Fort Howard VAMC Damaged and Rotting

Photography by David Robert Crews {a.k.a. ursusdave}

For nearly a decade, the Fort Howard Veterans Affairs Medical Center property has been used and abused by various people from near and far. Young people party there. Many kids and adults explore the spooky old buildings - some wanting to experience proof of the place being haunted. Thieves steal copper and other metals for selling to recyclers. Worst of all, destructive vandalism - by oodles of ignorant jackasses - is a consistent evil force wreaking havoc all through the place.

The VA has permitted: police swat team members to practice hostage rescues there, and I've heard stories of the cops blasting doors open with explosives; I have also heard that fire department personnel in training cut a huge hole in a beautiful antique hardwood floor; movie and television crews use the hospital building for film sets. But I've heard that the VA is not paid for any of those VA approved uses. I understand the good in allowing the police and fire departments to use - but they shouldn't abuse - the property for free. The wealthy movie and TV production companies, though, should pay rental fees - monies that can help the VA afford better care for American military veterans.

The property has been woefully neglected by the VA. Ever since the VA hospital there was closed in 2002, the VA hasn't done much maintenance work on the property. And although there is still a small medical clinic serving vets at Ft. Howard, many people believe the place to be abandoned property. That clinic has recently lost copper wiring to thieves, which cut off the clinic's phone and Internet access, even though that doctors' office is clearly in daily use by the VA.

I have created a set of "Ft. Howard VA Damaged and Rotting" photographs that clearly reveal how terrible it is there today. Plus, the photos show what great, historically significant and important buildings there are on the Ft. Howard VA property. Those superbly constructed, large, old wooden homes, seen in amongst my photographs, were built a century ago - by true craftsmen.

I have added a few of the photos to this blog post. Unfortunately, I can't add more, because, my current Internet connection doesn't upload files very well. But, if you go to my Flickr pages, you can view the full photo set of "Ft. Howard VA Damaged and Rotting" here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ursusdave/sets/72157628453938431/

The View From Ft. Howard Veterans Hospital Grounds

Photography by David Robert Crews {a.k.a. ursusdave}

A ship passing Craig Hill Upper Channel Light, seen from the Fort Howard VAMC property.

You may already be aware of the ongoing efforts to save the Fort Howard Veterans Affairs Medical Center property - the old Ft. Howard VA Hospital - for veterans only. The situation is rapidly heating up, and I shall continue working on it partly through a series of blog posts on this web site. The VA and commercial property developers are intent on building 1400 living units, several retail outlets and some commercial office spaces on the Ft. Howard VA grounds. They will have to have a VA medical clinic there, and a small clinic is all there is in use there today. The local community knows, many veterans (including myself) know that 400 living units plus more VA health care facilities is the best way to redevelop that property.

For everyone to understand what the Ft. Howard VA has that is extremely valuable to the veterans community, and the local Ft. Howard/Millers Island/Edgemere/Dundalk community, all must see what the view is like from that VAMC property. On Flickr, I have uploaded a set of videos and photos of that Patapsco River/Chesapeake Bay waterfront property view for you:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ursusdave/sets/72157627769536063/

A Cormorant Pops Up by Ft. Howard Park in Baltimore County, Maryland

Videography by David Robert Crews {a.k.a. ursusdave}

Shallow Creek - next to Fort Howard Park in Baltimore County, Md..

Photography by David Robert Crews {a.k.a. ursusdave}

Photos Of Bands And Musicians Mostly Performing In Dundalk And Southeastern Baltimore City

This is the link to a photo set of bands and musicians mostly performing in Dundalk and in Southeastern Baltimore City.

You'll see photographs taken at the Dundalk Heritage Fair, the Village Coffee & Tea Company, Earth Day Festival 2010, Frank Zappa Day - Zappa Plays Zappa - in Highlandtown, and more.

And here is a slideshow of those photographs:


Photography by David Robert Crews
a.k.a ursusdave

Baltimore, Md.'s Fireworks Grand Finale On New Years Eve 2010 - 2011

Here is the final 55 seconds of Baltimore, Maryland's Inner Harbor fireworks display held on New Year's Eve 2010 - 2011. I shot the video at about 4 miles from the barges the fireworks were shot off from. I was just inside southeastern Balto. City, about 200 yards from the western edge of Dundalk, Md..

Photography by David Robert Crews
a.k.a. ursusdave

Rafael Alvarez's Fourth Annual Highlandtown Literary Extravaganza

On my Facebook profile, I just posted some photographs of Rafael Alvarez's Fourth Annual Highlandtown Literary Extravaganza, which was held at the Southeast Anchor Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library- in Baltimore, Maryland - on December 18, 2010. Rafael is a long-time, well known and respected Baltimore journalist, author and television producer and writer.

Here is the public link to that photo album on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2089863&id=1053787981&l=f67b798ca3

Photography by David Robert Crews
a.k.a.ursusdave

Photographs Taken at Fort Howard Park in Baltimore County, Maryland

Photography by David Robert Crews
{a.k.a. ursusdave}

I have begun a set of photographs taken at Fort Howard Park, in Baltimore County, Maryland. The park is right where waters of the Chesapeake Bay merge with those of the Patapsco River. The park was a US Army coastal artillery installation, from 1896 to 1939, and most of the army structures still stand. From the park, you can look straight down the bay to see the Bay Bridge, and up the Patapsco River to see the Key Bridge. Here's a link to my Fort Howard Park photo set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ursusdave/sets/72157625132535377/

Maryland's Fort Howard Haunted Dungeons

Photography by David Robert Crews
{a.k.a. ursusdave}

Every October, on Friday and Saturday evenings, Maryland's Fort Howard Park is turned into the very scary, ever-thrilling-chilling and fright-fan fulfilling Fort Howard Haunted Dungeons.

Ft. Howard Park is a Baltimore County park that sets on the shoreline where the Chesapeake Bay merges with the Patapsco River. The park is heavily wooded, and is a former US Army coastal battery - it once had massive cannons and mortars that protected Baltimore City from attack by enemy naval vessels. From the park, you can look down the Bay to see the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and up the Patapsco River to see the Key Bridge. So, any ships coming up the Bay, to attack Baltimore, could be fired upon from Ft. Howard. Hence, Ft. Howard used to be "the Bulldog at Baltimore's gate."

In Ft. Howard Park, there are large, concrete, thick walled structures that once had huge cannons and mortars mounted upon them and cannon ammunition stored down inside the heavily fortified bowels of them. The "dungeons" were never actually dungeon cells where prisoners were kept, those were rooms for targeting equipment, electric generators and other military equipment plus cannon and mortar ammo that all needed protection from bombardment by enemy watercraft. Those structures and the wooded parkland around them are perfect for use as the Halloween style, scary, thrilling, chilling, but family friendly, Fort Howard Haunted Dungeons.

Fort Howard Haunted Dungeons is a series of short, scary skits - some have a slightly 'twisted' punch line and all are delivered with a good dose of horror movie humor. It is great performance art. Art performed by dedicated volunteers. Proceeds from the event go the Edgemere-Sparrows Point Rec Council.

I have created a set of photographs that I took at the 2010 Ft. Howard Haunted Dungeons. The photo set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ursusdave/sets/72157625070703149/with/5095457623/

Photography by David Robert Crews
{a.k.a. ursusdave}

Below is a slideshow of my set of Fort Howard Haunted Dungeons photographs. If you view this photo set in slide show format using full screen mode, it gives you a good idea of what it is like to take a tour of the Fort Howard Haunted Dungeons; but without the scary sound effects and experiencing the well conceived and presented performances of the volunteer actors all along the way. All together, the folks - of all ages - who make those haunted dungeons happen create a great piece of performance art, in Baltimore County, Md.'s Fort Howard Park.

Photography by David Robert Crews
{a.k.a. ursusdave}

I also have made some videos of Fort Howard Haunted Dungeons, and they are on my Facebook profile: http://www.facebook.com/ursusdave#!/profile.php?id=1053787981&v=app_2392950137

If you dare to wanna go to next year's Fort Howard Haunted Dungeons, get y'ur info at: http://haunteddungeons.com/forthoward.htm

Photographs, titles and descriptions are Copyright © David Robert Crews{a.k.a. ursusdave}, but are free for non-commercial, non-profit, use by the anyone connected to the Fort Howard Haunted Dungeons. That includes every volunteer who has ever worked there and any person who has toured the dungeons or any who want to share good information about the Haunted Dungeons.

The Best Photographs of Zappa Plays Zappa on Frank Zappa Day in Baltimore

On Sunday, September 19, 2010, in Baltimore, Maryland, at the corner of Eastern Avenue and Conkling Street, in the Highlandtown neighborhood, in front of the Southeast Anchor Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, a sculptured bust of Frank Zappa was unveiled and dedicated. It was officially Frank Zappa Day in Baltimore, and the celebration took place on - newly named - Frank Zappa Way.

The statue is a replica of an original one that is located in Vilnius, Lithuania. It was created by artist Konstantinas Bogdanas. And was donated to Baltimore City by ZAPPART, a Lithuanian nonprofit organization - which includes Salius Paukstys, Saulius Pilikus and Arturas Baublys.

Frank Zappa was born on December 21, 1940, and passed on - to the other side - on December 4, 1993. He lived in Baltimore for his first five years.

After the dedication ceremony, Dweezil gave a free, two-hour concert of Zappa Plays Zappa - to all in attendance. And the man and his band play the music well.


Sunday, September 19, 2010 was a great day in Highlandtown. I was there, and I photographed as many others in the audience of Zappa Plays Zappa as I could. I took shots of every cool lookin' t-shirt in sight. And I got great shots of Dweezil and his band - as they Rocked and Rolled to their little ol' hearts' content; and us audience members were completely contented, in a solid Rockin' way.


Here is the link to my 4 pages of over 200 photos of:

Zappa Plays Zappa on Frank Zappa Day in Baltimore

Photography by David Robert Crews
a.k.a. ursusdave

Fantastic Bits of Baltimore in Photographs

Photography by David Robert Crews
a.k.a. ursusdave

I have a set of photographs on Flickr dot com titled - Fantastic Bits of Baltimore. And that is exactly what they are. Check 'um out - here's the link to fantastic photographs of Baltimore:

Fantastic Bits of Baltimore

Rafael Alvarez Encounters Morris Martick on Park Ave in Baltimore, Md.

On Tuesday, 9/28/2010, well known Baltimore, Maryland writer Rafael Alvarez and I were walking up Mulberry Street, towards Park Avenue, in Baltimore, heading towards the location where Sherman's Book Store used to be - at the corner of Park and Mulberry. That morning, we had just met for the first time. We each had our own memories of the well known book store and its owner - infamously brusk Abe Sherman - and had each written about Abe and the store. Amongst other writing, Rafael wrote Abe's obituary for the Baltimore Sun Newspaper. I wrote a little story about my times as a teenage customer of Abe's - during the 1960s. Old Abe sold the first Rock and Roll band posters in Baltimore, and I bought a poster of the Rolling Stones from Abe - my first of many posters.

As Rafael and I walked up Mulberry, we stopped to take photos of and talk about the building where Martick's famous bar/eatery once operated. I never was in the place, being too young to go in when it was a bar, and not into spending time in the area when it was a French Restaurant. It is known as an old Beatnik joint to me, and that to Rafael too, but he had had the pleasure of eating many great meals there - when it was a Restaurant Francais.

We walked on up the half-a-block to the corner of Mulberry St. and Park Ave, where we took some photos of each other in front of the former Sherman's Book Store. As we walked on down Park Ave., low and behold here comes the owner of the now closed Matrick's, Morris Martick, strolling up the sidewalk towards us. 88-year-old Morris had been born in the building Matrick's had been in, and he has lived there most of his life. I had never seen the man before, but Rafael knew him well. So we stopped and spoke with him a bit. And I took some good photographs of Morris and Rafael, plus a damned great little video of them conversing.

Below is the building where Martick's was, and Morris Martick was born, has lived for most of his 88 years on This Good Earth, and he still owns the place.

Here are still photographs that I took of Rafael and Morris, with Rafael on the left and Morris on the right:

Morris Martick

And here is a video of some of the conversation between Rafael and Morris:



Photography by David Robert Crews

After Rafael and I parted company with Morris, Raf said that the conversation, photos and video are "gold". I believe they are gold to anyone who has any personal connection to Martick's, or anyone who is into really cool Baltimore history. Do a web search for "Morris Martick" and links to tons of really cool reading about Morris will be there for you to pursue and enjoy.

Here is an article in the magazine Urbanite where Morris speaks about his life: http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/baltimore/speak-easy/Content?oid=1244887

Here is a Facebook page for former employees of Matrick's:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=32947099191

Make sure you check out the discussion board on the Facebook pages. It's quite humorous.

Slide Show of the Big L Blast Furnace in Sparrows Point, Md.

Photography by David Robert Crews

Start the slide show, and a button with four arrows on it will appear in the bottom right corner of the black box. That button puts the slide show into FULL SCREEN mode.

Most of the photographs are of the Big L Blast Furnace in the steel mills of Sparrows Point, Maryland. Not just photos portraying what the Big L looks like, but how some of us feel about it all. Some of us who have had, or still have, our own long personal relationship with those former Bethlehem Steel Company mills and Sparrows Point .

The Big L can be seen from long distances and numerous-various angles of Southeastern Baltimore County and City, Northwestern Anne Arundel County, and the Chesapeake Bay and Patapsco River areas surrounding Sparrows Point. And the damned Big L also dwells somewheres in the minds, hearts and souls of multiples of thousands of us who possess fond - mixed with not at all fond - memories of being, visiting, living and/or working days of our lives, " Down the Point."

On Friday July 23, 2010, the new Russian owners of the old Bethlehem Steel Mills in Sparrows Point, Maryland shut down their only blast furnace - The Big L. That white cloud pouring up out of the top of the Big L is a result of work being done as part of the process to shut 'er down right, so she can be more easily started up again.

Some folks fear, while others hope, that it may never be started up again, though. Steel workers want it, but some ecologically minded folks and others want the entire mills with it's steel making process, heavy pollutions gone.

Big L will be down for at least 90-fugging-days. And it is the American Steel Workers who are getting screwed the worst. Basically, though, all Americans are being screwed over here.

That''s sho-nuff how I see's it - anyways.

I am who I am, owing my very existence to the Bethlehem Steel Company's long gone Town of Sparrows Point, Md.. That was where my life began, and I enjoyed spending a good deal of time there, especially visiting my grandparents several times every month, till the town was torn down, in 1973, when I was 23-years-old. My parents grew up there, our family went to church in Sparrows Point, and my father's parents were some of the last residents to move out of the rental housing in the family oriented, nearly crime free, company owned town, when Bethlehem Steel tore their town down to erect the Big L Blast Furnace.

My only relative to work in the blast furnaces was my paternal grandfather. But other relatives worked in other departments Down the Point. Uncle Philip (Crews) and Uncle Lindsey (Hall) each worked there for around forty-five-years, till they retired. My father worked awhile in the Rod and Wire Mill, as an electrician. Uncle Nelson was a draftsman (?) there for some time. Aunt Donna (Crews/Walcott) and Aunt Martha (Thomas/Clarke) each worked in the main office for a bit. I gotta ask around the family in case others worked there too, and I forgot. Uncle Stanley (known as John Crews to some folks outside the family) was a volunteer firemen in the Sparrows Point Fire Department , but I don't recollect him working in the mills.

My Granddad Crews retired from "The Point" as foreman of the two largest, most powerful and toughest blast furnaces on The Point; - numbers 9 & 10. About ten years after his retirement, I went to work on the Blast Furnace Labor Gang. While there, older men would express to me their high regard of Granddad Crews, of his natural, big ol' West Virginia Mountain Boy strength, and how my Grandmom Crews used to make him great homemade meals for his lunches (each work shift, some men kept casserole dishes of homemade lunch warm on a blast furnace side rim). I also heard of Granddad's personal, even-keeled and thoroughly fair treatment of his blast furnace crew.

Every foremen on every blast furnace could do every single job on a furnace better than any man there - from pushing a broom, using the ever present-shovel, or driving the overhead crane - with it's dangling, oft partly molten hot, cargo being weaved past workers down on the blast furnace floor. I have Granddad Crews' white hardhat from The Point, and it has "Capt. Bob" hand painted with the quotation marks onto the front of the hardhat above the required presence of his name R.E. Crews, because blast furnace foremen are called Captains.

That has something to do with the blast furnace being controlled from a "wheel house", which has a large ship's like wheel (helm) which is spun round during the casting process - when the molten iron and slag are poured into railroad cars; and a blast furnace is something akin to a ship with a hard working crew - working hard at sailing through their work shifts with firm dedication and determination to make and deliver high quality loads of molten iron for various uses that support and enrich the world economy.

During 1973-74, before the Big L Monster ate the Town of Sparrows Point, when there were 10 smaller blast furnaces working Down the Point, I worked on the Blast Furnace Labor Gang. I loved the physical, mental, emotional challenges, safety-self-discipline-or-get-hurt-and-quite-possibly-die hard work; which requires intense common sense, plus a type of serious intelligence that cannot be acquired via any degree of college education. It broils my gizzards when formally educated individuals socially disregard, disrespect blue collar workers of the ilk I know of who work or worked dangerous, sometimes debilitatingly hot and nasty or cold and nasty, mills and factories of this world.

But, I'm more a former Maine Bear Hunting Guide, a current outdoorsman, photographer and writer than a worker in an Iron Ore black dirt and red dust, filthy, reputedly cancerous, steel mill.

But, oh man, it was often thrilling, death defying-hot-blooded-chilling and ever-so-satisfying to make it through a shift on the labor gang to go home knowing I had faced ordeals of steel mills and had helped to produce reliable product to be sold and used in making for a better, stronger, safer world we live in.

Myself, my family, my community here in, and surrounding, Dundalk, Maryland, once believed that those (now ailing, failing) steel mills would provide many people plenty of work forever. Once, tens of thousands of reliable hard workers held gainful employment in the mills. Now, it is down to two-thousand or so who hold jobs there.

The mill's barely working at all. The land it is on along with the water and air around it are terribly, dangerously, deadly polluted in places.

Unfortunately, the future of the steel mills of Sparrows, Point Maryland USA will be decided and delivered by some of America's former, deadly, communist enemies. Former Communists who are now extremely successful, cut-throat Capitalists of the highest order.

Nobody told me there'd be days like these.

North Point Road Going Into the Bethlehem Steel Mills at Sparrows Point, Maryland

Photography by David Robert Crews

Bethlehem Steel At Sparrows Point, Maryland`

Photography by David Robert Crews

That huge structure dominating the skyline is the monster that ate the Town of Sparrows Point, Maryland. It is a modern blast furnace that replaced ten older blast furnaces, and the town had to be torn down to make room for it. In 1962, my Granddad Crews retired as foreman of numbers 9 + 10 blast furnaces, the biggest ones there at the time.

My paternal grandparents were some of the last residents to leave their rented home there, at 1014 F Street, in 1973. The Bethlehem Steel Company owned the town; they owned every house and store and the land that all the churches were on. But it was well run for the benefit of the residents, and was virtually crime free. There was a lot of dirt that fell from the mill onto everything, even the leaves of the hedges had red dust on the bottom of them, but that was about the only bad thing about living there. It was a true small town where most families knew one another. The schools were good, the stores well stocked and their goods were reasonably priced, and if there was any problem with the houses the company sent out repairmen right away. The houses were well maintained with regular painting and wall papering, etc..

I spent a lot of my youth down there at my grandparents' home, hanging out in the town with the other kids there, and we went to church down there too. I went there every holiday from the day I was born till the house was torn down. My cousins all lived close enough that they were there for every holiday too, plus many birthdays, and any day of the week we might go visit my grandparents. It was the best of homemade foods, real iced tea, big family card games--first it would be all ages card games then later in the evening the penny jars came out when the adults began to play poker for fun. It was a large home full of love.

Photography by David Robert Crews

This is the place I have visited most often in my dreams.

This is where my grandparents house was. I remember the elbow in that overhead steam line well from when I was playing in their back yard or talking to Grandmom as she hung up clothes to dry on the clothesline or in the alley talking to Granddad as he worked on his big car--he kept his Desoto, Dodge, or whatever big V8 motored Detroit yacht he owned that year all tuned up and running smooth, but with that throaty, low, powerful rumble those kinds of motors have.

David Robert Crews

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Bethlehem Steel As Seen From A Boat Near The Ore Docks

Photographs by David Robert Crews

Left click on the bottom photo to enlarge it and you'll see how dirty that truck is. Everything "Down The Point" (Bethlehem Steel Mill at Sparrows Point, Maryland) was always getting dirty like that.

David Robert Crews
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Sunset Seen From Ft. Howard Veterans Hospital

Photography by David Robert Crews

Those strange things that look a bit like steamboats on the Patapsco River are Anne Arundel County shoreline buildings of the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company.

I have seen several fantastic sunsets from this point of view, when I was a patient in the Ft. Howard, Maryland Veterans Administration Medical Center and was temporarily confined to a wheelchair. It is so safe there that I had no fear of being out there by myself while I was quite crippled up and mostly helpless for awhile.

I went back down there one evening, when I wasn't a patient, and took this photo. I'd sure like to photograph a few more sunsets from down there.

David Robert Crews
photography
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North Point State Park

Photographs by David Robert Crews

I love walking in the woods, being in the woods, seeing-hearing-smelling-feeling the woods all around me. For most people the saying 'we're not out of the woods yet' means they're in a bad place; for woodsmen like me (and woodswomen too) when we say "we're not out of the woods yet" means that we still have time to enjoy Mother Nature's wild wonders before we have to go back to the other stuff.

Look around and all up and down when you're out in the woods, I almost missed that cartoonish Lion face shaped knot on the tree, fortunately I stopped during my hike to take in my surroundings for a few seconds.

David Robert Crews
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The Millers Island Lighthouse

Photographs by David Robert Crews

The photo at the top doesn’t have people in it but the bottom one does, because I always shoot a variety of shots for any scene. I never know what a potential photo buyer may want or need. In certain situations, having people in a photo used for commercial purposes means that I need a model’s release from them, and they may want to be paid for being in the shot. I also watched the boats moving out on the water very closely, so I could get various numbers of them in my shots, and they had to be in the right places around the lighthouse to make it a pleasingly composed and balanced photograph.

This is the pier at the bar and restaurant called Dock of the Bay, in Millers Island, Maryland. You can sit at an inside or outside table and have a fantastic view of the Chesapeake Bay. The food is good, the music is often live, and the staff and patrons are quite gregarious.

During Hurricane Isabel, and previous storms, the restaurant was flooded. Today if you were sitting where I took this shot from, you would see a breakwater out there in the middle of scene, which is made of large white boulders. The Dock of the Bay’s new newspaper add has a photo that is composed about the same as mine but with the breakwater in it. I like these photos without that obtrusive pile of rocks a lot better. The rocks are white so that they have high visibility for boaters, but it makes for a considerably less photogenic scene.

David Robert Crews
millers island
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Sunset At The End Of A Pier

Photography by David Robert Crews

This photo was taken when the pier was owned by Pelican's Restaurant and Bar in Millers Island, Maryland. Then Hurricane Isabel came along and temporarily wiped out the business capabilities of this piece of property, and it did the same to some other business properties, and it destroyed or nearly destroyed many nice homes. I have to get down there to see if this restaurant is open again. If Pelican's hasn't been reopened, there are several other good eateries down there where I can get a delicious meal.

Oh, the wavy effects on the photo is from it being in small file JPEG format; that digital limitation does help prevent any worthwhile copyright infringement by a person who would take it and say it’s their own or use it for commercial purposes without paying me, but the print of this and the larger file of it look gorgeous. Let me know if you want to purchase a copy.

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Produce Wagon at Bauer's Farm

Photography by David Robert Crews

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