Garden club offers grants for neighborhood greening
The Bolton Hill Garden Club’s 2025 Greening Grants program is accepting grant proposals online through March 1. The grants are designed to create and improve publicly accessible green spaces to beautify the Bolton Hill community.
This year, greening projects in Marble Hill and Madison Park are also eligible for these grants. Garden Club greening grants fund the planting and maintenance of neighborhood parks, public green space, and tree wells. Priority projects focus on the planting of perennial flowers and native plants, shrubbery and trees and related gardening materials. Hardscape or labor costs to enlarge or prepare gardening spaces, such as in the case of tree wells, will also be considered.
All public greening projects located in Bolton Hill, Marble Hill and Madison Park are eligible to apply. Previous grant awards have ranged from $75 to more than $2,000. The club expects to award up to $8,000 this year. Grants will be announced by April 1. More information, including the grant application and Frequently Asked Questions, can be found online at Greening Grants | Bolton Hill Garden Club. Email questions to Bonnie Legro.
Gray Panthers look to celebrate “Golden” Bolton Hill residents
BHCA’s Gray Panther task force for older residents is planning to identify and celebrate the men and women who are alive and well and living in or near Bolton Hill after arriving half a century ago. But your help is needed. If you have lived in Bolton Hill all or most of the time since 1975, or you know others who have done so, please send a note to graypanthers@boltonhillmd.org.
A festive Golden Gathering of 50-year residents is tentatively planned for 6-8 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 28. Former residents who were here for 50 years also are invited to participate. Details will be posted on the BHCA calendar and in BHEN notices.
WNADA installing traffic tracking technology on North Avenue
The West North Avenue Development Authority is spending nearly $400,000 to install LiDAR tracking along a 2.5-mile stretch of West North Avenue between I-83 and its western terminus.
These high-tech devices will measure changes in light to determine how vehicles and people move at each intersection, pumping out data to suggest safety modifications and ways to improve traffic flow. The devices can distinguish among cars, trucks, buses, people and more, but they aren’t cameras, which minimizes privacy concerns.
The devices will be installed where North Avenue intersects Mt. Royal Avenue, McCulloh Street, Pennsylvania Avenue, North Fulton Avenue and Bloomingdale Road by the end of January, a development authority official said.
City finalizes removal of Marbury marker
The long saga of the garden club plaque honoring William L. Marbury is over.
The City’s Board of Estimates voted 5-0 on Jan. 8 to decommission the small plaque from City-owned property. The plaque was placed in the late 1930s at the south end of the median in the 1700 block of Park Avenue by the Mt. Royal Garden Club, a predecessor of today’s Bolton Hill Garden Club.
No one alive today remembers why Marbury, who died in 1935, was being memorialized. But it takes little effort and research to determine that Marbury was a nationally known advocate for racial discrimination laws in Maryland and elsewhere. The plaque was removed from the median strip in November following approval from the BHCA board of directors to remove the plaque from the neighborhood, leaving a hole in the ground near the intersection of Park Avenue and Wilson Street. Marbury family members agreed to take possession of the plaque.
You likely can file your taxes for free this year
As income tax filing season approaches, most Maryland residents will for the first time be eligible to prepare and electronically file state and federal income tax returns without paying any fees or preparation charges or giving tons of private information to third-party corporations.
Visit directfile.irs.gov to check your eligibility. Maryland’s comptroller urges residents to use Direct File if one is reporting wages from employers (W-2), Social Security (SSA-1099), unemployment payments (1099-G), interest income (1099-INT) and pension and annuity income (1099-R). For more information go to www.marylandtaxes.gov/directfile.
About The Bulletin. . .
The Bolton Hill Bulletin is published monthly, except for July and August. It is designed by Elizabeth Peters. Paula Jackson is our proofreader. We invite others to help write, edit, provide photos or work on the business side. Contributors this month were, among others, La Benn, Joyce Oliner and Lisa Summers. Errors, omissions and comments should be reported to the editor, Bill Hamilton, at bulletin@boltonhillmd.org.