Walter Sondheim is on the phone, trying to get out of being interviewed. He can't understand why the city's newspaper is coming around, yet again, to get the tale of his life. Who cares, he says.

Yes, he is turning 90, and that is worth remarking on. But all this fuss, the parties, the inquiring journalist. Is it really necessary? Still, after only the slightest bit of nudging, he relents, which is to be expected because, after all, Walter Sondheim is a nice guy.

On the scheduled day, he takes a seat behind the desk of his 15th-floor office at Baltimore's Legg Mason Tower and makes one last half-hearted try.

"Why waste the time? It really is embarrassing, because I think my friends who know me well figure, 'There he goes again,' " he says, then gets down to business. "Now, what do you want? What's on your mind? I feel sorry for you."

He is painfully modest, sometimes excruciatingly so. For 50 years he has been the consummate citizen, adviser to mayors and governors, a steady presence in his city's decades-long resurgence. He led the school board during desegregation. He was chairman of Charles Center-Inner Harbor Management, the organization that oversaw the renewal of downtown.

If he were a different kind of man, he could walk you down Charles Street, tug at your sleeve and say, "See, I made that happen. And over there. Me, again." He could stand at the Inner Harbor and go on about how he, Jim Rouse and others turned this town around. He is not that kind of man, not one to revel in yesterday's glory or seek accolades for past successes. There is too much to be done today.

Every workday he's up early, dressed in a suit and tie and out the door as he has been for nearly 70 years. These days he is senior adviser to the Greater Baltimore Committee. He used to be president.

He could be anywhere. He has the money. His career with Hoch-schild, Kohn & Co. ended with his retirement at senior vice president and treasurer. Soon after, investor Warren Buffet bought the department store company.

Money doesn't bring him to this downtown office with its view of the towering NationsBank building, the one old-timers remember Maryland National. It isn't a yearning for fame that has him fielding calls, hustling to meetings, offering his considered judgment on public policy.

Then why is he here, when he could be in Aruba, Martha's Vineyard, the Cape?

"Well, you know, you touch on a real issue there. I'd get restless if I weren't doing anything," he says. "I think about it every now and then because I have no reason not to retire. I'm not doing anything that obviously someone else couldn't do. But waking up in the morning and not having a job just doesn't appeal to me."

Bring up the Golden Years, and Sondheim likely turns a deaf ear. There's this crazy idea about retirement, as if people can easily walk away from what has sustained them. Retire, and do what? Sometimes there is a consuming hobby or passion waiting. Sometimes, the work is its own passion.

Sally Michel, a longtime friend, notes how work can fuel a person's life. Think of the great pianist Artur Rubinstein, practically blind and giving recitals at 89; or jazz trumpeter Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham swinging at 91; or George Burns at 100 with his cigars and wisecracks. Now, think of Walter Sondheim.

"You see that when people have a purpose, a real serious purpose to their lives, that they stay alive a lot longer. Retirement is not a good thing," says Michel.

Yet Sondheim knows longevity has its downside. He says he can remember looking down the table in many board rooms and seeing three or four emeritus members sitting there, "every one of them sure that he could do the job better than I could, and they were probably right."

Now, he's Mr. Emeritus. The position doesn't sit well with him. "You can't vote, and an emeritus means you're not a participant anymore," he says.

He wonders if he has stayed too long. Maybe he's in the way. If his wife were alive, she would tell him.

But Janet died six years ago come September. They were married 58 years. He still wears his wedding ring.

"We never had a fight in 58 years. My daughter said it was because we were both too lazy," he says and smiles a bit, then talks about his loss. "To me it has been one continuous period. I don't mean a continuous period of mourning, but I think about her often. Missing her is institutionalized in me."

Without her, he turned to his closest friends, asking them to send him an anonymous letter if they thought he was slipping.

"I thought it was incredible, an incredible thing to do, to make that suggestion," says Michel, who received one of the letters. "I was just very moved by it."

Abell Foundation President Robert C. Embry Jr., whose friendship with Sondheim goes back nearly 30 years, also received one.

"I know that he worries and has expressed this publicly, 'Has he overstayed his welcome? Is he losing his acuity? Are people humoring him?' " says Embry. "But the opposite is true."

Sondheim is on 24 boards and foundations. That sounds impressive, overwhelming, but some meet once a year, some once a month, he says. When officials from elsewhere call the GBC about Baltimore and its redevelopment, they get Walter. He still talks to the mayor, the governor. He was chairman of the ad hoc committee that picked the Hippodrome for an expanded center of performing arts.

"Walter is the quintessential public servant," says Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke. "He remains an important adviser in business and political activities in this community. I just met with him as recently as this week to talk about downtown development."

It all started long before he was appointed to the "Jewish slot" on the city school board in 1948. It started July 25, 1908, in the front room, second floor of 1621 Bolton St. That's where he was born. He graduated from Park School in 1925, then went on to Haverford College. There were 81 graduates in the class of '29. A dozen remain.

On his yearbook page, the editors wrote: "By simultaneously preserving his pride and refusing to take himself seriously, he has practically forced us to consider him seriously as one of the prides of the class."

Not much has changed in 70 years. In the mid-1950s, his calm approach made Baltimore the first school district south of the Mason-Dixon Line to respond to the Supreme Court's landmark ruling outlawing "separate but equal" education. Someone burned a cross on the lawn of his Windsor Hills home, but it didn't stop him.

During the 1960s Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro III sought his help.

"His calling card is integrity and, as I said before, he has no hidden agenda," says D'Alesandro. "My whole concept of Walter was that he was a cut above."

He does not have a "typical" day. It depends on where he is needed. Just the other day, he showed up for the Maryland Art Place's dedication of its miniature golf course at Rash Field. He called himself "Tiger Wouldn't."

"Me, who's opposed to all exercise," he says, of what turned into an awful day. He tripped and fell on the 17th hole. "I ripped my suit beyond repair. I went to get my car, it had a $20 ticket on it."

He still drives his black Acura Legend, and walks when there is a purpose. Not too long ago he walked from his Harborview apartment to a dinner party on Federal Hill. The hosts were very concerned.

"You know, you shock people if you drive. You shock people if you walk," he says.

At 90, he goes where he wants, when he wants. He does acrostics for fun, and surprises himself by still being able to recite the Keats he learned at Haverford.

"I've had a lucky life," he says, pale blue eyes shining behind his glasses. "It's not because of me. I've been lucky to be in places."

Now there are rumors that he's the odds-on favorite to be the next state school board president. He says he doesn't want the job. Yes, he has been involved with education for 50 years, but he doesn't consider himself an expert.

"I don't think it would be wise for them to pick me," he says, wondering aloud how it would look, a 90-year-old man.

So often in the past people have come to him, seeking his perspective, his gift of compromise. He has said "yes" probably more times than he can remember. His resume lists 78 committees, boards and foundations he once served.

"My wife, who used to chastise me for saying 'Yes,' said, 'It's your curiosity,' " he says. "The truth is, I'm a little bit of a sissy. I don't like to say 'No.' That's not a strength, you know. That's a weakness."

Pub Date: 7/25/98