Vacant Lot

A Clifton Park man was arrested yesterday and charged with illegal dumping after a city worker said he saw him throwing trash onto a vacant lot in the 1700 block of Harlem Ave. in West Baltimore. Norris Hall, 66, of the 1300 block of Gorsuch Ave. was taken into custody after he refused to stop dumping trash on the lot between Fulton Avenue and North Mount Street, said Robert H. Murrow, a spokesman for the city's Department of Public Works. Hall, the 10th person arrested and accused of illegal dumping since the city's Environmental Crimes Task Force was launched in March, could be sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine if convicted, Murrow said.

There is no historical marker at the vacant lot near Caroline and Thames streets where Frederick Douglass walked into a store to buy his first book. There are no signs on the white concrete garage on Aliceanna Street or in the parking area across from H&S Bakery on Fleet Street, other Fells Point sites associated with the famous abolitionist. Ellen Frost passes them nearly every day but didn't realize until yesterday that each site was important in the life of Douglass, who spent nearly 10 years in Fells Point before he escaped from slavery in Baltimore and became one of the 19th century's most important human and civil rights activists.

LeRoy McDuffie is heading for greener turf. No longer will he have to lug his golf clubs aboard two city buses -- "you just take the 13, then the 19" -- to play 18 holes at the nearest municipal course. No longer will he practice -- as he did as captain of the ragtag, scoffed-at and, until this year, winless St. Frances Academy golf team -- in a dusty vacant lot next to the small Roman Catholic school that sits in the shadow of the Maryland Penitentiary. And no longer will he worry about stray shots careening off drug dealers, police cars or bail bond storefronts on Greenmount Avenue, in the stagnant and stifling inner-city neighborhood where grass itself is rare, much less budding young golfers.

If Rebecca Yenawine were queen for a day, she'd rid the world of racism, empower the children and hold art classes for all. For now, she is standing in a vacant lot in Reservoir Hill doing what she can. All around her, children are busy: A tall, thin boy in neon green dabs black paint on a metal sculpture. A girl with wire frame glasses and braids sweeps away shards of glass. A very little boy, his feet wrapped in plastic bags to protect his shoes, paints the sidewalk blue. These are the Kids on the Hill, members of an arts-based, after-school program founded and run by Yenawine.

Alton and Geneva Smith were happy last summer when city crews cleared out the impromptu landfill behind the alley of their Aisquith Street home. But like a recurring addiction, the trash is back, even worse than it was before. Mattresses, a fender, toys, furniture, shoes, baby clothes, gum and candy wrappers, a TV, a cash register, and beer, wine and liquor bottles are some of the items the Smiths can see yards from their back door. Along with shards of glass, rats and a headache-causing stench, the mess had forced the Smiths to call the city four times since the cleanup.

In Baltimore City AFL-CIO chief Sweeney to speak at symposium today AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney will speak on "The Growing Gap: American Prosperity Under the Microscope" at 8 p.m. today at Bunting-Meyerhoff Interfaith Center, 3509 N. Charles St. His speech is part of the continuing 2000 Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium, "Unfinished Business: Addressing Race, Class & Gender at the Turn of the Millennium," sponsored by the Johns Hopkins University....

In Baltimore City Opening of rink at Rash Field pushed back to Friday The opening of the Inner Harbor ice rink at Rash Field was postponed for a second time yesterday because of construction problems and is set to open Friday, the Baltimore Office of Promotion said. The grand opening was originally set for the day after Thanksgiving. The rink is beside the Maryland Science Center on Key Highway. Information: 410-385-0675. Woman's body found in vacant lot in Brooklyn The body of a woman known to frequent areas of southern Baltimore was found yesterday in a vacant lot in Brooklyn, and police have ruled her death a homicide.

Mayor Martin O'Malley put on an orange sanitation-crew jumpsuit yesterday to announce another two-day effort to clean up the trash and debris that litter many Baltimore neighborhoods. Known as the "Fresh Fall City Cleanup," the campaign that begins today and continues tomorrow will bring together police officers, public works and housing crews, area corporations and neighborhood volunteers in a repeat of a similar effort that occurred this spring. The city has targeted 659 sites for the fall project, including 35 school playgrounds, 14 parks and 10 locations where tires have been dumped.

VICTORY GARDENS live! Consider Duncan Street Garden, a block-long oasis on the south side of East North Avenue, between Collington Avenue and Chester Street. The fruit and vegetable garden has existed 11 years, tended by retired men trying to make ends meet in an area where median family income is $15,865. Duncan Street Garden is exceptional. A majority of Baltimore's more than 14,000 vacant lots are neither productive nor pleasing to the eye. Far too many have become dumps overgrown with weeds or nests for druggies.

Where some might see a vacant lot with weeds poking through the asphalt and abandoned buildings with windows shattered by rock-throwing vandals, the Rev. Harold A. Carter Sr. sees the seeds of community transformation. As he celebrates his 35th anniversary at West Baltimore's New Shiloh Baptist Church at this morning's worship service, Carter and his congregation are embarking on an ambitious project they call New Shiloh Village. The church purchased an 8-acre parcel next to the church on Monroe Street, the former home of the Cloverland Dairy, on which Carter envisions a day care facility, a company that will train local residents as auto technicians, an incubator for small businesses and housing for senior citizens.