Before anybody starts wondering who's going to be the next mayor of the city of Baltimore, they might ponder a more intriguing question: Who'd be crazy enough to want the job?

Not Kurt L. Schmoke, who announced last week that he's had enough aggravation and won't seek a fourth term, and has thereafter been seen with such a happy countenance that he could open up a branch smile.

Not the legendary Thomas "Tommy the Elder" D'Alesandro Jr., who was mayor through multiple terms but once described the job requirements succinctly: "Every day, they put a pile of [bleep] on the desk, and you have to eat it. And when you're finished, they come back with a new pile of [bleep], and you have to eat that, too."

And not Kweisi Mfume, who announced over the weekend that he's got no intention of running for the job, and no matter that everybody thinks he'd be swell running the city.

To which we say: Welcome to sanity.

And, while we're at it: Welcome to Laurens Street between Druid Hill and McCulloh yesterday morning. Or to Division and Robert around the corner. Or to Edmondson and Poplar Grove, where an eighth-grader was shot six times the other night while leaving a restaurant to go to a roller-skating rink.

Yeah, mayor of the city of Baltimore, what a swell way to spend a life.

Such as yesterday, in an alley called Stoddard Street, just off Laurens between the 1800 blocks of Druid Hill Ave. and McCulloh St. You can't believe this swarm of absolute bilge, of empty soda bottles and plastic cups, of dirty diapers and cookie wrappers, of old clothes and cereal boxes and stuff so moldy and torn that it's impossible to identify.

It's lying there in a heap that's maybe 10 feet wide by maybe 40 feet long. It's lying next to an empty, boarded-up storefront, which neighbors say has been abandoned for years, save for a population of rats. It's lying next to a city sign that declares, in letters bigger than life: "No Dumping." It's lying next to a music poster, tacked onto the vacant storefront, that reads, "Rawboyz Records Inc. Presents Excessive Force - Mass Destruction Begins Now."

Mass destruction, indeed.

"The trash?" says a neighborhood fellow, shaking his head at the sight. "Been there ever since I've been home."

"Home from where?" he's asked.

"Incarceration," he says. "I came home in August, and it was there."

"The trash?" says a woman who works in a neighborhood narcotics program. "It's been there forever. You think I haven't called the city? Today's trash day. It's sitting there now, and it'll be sitting there when the trash men leave. You call the city, and they say, 'If we collect it, people in the neighborhood just dump more trash there.'"

"Is that true?"

"Yes," the woman says. "Yes, it's true. This neighborhood's in deep, deep trouble."

Anybody want to be mayor of such a neighborhood? Anybody want to negotiate who's responsible for that pile of trash - some city agency or the people who live in a community - and arbitrate the ground rules of cleanliness for entire city blocks?

Take, for instance, a block from this dump: Division and Robert streets, where an entire side of the street's been obliterated of what used to be rowhouses. It's now this monstrous heap of rubble from Robert all the way to Druid Hill, bricks and boards - and trash newly tossed onto it and, according to neighbors, rats scurrying all over the place.

"The size of puppies," says a fellow negotiating a slight illegal business transaction yesterday.

City officials say they intend to clear the area of rubble - but the demolition was last month, and workers are preoccupied with other neighborhood demolition projects, whole rows of condemned buildings awaiting the wrecking ball.

And yesterday morning, standing on corners between the huge rubble on one side and beat-up rowhouses behind them, were those openly trafficking in various narcotics activities, scores of people on a workday Monday dealing in their own cultural commerce.

Anybody want to be mayor of such a neighborhood? The current mayor suggested new approaches to the narcotics traffic, and was hooted down by many. The current mayor has a housing department obliterating buildings right and left - but how long will it take to clear the rubble after the demolishing's done, while whole blocks resemble war zones?

And then we come to Edmondson Avenue and Poplar Grove Street, where a 14-year-old named Markel Ward, an eighth-grader at Calverton Middle School, was shot four times in the chest and twice in the legs as he emerged Saturday evening with a carryout chicken dinner on his way to a roller rink.

Young Markel is said to be the seventh shooting victim on this section of Poplar Grove in two years. It's an area of drugs, boarded-up buildings, and parents who wonder if their children will survive each day.

Anybody feel like living in such a neighborhood? Anybody feel like being mayor of such a collection of neighborhoods?

Anybody want to tell us: Who's responsible, those who run the city, or those who live in it, and explain why so much of it seems beyond salvation?

Pub Date: 12/08/98