The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 57

Stable Harundale defies critics' forecast of -'slum in making' 5J -i 4k 9 i GLEN EjURNIE HIGH SCHOOL fY0 1 HARUNDALE HAJWUBXTl'y COUNTY LIBRARY UTERIAN Mrs. Duitscher herself beams broadly as she talks, her freckled cheeks and vivid blue eyes brimming over with spunk: "I grew up under Garfield isn't too much of him left -and I voted for a few Republicans in my time, Roosevelt and Harding. Been through plenty of heartaches too: God spared me one child out of three. If only He doesn't take the sunlight from me: I'm three-quarters blind and can't see you." Mrs. Duitscher has lived for 12 years in Harundale with her son Elmer, who at the tender age of 77 presides over the Golden Agers of Glen Burnie.

Stepchild community Harundale began life with a communal inferiority complex as wide as Ritchie highway particularly on the west side of that route, which was occupied largely by renters from Fort Meade and Annapolis. During its first years, better-established communities marveled openly about "how anyone could live in those crackerboxes," and freely predicted that Mr. Byrne would lose his investment (he came quite close in 1949). Harundale survived; but certain of its association members feel the struggle to build up and brighten the community could have been made easier. "Harundale is one of the oldest and largest community developments in Maryland, but it always remained something of a stepchild," said Mr.

Emge. "For a pilot project it never got the kind of county and state financial support it deserved. Local legislators like state Senator H. Erie Schafer Severn and Ron McGuirk have been tremendously helpful, but a lot more could have been done for our roads and recreation areas." Despite such setbacks, community 1 spirit has grown to the extent that many residents would like to see Harundale a township in its own right rather than a satellite of greater Glen Burnie. (Their envelope addresses typically contain both Harundale and Glen Burnie.) Perhaps the best symbol for this prosaic but remarkably sturdy prefab community might be that winged donkey on Ollie Beavers's front lawn: Could such a humble beast of burden ever take flight? The answer to almost everyone's amazement has been a resounding "Yes." Sun photo Richard Childress Now hospitalized, Annie Duitscher is Harundale's oldest resident at 108.

HARUNDALE, from Page 1 the state," ventured Linda Emge, recent president of the Harundale-Oak-wood Park Civic Association. "Harundale itself was a pilot project; so was the mall and so was the mall's youth center. In fact the community was considered so unusual when it started, it was written up in Time magazine." Unusual may have been one word for it. But for certain Severna Park and Pasadena natives wary of euphemisms, "scary" seemed more to the point. "Crackerboxes" and "doll-houses" were their favorite terms for the one-story homes without porches or basements, constructed of aluminum siding and plaster walls on a steel frame.

And the developer, Byrne Communities, of Washington, had concocted some ready-made history to match the prefabricated construction. "Harundale" (a poetic eaily Anglo-Saxon term meaning "dale of the had all its streets named after ones in Arundel, England, neatly ranged in alphabetical order from north to south. Company president John Byrne speculated that in time, residents might even forget the area's real ori-. gins: a swampy National Guard summer camp and target practice range where the biggest scores were usually made by mosquitoes. But when it came to the nuts-and-bolts of his $7.5 million venture, he was disarmingly frank: "It was our objective to put up a large number of substantial, moderately priced houses in the shortest time." The result in 1947 was 1,150 homes priced from $6,550 to $7,400, seemingly identical on their bare-dirt lots.

That picture changed markedly in the months to come. Much like a slow-motion cartoon, certain shifts in detail appeared on the screen a shrub here, a new porch or awning there and before long the landscape had subtly changed. Operation facelift The first step of most new prefab communities and there were many built across the country shortly after Harundale is to set down artificial roots and traditions as quickly as possible. Since Harundale was planned as a self-contained community, there was little doubt where its key centers of activity would be: the shopping center (eventually, Harundale Mall's munity room), the park (home of the Harundale Little League) and the church (Harundale Presbyterian, which has hosted discussions groups ranging from Bible study to premarital relations under the ministry of two former Air Force fighter pilots), The mall began as the first enclosed shopping center in the East, and last Monday began a $250,000 facelift. Besides complete repainting and floor retiling, Leblang and Associates plans to redesign the walkway kiosks and install a picnic area in the south court.

The two "subcultures" often found lounging in the mall Harundale's senior citizens and teenagerswill be accommodated in expanded bench and planting areas. A more controversial change could take place shortly in Harundale's 35-acre community park. For 27 years the "foot" of this L-shaped area off Guildford road has been used by the community's exceptionally active Little League. Its organizers were understandably concerned when the civic organization began bargaining with the county's recreation and parks department to turn the site into a true "community park" with picnic facilities, playgrounds and tennis courts. Before long, the Little League formed a negotiating committee to smooth out the territorial dispute with the civic association.

In the latest episode of these space tance," said Mrs. Beavers. "There are no staircases in these one-story homes, and North Arundel Hospital is close by if you need it." Mrs. Beavers's retired husband, Ollie, is known locally for his woodwork hobby shop, with hand-built grandfather clocks, carved animals and even a donkey with propeller-style wings on the front lawn. Flying the banner for Harundale's seniors nationwide is 108-year-old Annie Duitscher, who was congratulated at the Oval Office by President Carter in 1977, and last week received a get-well card from state Attorney General Stephen Sachs as she lay recovering from a broken hip at North Arundel Hospital.

"If I can go to the elections this fall in a wheelchair, believe me I'll vote for Carter," she said. "And I'll give the man on the other side a big punch. When I met Carter he grinned ear to ear, opened both arms and said, 'But I thought you'd look I put on a good front; he was very kind." G.L CRANDALL LAPIDARY, INC 4 close-knit community. But that assumption is too easy, its residents say. "Harundale is a melting pot that didn't melt," Mrs.

Emge volunteered. "People here enjoy their privacy." "You find that in a given block, half of them don't know their neighbors," Guildford road resident Emma Beavers said. "The church, the mall and the association are where people get together." Mrs. Emge's melting pot is no idle metaphor. Within a few blocks you can find American Indians, Poles and Koreans; retirees next door to National Security Agency employees; renters next to native Harundale residents.

There is, to be sure, still a curious clause in Harundale's deeds and covenants that prohibits home buyers from allowing "any person of any race other than the white race to use or occupy any building" unless they are servants. But that injunction was challenged in 1971 by the county Human Relations Commission and declared nonenforceable. After a near-standstill in housing sales in the 1960s, turnover has picked up intthe past few years with house prices currently averaging $38,000 to $51,000. "Realtors still pester the daylights out of people here to sell," said Mrs. Emge.

"In this day and age Harundale is still affordable." Eugene R. Marcus, a former owner of Evergreen Gene's garden center, now rents out 20 homes in the area and said he still considers them solid investments. A particularly valuable community asset, added Mr. Huestis, was the "low crime rate and I speak as a police detective." Harundale has a daily CB patrol manned by 28 local volunteers. Now in its second year, the group monitors everything from vacationing couples' houses to chimney fires and runaway children.

Byrne Communities, had made its original advertising pitch to young World War II veterans so no one was surprised when a survey in 1952 found the "average" resident to be between 30 and 35 years of age with two or three young children. But the same qualities that appealed to the "baby boom" set easy access to schools, the mall, library and church eventually helped swing the balance toward a burgeoning elderly population. "Everything's within walking dis East Park Center M) 7976 Crnin hwy. S. Your key to Losing Weight LOSE WEIGHT THROUGH HYPNOSIS Formerly Weight Control Institute HYpKOSIS CEMUR Group Sessions Available 760-3590 MC VISA ACCEPTED (Next to Giant -ROCK MM' wars (The Umpire Strikes the Little League was promised the right to expand its three baseball diamonds if the county could use the rest of the park for other public recreational facilities.

"Then we got a letter on March 7 from the association's attorney, saying the group was not yet ready to lease out the land," Joseph McCann, the recreation director, said. "They wanted to work out a land-use proposal that would appeal to the majority of Harundale's residents." Councilman Ronald C. McGuirk (D, 2d), who participated in the negotiations, qualified that the $l-a-year lease by Harundale had always hinged on what the county was willing to put in the park. "Things came to a halt in March when it appeared the tennis courts would be deleted because the county couldn't come up with adequate funds $40,000," he recalled. "It's my understanding that the tennis courts have definitely been put back in since then, though there's nothing yet in writing." Earlier this week, association president Calvin Emge indicated that further bargaining would be necessary before the park's future could be decided.

Renovations would nqt begin until 1981 in any case, since the county has not included the project in this year's budget. Sun map Web Bryant Harundale to the other during rush hour: At the intersection of Route 2 and Fitzallen road alone, there have been 21 accidents over the past year. Edging onto the highway from Norfolk and Norman, Guildford and Far-rington, or Amberly roads is not appreciably easier. Many Norfolk road residents vividly remember a June 19, 1979, collision when a Medevac helicopter touched down to fly a critically injured motorcyclist to the University of Maryland Hospital. Four-way stop signs have been one proposal for getting out of Harundale in one piece; but traffic flow throughout the entire community is problematic.

"There's a lot of movement through the community from Route 648 traffic," said James Lowe, a Guildford road resident. "The roads need to be widened about 4 feet to the sidewalk, but there's not a great deal you can do. I remember one car that missed a corner and drove smack through my neighbor's bedroom window." Other dependable sources of congestion are Aquahart road to Route 3 and Saunders way to Harundale Mall. Harundale applied in 1978 for a community block grant for curb and gutter repairs, only to be informed that its collective income level was too high to qualify. It proved a dubious source of pride to a community often labeled lower middle class.

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