Workers this week put the finishing touches on repairs to the damage the city’s demolition contractor left behind when it brought down a rowhouse next to Henry Anderson’s home in West Baltimore.

The flurry of activity was a pleasing sight to the 74-year-old Sandtown-Winchester resident who had complained about it for months and wrote an open letter to Baltimore Housing Commissioner Michael Braverman.

“They fixed the sidewalk,” Henry Anderson said today. “The side of my house looks good now and they finished that wall.”

“They did an excellent job!” he said

Suddenly, the City Responds

The retired forklift driver had begged the city for decades to do something about 1157 North Carrollton Avenue, a former corner store that had become a vacant dangerous eyesore.

But when the crew from Pless Jones/P&J Contracting finally came six months ago to raze the building, they left behind trash, chunks of concrete and other construction debris and damaged Anderson’s house, steps and sidewalk.

The workers, required under city roles to shore up the “party wall” after a demolition, instead built one of cement blocks that wasn’t even knee high. Anderson had complained to the city to no avail.

Last week Braverman apologized and said repairs were underway.

This week the repairs were made, the party wall was completed and now Anderson is hoping they will just take care of one more detail:

He wants them to cut down the huge-leafed weed that grew up behind the trash pile, right next to his house.

“Those leaves are so big somebody could hide behind them,” he said. “I don’t want anybody jumping out at me!”