The Evening Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 50

C10 THE EVENING SUN THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1986 Some in Pigfown count their blessings I e-' Kelly By Tom Keyser and Kaye Thompson Evening Sun Staff By noon yesterday, the rain had chased most of the gawkers away. That left the police officers and firefighters, the power and telephone workers and people such as Barbara Stinchcomb. She fled the Pigtown fire Tuesday night along with more than 100 other residents of the southwest Baltimore neighborhood. All but the occupants of three destroyed row-houses on South Poppleton Street were allowed to return home yesterday, said Capt. Patrick Flynn, a Fire Department spokesman.

Utility service was restored to most of the neighborhood yesterday except to about 20 customers on the even side of the 800 and 900 blocks of Washington said Charles Franklin, director of media relations for the Baltimore Gas Electric Co. Franklin said that once debris is cleared from those blocks, workers should be able to gain access to the problem area and restore service. But 65 people registered at a Red Cross shelter on Scott Street last night rather than return to their homes. Today, building inspectors, accompanied by residents, were surveying homes and businesses in the area to determine whether the buildings were inhabitable. Stinchcomb came back to South Poppleton Street yesterday morning.

"Thank the Lord," she said, standing in her living room where, the night before, she scrambled to get her 85-year-old mother-in-law out of bed and out of the house. Her mother-in-law escaped "lucky she didn't have a heart attack," Stinchcomb said and so did the rest of the family. Her apartment received some water damage and broken windows. The Stinchcombs spent the night with family members in the area. Tuesday night, Stinchcomb was sure her home would be burned to cinders.

soaked. An inch or two of water, mushy with ashes, was on the floor. i The rear of the library and the rear of all the buildings on the north side of the 800 and 900 blocks of Washington Blvd. were about 20 feet from the warehouse. Flames easily stretched that far.

"We're lucky it wasn't a nice, dry July day," Carneal said. "The fire would have quickly spread across the street." And across the street, a baby lay in the window of St. Paul's Thrift Shop. His mother sat behind him and stared into the street. She said her name was Barbara Huth, 21, and her baby was Michael Lee, 8Vj months.

The night before she was carrying him out the front door of their apartment on the other side of the street, right next to the warehouse, when she saw flames reflected in the windows of St. Paul's Church. "The only thing I was worried about was him," Huth said. Huth said she dashed back into the apartment one time and grabbed two or three changes of clothes for Michael Lee. Now, she wishes she also had gotten her important papers out of the dresser: her marriage license, the baby's birth certificate, his hospital records.

She and the boy spent the night with her mother, who lives around the corner. "I borrowed Pampers and bottle's all night," Huth said. "And I'm pregnant and have trouble breathing. All night, I had trouble breathing." She had not yet been permitted back into her apartment. "All I know is the kitchen was filled with smoke and they went in with the fire hoses," Huth said.

A woman in the store said to a reporter, "You're not from the neighborhood, are you? Lucky you." She said a person didn't dare walk alone on the street past 9 p.m. "But I don't mind," the woman said. "I don't let no shadow get too close to me." "I went berserk," she said. "I opened the door and all there was was flames and debris flying all over the place and people screaming, hollering, crying." Maryland Overpak Corp. was destroyed.

More than 60 neighboring homes were damaged. No one was injured, although a woman in Pig-town died of a heart attack Tuesday night. It apparently was not related to the fire. Investigators said the fire started at the warehouse complex and they believe it may have been set deliberately. The Red Cross has provided shelter, clothes and food to the homeless.

It was seeking cash contributions to help pay for relief efforts. They can be mailed to Red Cross headquarters, 2701 N. Charles Baltimore 21218. Yesterday, across the street from the Stinchcombs' apartment, a front door blew slowly open and closed. Taped to the door was a sign: "Avon Representative.

Right Here Stop In For Book." Inside, the living room was soaked, burned and in shambles. Through the shattered windows of one apartment on Poppleton, passers-by could peer into the kitchen. Water poured through the ceiling and down the warped walls, where portraits of children hung. The clock was stopped at 12:27. On Washington Boulevard, which the police reopened yesterday, some businesses were operating Shirley's Restaurant, Nick's Subs, Guy's Barber Shop, the Railroad Inn Little Country Tavern In City workers cleaned out the Washington Village Center branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library.

It was nearly a total loss. Melvin Carneal, the library's superintendent of buildings, said about $500 in materials, mostly -shelves, could be salvaged. "The roof's gone. The kitchen's gone," Carneal said. "The air conditioning's gone.

The heating's all gone. Just about everything's gone." Books and magazines were either burned or missed employees each workday. Every afternoon, dozens of Bartlett-Hayward workers lined up at the Washington Boulevard public baths to shower off the day's grime. By 1915, the company had received large munitions orders from Russia. The firm retooled to make the shell casings.

During World War a total of 22,000 people were employed to make gun carriages and munitions. New shop buildings went up as the casting, forging and metal forming work grew. When the Pennsylvania Railroad dug a second tunnel under Hoffman Street in the 1930s, the firm made huge, semi-circular tunnel supports. It also supplied valves and gates for Tennessee Valley Authority dams from Paducah, to Knoxville, Tenn. World War II threw the firm into round-the-clock shift work.

By this time, Bartlett-Hayward had been assumed into the Koppers Co. In the 1980s, what was once the city's largest blacksmith operation was operating at a fraction of capacity. The once clattering trip hammers and steam forges had grown quiet. The firm left Scott Street and relocated at an industrial park off Interstate 95. Along went a pair of cast-iron Chesapeake Bay retrievers, "Sailor" and "Canton," that had long guarded the Scott Street front door of Bartlett Hayward.

Fire mars (150 years of industrial history KELLY, From CI Mount Clare Shops. Winans had established his forge and foundry here about 1835 to build the steam engines that powered early trains. The Scott Street site proved ideal fpr the burgeoning business. The nearby railroad could deliver coal for the forges and furnaces, as well as the iron ore. It could also remove the finished products.

There was an adequate water supply and room for expansion. A complex of brick buildings and smoke stacks grew into a front line of the industrial revolution. I After the Civil War, the firm of Bartlett, Robbins later Bartlett, Hayward began entering profitable new fields of iron work. The company became a leader in the manufacture of cast-iron products urns, fences, lamp posts, hitching posts, balconies, even iron spittoons. i While it continued to make stoves, it also delivered entire building facades with amazing columns, capitals, lintels and windows.

The Robins Paper Building, a remnant of cast-iron architecture, stands today on Pratt Street near the downtown Holiday Inn. Its facade was cast by the firm, as was the now-restored Wilmington, Grand Opera House. The iron facades could easily be shipped in pieces and bolted together on the site. Whole sections of downtown Baltimore had cast-iron store fronts. Both the offices of The Sun and Baltimore American were cast-iron buildings.

For the interior of the Peabody Library, the firm supplied five tiers of balconies, all in florid cast-iron open-work patterns. The firm changed with the times. Bartlett-Hayward assembled a corps of highly skilled tool makers and machinists, many of whom were of German, Austrian and Hungarian stock. Hundreds worked making gas holders and flexible couplings. Life in Southwest Baltimore was ruled by the shrill toots of the steam whistles that summoned and dis- 2 vehicles hit officer; Telephone i On behalf of everyone here at COT Telephone, I'd like to thank each and every one of you for the support you've shown toward the Greater Baltimore Metro Yellow Pages.

Thanks to advertisers like you, our Yellow Pages continue to he the directories of choice throughout the area. And to you, the consumer, thanks for continuing to use the Greater Baltimore 'Metro Yellow Pages for all your shopping needs. You have helped put them at the top of the usage scale, surpassing all other directories in the area. Again, many thanks to all of you for proving the power of the genuine COT Telephone Yellow Pages-the book that will continue to meet all of your needs. condition critical An 18-year veteran of the Baltimore County Police Department was critically injured when he was struck by two vehicles as he attempted to walk across the 600 block of Edmondson Ave.

while on duty yesterday evening. Patrolman Robert W. Zimmerman, 46, of Catonsville, was struck from behind by an eastbound pickup truck about 5:30 p.m. as he stood between the double-yellow lines of the heavily traveled roadway. After being struck by the truck, which was operated by Frank Michael Bingel, 20, of the 100 block of Maple Ave.

in Anne Arundel County, Zimmerman was thrown into the westbound lane, where he was hit by another vehicle. The second vehicle, a Buick, was being operated by Frank Fletcher Wells, 38, of the 600 block of Johns-bury Road, Police said Zimmerman received head, chest and internal injuries. He remained in critical condition today at the Shock-Trauma Unit in Baltimore. He received numerous pints of blood after he was taken to the hospital, police said. wnen tne accident happened, the Wilkens District officer was headed across several lanes of traffic on foot to visit nearby businesses as part of the police department's stop-walk-and-talk program.

The program, which has been in effect for several years, is designed to have police officers walk among business centers and to add a measure of security among crowds, especially during the holiday season. Bingel told police he had taken both hands from the steering wheel of his pickup truck to wipe condensation from the inside of the windshield when he struck Zimmerman. Police said the accident was under investigation and no charges had been placed against either driver wh(J hit Zimmerman. Volunteer tutors needed at center Volunteer tutors are needed for an after-school program at the Wy-man Park Center, 401 W. 30th to help students in grades 2 through 12 to develop good study skills and positive attitudes toward school.

For more information, call 396-6080. Sincerely, Milt Saulsbury Director of Sales Operations Customer Services.