Braving Traffic, Saving Sunflowers

The York Road corridor between Baltimore and Towson is not the most scenic stretch of road. But there is one exception: the landscaped median separating the busy thoroughfare from Stoneleigh's tranquil streets.

Sunflowers and trees, grass and tulips stand as a buffer between the northbound roaring road and the slow service lane.

And the man who keeps the border brimming with plants and flowers instead of weeds and dirt is Rob Reilly,  a 71-year-old Stoneleigh resident who has lived in the neighborhood on Regester Avenue for a quarter century.

For more than five years Reilly has been weeding, tree trimming and spraying the median–or, as he calls it, "the island"–for the Stoneleigh Garden Club.  

"I like to make it look nice," Reilly says.

J. Brough Schamp, chair of Stoneleigh Community Assocation's greening and recycling committee, said the neighborhood wanted to hire someone local who would make the strip a priority. 

"He's done an outstanding job," Schamp says. "He's retired so he likes to keep busy. That means the York Road strip is constantly watched by him. It means the trash is removed before anyone notices it's there."

Reilly is an affable man, easy to talk to and quick to offer a neighbor a ride in his pickup truck. Few of his words are not punctuated by his laughter.

But the job isn't always so–sorry–rosy.  

"Trimming that York Road side of the island is dangerous," he says with a chuckle. "I fell backwards onto York Road."

A couple years ago he had tripped on some stones, lost his balance and found himself flat on his back on York Road at the rarest of times: when no traffic was racing north.

Reilly says he has held a series of different jobs throughout his life, including a stretch with the U.S. Navy from 1957 to 1960. He was stationed in California but returned home to Baltimore, where he eventually would go on to work for Westinghouse and Black & Decker.

"I'm not a gardener," he says. "But I know tulips, sunflowers, roses."

His presence may be invisible to the faceless hordes zipping by on York Road, but his neighbors never fail to wave as they walk or drive passed as he's tending to the median.  

Even the folks at Harry Little's sandwich shop at the median's southern tip are intimately familiar with him. Every Friday Reilly calls and says just a few words to place his order: "Hi, this is Rob Reilly." Then he hangs up.

Then he explains what that means: Fish sub with everything on it.

"I get the same thing every day," he says.