Biography
Jacques Kelly is a native of Baltimore, and he has read The Sun since the mid-1950s, when he was sent to the neighborhood drug store to buy ...
Jacques Kelly
Longing to taste once again foods distinctive to city
November 7, 2009
The name on the window said Maron, and inside were candy counters and an ice cream parlor. I was walking along Philadelphia's Chestnut Street and, for a second, I was back home 40 years ago. I thought of the old Baltimore Maron and couldn't help remembering all the revered but now-vanished foods once distinctive to the city.
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No second acts for Clarisse Mechanic — the first was plenty
October 31, 2009
Reaching for a dark suit to wear to a funeral, I could not help thinking that under different circumstances, I would be donning the dark gray flannels for Box E at the Lyric, not the Arlington Cemetery of Chizuk Amuno Congregation.
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Despite premature obit, doctor and his sense of humor lived
October 24, 2009
The Evening Sun reported that 5,160 Marylanders died in the 1918 flu epidemic, but it seems the count was off by one. A news story of a prominent Baltimore physician's death was wrong. He and his family have been correcting this falsehood for 91 years.
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1918 epidemic sent many to final rest on Flu Hill
October 17, 2009
Hearing the terrifying stories in my childhood about the 1918 influenza epidemic that took the lives of about 5,160 Marylanders propelled me as an adult to learn more. While both of my grandmothers told me their versions of the agony, it was Sister Mary Stephanie Hanley, my fifth-grade teacher, who knew how to capture the mind of a 10-year-old.
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Sour beef, church basements: It must be fall in Baltimore
October 10, 2009
There's a magical Baltimore eating establishment that has nothing to do with a restaurant or family and friends' homes. This time of the year, I crave the church kitchen and those sour beef dinners produced by the hard labors of unheralded volunteer hands.
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Watching the ebb and flow of harbor's changing scene
October 3, 2009
Those going to this weekend's Fells Point Fun Festival might consider a farewell appreciative look at the Moran tugboats that tie up alongside Recreation Pier at the foot of Broadway. They might not be around next year if this site begins a long-discussed transformation into a waterfront hotel.
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Cheat sheet for spotting local sites in 'My One and Only'
September 26, 2009
I was awaiting a bus home one evening in the summer of 2008 when a movie crew commandeered Mount Vernon Place. Dressing room trailers and vintage automobiles turned Charles Street into 1953. I never got to see the star, Renee Zellweger, that evening, but recently I caught up with the finished product, entitled "My One and Only."
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Trolley cars and all they represent live on at museum
September 19, 2009
In the summer of 1970, my father and I took a Sunday drive along Falls Road and encountered a fledging enterprise known as the Baltimore Streetcar Museum. A group of streetcar enthusiasts had made good on their determination to preserve and run some of Baltimore's revered transit vehicles of the previous 100 years. That day, we watched in amazement as aged streetcars appeared. And each year, these volunteers at the museum extended the overhead wires and the rails a little more along Falls Road into the Jones Falls Valley.
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Summer rain creates oddity: a lush September in the city
September 12, 2009
Has anyone noticed what an incredible gardening season this has been for Baltimore? By mid-September, my backyard normally looks dried up and ready for plowing under. The brown grass requires a deep raking, handfuls of new seed and prayers. Not this year.
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Brass Elephant is latest class act at 924 N. Charles to bow
September 5, 2009
Not often did William Donald Schaefer call me, but on that Monday more than 30 years ago, I expected it.
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Baltimoreans are rediscovering joy of being outdoors
August 29, 2009
It's taken Baltimore a long time to take outdoor table service at restaurants and bars seriously. We may be late to buy into a trend, but now it seems to be spreading like Formstone.
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Seton Hill offers a glimpse into Baltimore's early days
August 15, 2009
The crape myrtle was at its summertime height the other day when I wandered into the Seton Hill neighborhood to see the area's newest arrival. Without fanfare, a new Mother Seton House visitors center has risen in one of Baltimore's most venerable locations. It's tucked between Mother Seton House and the old St. Mary's Seminary Chapel.
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A historical tribute and Mass mark Ireland's Great Hunger
May 9, 2009
Applause to retired Judge Tom Ward, who is among the organizers of a historical tribute to recall Ireland's Great Hunger, a period between 1845 and 1853 when thousands left the Emerald Isle and sailed for America.
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General Growth underestimated Harborplace
April 18, 2009
Ouch! On a visit to Harborplace this week, as the news was coming out about its owner's bankruptcy, I couldn't help but think about that brilliant summer day in 1980 when it opened. Some 29 years later, in the financially gloomy spring of 2009, it was hard not to feel concern for the hard times at the Pratt and Light Street pavilions.
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Tradition makes welcome return
November 29, 2008
It wasn't just that the apple pie and the pumpkin cookies smelled so good - the curtains on the windows were right, too. I liked what I saw when the restaurant at the Woman's Industrial Exchange reopened this week.
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Hippo's opening another night to remember
February 14, 2004
AS MY CAB turned south on Eutaw Street on Tuesday night, I asked the driver, "Where are the moving lights?"
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Hoping B&O Museum is able to maintain pieces of history
February 22, 2003
I’VE OFTEN thought that Baltimore possesses three truly great object collections: the Cone sisters' canvases, the treasure of Henry and William Walters and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Yes, the rail museum at Pratt and Poppleton, which suffered such a direct hit from this week's snowstorm, is this country's knockout stable of iron-horse history.
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Saturday nights in 'Perry Mason's' courtroom
February 17, 2001
THE TELEVISION shows of 45 years ago were fairly tame fare compared to what the networks and cable deliver today. But certainly when this medium was relatively new - and the arrival of a fresh set in the neighborhood was still something of a novelty - gathering around the black-and-white screen was an event.
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Chief medical advice from family: Get better
February 10, 2001
IHEARD this week from my sister, the mother of the twin girls who just turned 3. All her children (she has three) are down with the sort of childhood maladies that arrive in the late winter. Her washing machine is working overtime. The children just aren't themselves. Or are they?
