combines city conveniences with country pleasures.His three-story brick home in the first block of North Calhoun Street is a short walk to Hollins Market and other city attractions. Its fenced-in back yard is large enough for a grape arbor and numerous fruit trees, plus running space for Mike, a 2-year-old Doberman.Mr. Taylor, who bought the house six years ago, says he has always enjoyed city living.

NEW YORK - THE fireman and the iron worker, covered in grime and soot, have ceased hauling debris out of the former World Trade Center and wandered up to the park at Union Square, where they sit on a couple of benches with the weariest countenances in the history of mankind. "Thank you," says a woman with a French accent, reaching out to shake the fireman's hand. "Yes, ma'am," the fireman replies softly. "Thank you for everything," says an old man, reaching toward the iron worker. A small ceremony of gratitude seems to be commencing.

Four poets from the Pandora women's arts organization in Washington will read from their work at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday at Irina's Cafe, 32nd and Barclay streets in Charles Village.The poets, who have been widely published in literary journals, are Sibby O'Sullivan, winner of the 1989 Artscape literary award for fiction; Kim Roberts, author of "The Wishbone Galaxy"; Rose Solari, winner of the 1993 Artscape literary award for poetry and author of "Difficult Weather"; and Lisa McCullough, finalist in a poetry contest sponsored by the Nation.

Walk briskly through Cow Hollow, along Fillmore Street, down through the Marina District, skirt Fort Mason Center, climb the hill through the park, smile at the joggers, speed walkers and fortysome- thing parents pushing strollers. Step lively to the end of the first fishing pier.Then, no matter how many times you've done this before, let yourself be enraptured by a single sweeping view of practically everything that makes San Francisco unforgettable: Fisherman's Wharf, the clipper ship Balclutha, Ghirardelli Square, Coit Tower, the Transamerica pyramid, the painted Victorian ladies of Russian Hill.

At the height of American railroading, thousands of Baltimoreans worked at B&O's Mount Clare depot near Camden Yards. In the mid-1980s, when the new Mount Clare Junction shopping center was built, it was designed in a style recalling the architecture of the old railroad buildings. Indeed, a huge steam locomotive was hauled inside the shopping arcade to remind visitors of the area's history. It stayed there until marketing consultants decided the engine was too overwhelming and part of the reason shoppers stayed away and the center lost merchants.

A TRAFFIC JAM and a miscalculated turn put the Holland Tunnel out of reach, so the only sensible way to get out of New York was to head downtown to the Battery and the tunnel to Brooklyn. But were ghosts stirring? On a gray day along the chop-river edge of lower Manhattan, still peppered with names such as Gansevoort and Schermerhorn, old stories seemed to hover in the air, despite all the pavement and waterfront jumble. It was like one of those optical illusions - you stare at it hard enough, and suddenly you make the mental inversion, and plain as day you can imagine Manhattan as a lonely outpost, a foothold in the New World, a city as young as the lives being lived in it. Here were sailing ships and barrels, molasses and beaver pelts; Indians, Africans and Europeans.

NEW YORK -- At a makeshift memorial for those lost Sept. 11, you see paper dolls, a bonsai tree, shoes, rosaries and a poster with the invitation, "Please help create, crayons here." And everywhere you look are faces. One homemade poster tells of Joseph Eacobacci, who worked on the 105th floor of Tower One. Another of Melissa Vincent; 5 feet 5 inches tall and 28 years old. Still others describe firefighters. Mothers. Fathers. Brothers. "Has anyone seen this person?" the signs ask. "Have you seen this person?"