Owings Mills

Desirable Spaces

Owings Mills house has a story-filled past

Stories about the white clapboard house at the former Pleasant Grove Farm in Owings Mills abound, including that Confederate soldiers sought food and horses from the anti-slavery family of Richard Scott and that Confederate sympathizers tore down his flagpole because he flew a U.S. flag.

Nature center moving to Owings Mills

The Irvine Nature Center will close its building on the grounds of St. Timothy's School in Stevenson as of tomorrow to prepare to move to a new facility in Owings Mills.

2 Owings Mills buildings sold

Two Owings Mills office buildings used as headquarters for CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield have been sold for about $95 million to investment funds managed by Boston-based Eaton Vance Management. The two-building, 390,000-square-foot complex on Mill Run Circle is leased on a long-term basis to the health insurer, Eaton Vance Management.

Lobbying for minor details

State Sen. Ulysses Currie has repeatedly intervened with state agencies since at least 2003 on behalf of Shoppers Food and Pharmacy, involving himself in the minute details of its business, such as traffic light installations, roadside improvements and other projects near the grocery chain's stores, according to thousands of documents reviewed by The Sun.

Gorfine CPA firm merges with former Grabush, Newman & Co.

Gorfine, Schiller & Gardyn PA, an Owings Mills certified public accounting firm, merged yesterday with the accounting division of Smart and Associates in Towson, the firm formerly known as Grabush, Newman & Co. PA.

Michael Dresser: Fueling a mass transit debate

If commuter buses are so threatening to a community's safety and serenity, why does Julia Walters of Kent Island miss hers so much?

Watchdog

Tracks to nowhere give drivers a headache

The problemUnused railroad tracks crossing Reisterstown Road in Owings Mills have led to deterioration of the road surface, slowing down traffic.

O'Malley, Smith donor has ties to major project

A politically connected Maryland developer recently fined for making improper campaign contributions to the governor and Baltimore County executive owns buildings in Owings Mills near a major transportation project announced in March by those elected officials.

Michael Dresser: Gas costs demand different solutions

This column has never received a more heated reaction than the time it modestly suggested that the bus bays at the Owings Mills Metro station could be put to productive use receiving commuter buses from Carroll County.

Hospitals' acreage is lure for developers

Chicken coops and cornfields surrounded the state asylum in Owings Mills when it opened almost 120 years ago. The quiet countryside was considered by 19th-century health experts as the best place to care for the developmentally disabled, and over the years the number of patients grew from nine to nearly 3,000.

School unveils a new name

The former two-year women's Catholic school in Baltimore County had come a long way, transforming itself into a multiple-campus university with professional graduate programs and a draw beyond Maryland.

More stares but less fuel

Gas prices may have risen steadily all year, but Steve David's 40-mile round-trip commute from Randallstown to downtown Baltimore has only been getting cheaper.

Police pay to rise in new budget

Baltimore County Council members adopted a $2.58 billion operating budget yesterday that won't require increases in taxes or fees but that will improve the salaries of about 1,100 veteran police officers.

Chase on I-795, Beltway ends in man's arrest

A man was arrested yesterday after a police pursuit that began on Interstate 795 in Owings Mills, moved to the Baltimore Beltway and ended on Edmondson Avenue in Catonsville, according to Maryland State Police.

Michael Dresser: Travel light, and ride close

It's been quite an experience riding the light rail system the past couple of weeks. Certainly it's been a great way to get to know your fellow Baltimoreans a little better. My favorite was that southbound stretch between Mount Washington and North Avenue, whipping around curves in a stuffed-to-the-gills one-car train while standing in a stairwell jotting down quotes offered by fellow members of the "crush load."

Two hospitalized after Owings Mills house fire

A man and woman were taken to Northwest Hospital Center yesterday for treatment of injuries after the man's cigarette ignited an oxygen tank in his Owings Mills condominium, county fire officials said.

Current allergy season 'horrendous'

Eight-year-old Justus Brown has had allergy problems before, but nothing like he experienced Sunday on the way to church in Towson - an attack that his parents blame on last week's record pollen counts.

Randallstown shooting witness sentenced

Police conducted surveillance of his relatives. They searched 44 houses for him in a single day. And they staked out his mother's apartment in Owings Mills on holidays, hopeful that the long-missing witness to the only school shooting in Baltimore County's history might try to sneak home on Mother's Day or Thanksgiving.

Whatever happened to... Alana Shor

If you were partying hearty around Baltimore in the 1970s and 1980s, there's no way you could have missed Paper Cup, later Shor Patrol, which at the time was one of Baltimore's hottest and best-loved Top 40 disco rock bands.

All-Baltimore County: Wrestling

Wrestlers of the Year

Watchdog

Owings Mills manhole cover leaky for 3 years

THE PROBLEM // Water leaking from a manhole cover puddles and freezes in an Owings Mills intersection, despite numerous calls for repairs.

Glimpsed

Lola Massey

In the future, when one envisions ladies who lunch, consider Lola Massey, who owns her sophisticated style the way few young women seem to do. Hers is a throwback to another age, when women pulled it together from head to toe, even just to go to the grocery store. No pajama pants and Ugg boots, wrinkled athletic shorts and baby tees. Hers was an age when shirts were blouses, pants were slacks and clothes didn't see the outside world until they'd seen an iron. "Modern" may be what's in. But we think "old-fashioned" never looked so good.

Cody Rosen-Stone, Owings Mills, wrestling

Rosen-Stone went 3-0 last week for the Eagles, all pins. His third win, Thursday against New Town, was the 100th in his four-year varsity career.

Music Column

Tim Smith: Hear 'Messiah,' watch 'Messiah' or sing it yourself

It's Messiah time again, when choral groups large and small tackle Handel's stirring oratorio. Looking around at this year's many performances, some offer extra points of interest.

Finding the deals

Bad economic news could bring good buys for holiday shoppers this year.

A high-tech look at the art of Matisse

A mechanical engineer by training, Jeff Mechlinksi used to spend his days poring over 3-D images of helicopter parts and other industrial gizmos on the glowing screen of his high-tech computer work station.

Rocky relation ends in murder arrest

When Veronica Fludd moved to Baltimore from Summerton, S.C., three years ago to study at Coppin State University, she planned on going back home to become an elementary school teacher, her family recalled yesterday.

Police Blotter

Police Blotter is a sampling of crimes from police reports in Baltimore and Baltimore County.

Glimpsed

Alexandra Arminger

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. In Alexandra Arminger's case, it also is the maker of fabulous fashion.

It's goodbye, hello for a congregation

Members of Beth Jacob Congregation are celebrating their last Shabbat service today.

Transit use urged for Artscape

About 500,000 people are expected to visit Artscape, Baltimore's annual celebration of the cultural arts, this weekend. If all of them come to the city by car, it is going to be a mess.