THIS PAST SUNDAY night, after watching a spirited performance of Rigoletto at the Lyric, I felt the need of a drink, a Scotch, or two, with an old friend. I had no invitation, but the smell of wood fires burning in old Baltimore fireplaces lured me up Mount Royal Avenue and across Lanvale Street, into the Bolton Hill neighborhood.

It was a magnificent fall early evening; dark but not yet silent. There were other operagoers on the street heading back to their warm and cozy homes. The light-rail cars were clanging away under the tower of the old stone B&O; Mount Royal Station tower. And, when I arrived at Lafayette Avenue, the door was open and the hooch on tap.

In the darkness, as I walked along these beautiful streets, under a canopy of ancient trees, my eyes were drawn to windows. I thought how easy it is to spy in Baltimore, to satisfy a curiosity, how open to everyone we live here - and how well we do it.

Baltimore is not a town to harbor secrets. I've often said all you need to do is go out for a stroll and you'll learn plenty.

As I tarried along these 19th-century thoroughfares, I realized how trusting we are here. I looked inside curtainless windows - not far at all off the street - at expensive stereo systems, paintings, pieces of silver and other objects clearly worthy of grand larceny. Our homes are built close to our streets and pavements. They seem to invite visitors, who often walk, admire, critique as they pass.

For all the reports of murder and mayhem, my walks continue. I never worry. The benefits of a little exercise (and I am no athlete) outweigh the worry of urban doom. And as I prowl around in the cold and darkness, I can't help congratulating those Baltimoreans who provide an eyeful to us city walkers.

Later this week, on another gorgeous November afternoon, I found myself in Guilford, the neighborhood just north of where I grew up in Charles Village. This is another community where house observing is as good as it gets in Baltimore; few rowhouses, but excellent garden suburb little palaces, laid out in careful arrangement. To walk through Guilford at dusk is like being in a Christmas garden.

But as I reached St. Martin's Road, a small street that intersects the neighborhood's larger road, I got a start. The street is now blocked off to automobile traffic at St. Paul Street. Some residents who did not like moving, through traffic were successful in having the street blocked. There are now trees planted so you cannot drive through.

I thought to myself, how un-Baltimorean, how rude, this monkeying with the rules. Isn't this a neighborhood designed by the Olmsted brothers, the landscape visionaries who agonized over every street, curb and park here? And what about the precedent it sets? Will our city neighborhoods become gated communities?

I am surprised and disappointed that the people at City Hall would allow a street to be closed down, no matter how hard the lobbying from abutting property owners.

Suppose I didn't like people going downtown - or walking to the grocery store - in front of my house. Would I be allowed to plant big trees at 27th Street to keep them out? I don't think so. Do the people on Bolton Street put up blackout shades to curb your ogling their family portraits? No; they wash their windows so you'll have a better view.