Longtime goals for Billie Holiday monument near completion

On the day of the late Billie Holiday’s 91st birthday, Baltimore City and neighborhood officials gathered to unveil plans to improve a monument in her honor and the surrounding, blighted area.

Planners said they are working toward a “true transformation” of the monument on the corner of Pennsylvania and Lafayette avenues, including removing a brick wall and tall shrubbery now blocking the statue of the famous jazz singer, who grew up in Fells Point.