by Jacqueline Watts
editor@baltimoreguide.com

For more than a decade city officials have “come to the community” with development proposals and assured the community—regular folks like you and me who lack degrees in urban planning and traffic engineering—that there would be no problem with traffic and congestionas a result of building these millions of square feet of mixed office, retail and residential. The community has replied “baloney,” but the city officials have approved the developments anyway.
The community has

by Colleen Wolfe
soboblog@baltimoreguide.com

Summer is now in full swing in South Baltimore and there is lots going on. Haven’t figured how to occupy the kids’ free time yet? Let me do a run down of things to do around our neighborhoods this summer.
Opening day for city pools is this Saturday. And we’re lucky enough to have one right in Riverside Park. Admission is $1.50 per person or $25 for a season membership. For more information

by Colleen Wolfe
soboblog@baltimoreguide.com

The Pratt kicked off its summer reading program for kids and adults this past Saturday, which runs through August 4. This year’s theme, Reading Road Trip, gets participants in the traveling mood with activities and books about hitting the road. Quite an appropriate theme for summer reading since this is the time most of us pack up the kids and the car for vacation.
Usually I am an avid reader, sometimes voracious with a

by Colleen Wolfe
soboblog@baltimoreguide.com

Last week’s temperatures in the high 80s had me cranking up my air conditioning already this summer. I try to hold off on turning on the A.C. as long as possible, preferring spring breezes to chilly drafts from the floor vents. And with the BGE rate hike that went into effect last Friday, I’m sure we’re all a little more aware of keeping our energy costs down. Last week’s column about South Baltimore Emergency

by Jacqueline Watts
editor@baltimoreguide.com

The Canton Library is 121 years old, and it is beginning to show its age. The heat and air conditioning is creaky, the front door sticks, the building doesn’t even come close to meeting Americans with Disabilities Act requirements, the lighting does not illuminate much and the plaster will need patching after the roof leaks are attended to.

Don’t worry, though. Carla D. Hayden, Director of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, called the Canton Library

by Colleen Wolfe
soboblog@baltimoreguide.com
I was pleased to learn from Keith Mitzner of Peninsula Schools that a couple of Guide readers who read my column last week will sponsor two Digital Harbor students taking their technical certification tests later this month. Thanks to the two people who read about the program and decided to help out. It looks like the program will be fully funded now.
Let’s talk about plans for the summer. Got some free time?

by Colleen Wolfe
soboblog@baltimoreguide.com

Developers, developers everywhere! No matter where you look nowadays new buildings are popping up like jack-in-the-boxes all over South Baltimore. Just when you think there isn’t any more space available old buildings are being razed and new ones appear. What’s a resident to do to make sense of it all?

Usually a resident need go no further than their own community organization where landowners typically kick start their development plans by seeking the community’s

by Jacqueline Watts
editor@baltimoreguide.com

The Friends of the Canton Library cleared $1,400 on its book sale. This proves a couple of things—Cantonites love to support their library (lots of people just said keep the change), and people love cheap books.

I scored a couple of trash books for the beach—a mystery and a rather lurid-looking (I hope you can tell a book by its cover) romance, and while helping sort books last week for the sale I made the

by Colleen Wolfe
soboblog@baltimoreguide.com

Since Locust Point is at the southern most tip of the South Baltimore peninsula many people don’t usually go past Lawrence Street very often unless you live in the Point or work at Tide Point. So you may not know of a development project going on that has the potential to bring some new shopping options to South Baltimore. The old Chesapeake Paperboard factory used to sit behind the new fire station on Fort Avenue.

by Jacqueline Watts
editor@baltimoreguide.com

What did you think of this article? Post comments on www.baltimoreguide.com.
May is the beginning of the period called When It’s Even More Impossible to Park in Canton. There are one or two festivals a month in Patterson Park, and the rest of the time there are various league sports, bicycle races, foot races and giant pink poodle races. It’s a great time of year if you don’t have to park your car.

Hundreds

by Colleen Wolfe
soboblog@baltimoreguide.com

City Health Commissioner Dr. Joshua Sharfstein held another public meeting concerning the arsenic contamination at Swann Park last Sunday and seems to be moving fast to get some answers about the health risks associated with using the park. Scientists from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry ATSDR), which operates under the Center for Disease Control, arrived in Baltimore last week and have already started their preliminary investigation into the park. But more definitive

by Colleen Wolfe
soboblog@baltimoreguide.com

I’m starting this week’s column off with a serious alert to neighbors in South Baltimore. If you haven’t heard by now, the city closed Swann Park, 296 W. McComas Street, last Thursday due to very high levels of arsenic found in the soil. What is most astounding is that the contamination in the park has been there since at least 1976 but has gone without investigation until now. City officials held a public meeting at

by Jacqueline Watts
editor@baltimoreguide.com

Ah, Spring! At last!
The sun is warm, the breeze soft. It’s time to get out on our steps and reacquaint ourselves with our neighbors, plant a few flowers, take the dog out for longer walks and complain about the ice cream trucks.
I have nothing against commerce. Ice cream is great stuff when the temperature is 80 and above. Everybody likes ice cream—in fact I bet you would be hauled to the

by Colleen Wolfe
soboblog@baltimoreguide.com

I’ve been paying close attention to the latest woes of the city school board and its budget foul ups last week. I have a 4-year-old daughter who will start preschool this fall and I know that once my husband and I get her settled we’ll have to start worrying soon after about where she will go to kindergarten and beyond. Since we moved to Locust Point when she was eight months old it’s been a

by Colleen Wolfe
soboblog@baltimoreguide.com

South Baltimore is really turning green. And I don’t just mean the new leaves budding on the trees. Last week in the Guide we read about the new urban farm being planned in Riverside Park and the overwhelming response the city got from residents eager to sign up for plots. And in recent weeks I’ve heard that the Federal Hill South Neighborhood Association is trying to get interest in two programs to bring a fresh

by Colleen Wolfe
soboblog@baltimoreguide.com

Things are really bustling in Federal Hill these days. I spent last Wednesday morning running errands all over the neighborhood and couldn’t believe how the place was humming. Charles Street alone has several new businesses that have opened within the last four weeks. And Cross Street is more crowded than usual with so many work crews transforming old businesses into new.

Life Smells Good has set up shop in new digs at 1130 S.

by Jacqueline Watts
editor@baltimoreguide.com

Saturday, the last day of the Highlandtown Branch of the Pratt Library, was “nice and steady all day,” said branch manager Anne Stepney. There were a couple of teenagers pecking away on the computers and a couple of adults browsing the stacks, so there was plenty of time to chat.
The tiny Highlandtown Branch—the only one smaller was the Washington Village Branch—consistently ranked second or third citywide in circulation per square foot, a stat

by Jacqueline Watts
editor@baltimoreguide.com
Now that it’s warming up a little bit and the sun is shining occasionally, we humans (homo sapiens Highlandtownidae) are poking our heads out of our buff brick rowhouses and noticing that annual sign of spring—it really reeks around here.

The manure smell from the pelletizer at Back River Waste Water Treatment Plant that graced us over the holidays is gone, but the deposits our dogs have been leaving all winter in parks and

by Colleen Wolfe

soboblog@baltimoreguide.com

Although the recent weather has been all over the map, spring is officially here. And many people look forward to getting their hands dirty in their gardens. If you are not an experienced gardener but do enjoy brightening up the outside of your home with plants and flowers I have a few tips to pass along. I asked Charlie Newcomb, Locust Point neighbor and landscape architect, a few questions about the basics of getting ready for