Italianate and Federal-style rowhomes constructed decades before and after the Civil War largely define this historic Southwest Baltimore neighborhood’s residential fabric. Large, gracefully restored three-story dwellings line Union Square Park and surrounding streets, while blocks of smaller rowhomes—erstwhile workforce housing for the railroad and factories—emanate in all directions. Neighbors boast of their community’s sense of safety, racial and cultural diversity, and easy access to downtown and highways.

Shop: Hollins Market’s new grocery stall fills a gap for fresh produce and household staples within walking distance, or you can go fill up a shopping cart at Jumbo Fresh Supermarket at Mount Clare Junction. A one-of-one stop for fashionable streetwear is City of Gods in Hollins Market, a fixture since 2009.

Dine: Hollins Market, just a few blocks east, is Southwest Baltimore’s foodie hub with staples including Neopol Smokery, French- inspired Rooted Rotisserie, Zella’s Pizzeria, and the Back Yard across from the B&O Railroad Museum. The market building itself is getting a makeover, with new food stalls forthcoming. Other choices include Jamaican (HeyDaddy’s), seafood (Sea Pride Crab House), and assorted pizza and chicken carryouts dotting West Baltimore and Pratt streets.

Play: The 2.5-acre Union Square Park features its signature Greek Revival Pavilion and fountain at center, built atop a natural spring in the 1840s and ’50s. The park is a regular gathering space for residents (dogs included) and serves as the community’s nucleus. Other play spaces nearby include Vincent Street Park (basketball court, playground) and 117-acre Carroll Park with its nine-hole golf course, skatepark, ballfields, and more.

Arts & Culture: Union Square’s annual holiday cookie tour draws visitors into the homes of proud residents every December (not to mention a new Christmas market, added to the mix just last year). The park often hosts concerts, including weekly jazz and the monthly Sunday Sounds in the Park series from April through October. Historical attractions include, among others, celebrated journalist H.L. Mencken’s house and museum on Hollins Street and the B&O Railroad Museum.

Neighbor Spotlight 

Debra Rahl, 70, and her husband, Francis, have lived in their Union Square rowhome for 45 years. Rahl was a founding member of Union Square’s famous cookie tours.

“My husband and I were looking to buy a house in the city back in 1979. We used to just drive around, and one night we happened to drive by Union Square and we thought, ‘Well, this is pretty, what park is this?’ Our real estate agent suggested we come look at this house on Stricker Street across from the park. We came over and fell in love with it.

“It’s a really diverse community age-wise, and everyone is included in events around the neighborhood. If our neighbors see my husband and me doing something stupid, like trying to carry something heavy into the house, they’re right there to help us.

“Same way with shoveling the snow. When we first moved in, we shoveled the snow for our elderly neighbors. Now when I look out the window, I see someone shoveling snow and I just tell my husband, ‘Step back, we’re the old people now.’ Everyone looks out for each other.”

Neighborhood Stats
Population: 1,011 Occupancy Rate: 75 percent Owner/Renter Split: 37 percent/63 percent Median Home Price: $244,950 Estimated Monthly Mortgage: $2,117 Estimated Rent: $1,081 Walk Score: 86 Bike Score: 57 Transit Score: 77

—Sources: Baltimore City Department of Planning; Live Baltimore 

“Before I moved away from Baltimore, I didn’t realize that other cities do not have their own enchanted rowhouses of puppetry,” joked musician Eric Voboril in a short documentary about Hollins Street’s Black Cherry Puppet Theater that came out several years ago.

Michael Lamason, Black Cherry’s 68-year-old executive director, had never attended a puppet show—much less performed with a marionette—when he founded the original troupe with Corliss Cavalieri, Bill Haas, Rick Weiss, and Michael Richardson in the summer of 1980. They were just college kids at MICA and needed jobs and got creative.

Hired by legendary recreation and parks director Virginia Baker, who had been appointed by Mayor William Donald Schaefer to direct a special office he named Adventures in Fun (can we bring that back?), the motley collection of printmakers and painters put on 107 shows for city kids over school break that year.

Decades before YouTube, they taught themselves how to build sets, props, and puppets from Pratt library books, earning $6 an hour for their troubles.

“A small fortune in those days,” Lamason says with a smile in the theater’s Geppetto-like workshop as he stands and manipulates the knees, elbows, and face of a Jack and the Beanstalk marionette he’s been working on. “We were up all night before our first performance, still making everything we needed. No rehearsal, I just went and did the show. I thought it was a mess, but you dance a marionette in front of an audience and nobody has a clue how you’re doing it. They just see you doing this magic on the stage and there’s a suspension of disbelief. They’re transfixed.”

Far from mere child’s play, the ancient Greeks interpreted the Iliad and the Odyssey with puppets. In the Middle Ages, string puppets were used to depict biblical stories, with the Virgin Mary often a central figure (marionette in French means “little Mary”). And in the 18th century, leading composers like Haydn created adult operas specifically for marionettes.

Now in its 45th year, the nonprofit Black Cherry theater has presented thousands of shows and workshops at schools and festivals throughout the city, state, and region. Housed across the street from historic Hollins Market in side-by-side rowhomes, purchased for a grand total of $12,000 in the mid-1990s when crack cocaine was tearing at the fabric of its Sowebo neighborhood, Black Cherry’s central mission—and Lamason’s, too—remains performance.

Its quarterly Puppet Slamwich series for adults features tales and marionettes; ventriloquist dolls; and finger, hand, sock, stick, and shadow puppets of every imaginable variety. The 50-seat black box theater also hosts a variety of musical guests throughout the year, from folk to jazz and classical performers.

The puppet slams, which attract a mix of artist applicants from near and far, always include a musical guest as well, selling out within days of their ticket release. At a recent Slamwich, for example, the first performer was Matt Muirhead, an artist better known for his sci-fi Baltimore landscapes. He used a sock monkey named “Holly” to help tell a nonlinear narrative against a scrolling backdrop that included several of his paintings.

Muirhead was followed by Carmen Houston-Ludlam, a 27-year-old woman from southern Anne Arundel County with Down syndrome, who performed a ventriloquist act with a mermaid, cracking up the crowd with her hand puppet’s irreverent jokes about its shoe fetish and waterbed.

Lindsey Ball, an artist and past National Puppetry Festival coordinator from Chicago, used a toy-sized theater, a crankie, shadow puppets, and recorded voice-over to share a moving personal story that also honored the struggles of those in the LGBTQ+ community who came before her.

“I’ve always wanted to come to Baltimore and be a part of a Black Cherry show,” Ball said later. “The city’s support here for such a labor of love is amazing.”

After intermission and a musical interlude from a banjo, fiddle, and guitar combo, Houston Ludlam, still in the sparkling black dress that she performed in, slid into a folding chair with some popcorn to watch the rest of the show alongside her parents. Seated next to her in the back row, an audience member quietly congratulated her on her flawless performance as the second half began.

“I’ve been practicing for three years, but only in front of my friends and family,” she whispered back, beaming. “This was my first time on stage. My knees were nervous when I started. But only my knees.”

LIVE
Named for its recently refreshed, Italianate-style market house dating back to 1838, Hollins Market is a shining example of the Baltimore rowhouse lifestyle, with tight-knit blocks, cozy and distinctive alley streets, and an alluring mix of walkability and a Main-Street feel. Low-scale rowhomes that were constructed densely for workers at nearby rail yards in the 19th century now house a diverse mix of residents spanning the generations, from legacy homeowners to young professionals and newer families.

SHOP
For snacks and quick essentials, small delis and convenience stores dot West Baltimore Street along the neighborhood’s northern edge. Just several blocks south of Hollins Market, the welcome arrival of Jumbo Fresh Supermarket at Mount Clare Junction this summer filled a void left by Price Rite’s departure in late 2022. The forthcoming grocery stall at the renovated market will only boost the fresh options available in the neighborhood.

DINE
Citywide-beloved spots in this enclave include Zella’s Pizzeria, a mainstay since 2007; Neopol Smokery, which arrived in the Lion Brothers Building on Hollins Street in 2021; and Rooted Rotisserie, a buzzing French-inspired eatery (the recent recipient of major TikTok acclaim) that debuted across from the market building in September 2023. Soon-to-be-completed stall renovations at the market will add options to the mix.

PLAY
Parks large and small offer choices for a quick stroll or a whole day outside, from Little Lithuania Park to the regal Union Square Park. Sprawling Carroll Park—with basketball courts, baseball and soccer fields, a skatepark, and nine-hole golf course—is just a little southwest of the neighborhood.

ARTS/CULTURE
Black Cherry Puppet Theater has been hosting live puppet shows and performances since 1980. Check out Carlton Street Stables on Sunday afternoons to learn about arabbers, the horsedrawn carriage vendors who sell fresh produce across the city. Families and train enthusiasts often flock to the historic B&O Railroad Museum on Pratt Street. Lithuanian heritage is also represented here, with Lithuanian Hall on Hollins Street providing gathering space for its community and hosting lively, late-night dance parties for all on the first Friday of every month.

NEIGHBOR SPOTLIGHT
Howard Hughes, 53, is a 25-year resident of Hollins Market and the vice president of the Hollins Roundhouse Neighborhood Association.

“I moved here to be closer to where I worked downtown at an investment banking firm. The house that I chose is something I fell in love with as soon as I walked in. It has the all-natural wainscoting and brick-face walls on one side and open-air stairs—it was a Baltimore house. And it was a great location where I felt right at home. You’re a 20-minute walk to everything: downtown, Lexington Market, the Inner Harbor, both stadiums.

I love my area, my neighbors, the houses. I’m a DMV guy—I’m from Prince George’s County—and when I came here looking at houses, I saw each block had its own different identity, and that’s what makes Baltimore and Hollins Market really great. It’s been my home for 25 years and I wouldn’t change it.”

NEIGHBORHOOD STATS
Population: 1,716. Occupancy Rate: 76 percent. Owner/Renter Split: 20 percent/80 percent. Median Home Purchase Price: $195,000. Estimated Monthly Mortgage: $1,685. Estimated Rent: $1,309. Walk Score: 91. Bike Score: 80. Transit Score: 91

Sources: Baltimore City Department of Planning, Live Baltimore

CHEAP DREAMS: I have lived here for about four years, starting out as a tenant. I loved it so much I managed to buy the whole building. This is the closest thing to me living my New York loft fantasy with less zeros in the price tag.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE: We hold the SoWeBo Arts and Music Festival here each year and we have a very active community association. We certainly have our issues, but I’ve found that this neighborhood has the strongest sense of community over any other place I have ever lived.

HEAVY LIFTING: I bought the motorcycle from a place in Staten Island. The original intent was to work on it during the winter and then be able to ride it in the summer. I had five friends help me carry it up the stairs, which was incredibly foolish. Now everyone refuses to ever touch it again so it’s been stuck in my apartment ever since.

LEFT HANGING: My family spends a lot of time in Mexico and my sister brought me back the hammock. All I really need is a palm tree and I’m set.

INTO THE BLUE: The blue sofa is one of the first pieces of furniture I ever bought when I got my first real job. I’ve been carrying it with me ever since. It’s nice to finally now have a space where it fits properly.

ACQUIRED TASTE: It took me quite a while to collect all of my artwork. I lived in Argentina for a while so some of it comes from there. Some of it comes from New York City, but much of it is from Baltimore, which has a lot of very talented artists and a fantastic art scene.

PICTURE PERFECT: My favorite piece is over in the dining area by a New York artist named John Copeland. Space wise, it was made for this apartment.

SHOP LOCAL: There are two local pieces I really love, one by Pablo Machioli, who is originally from South America, and some others by Bat Favitsou Boulandi.

HIDDEN GEM: I have many pieces from Umri Siki, the African art store on the ground floor of this building. It’s run by Robert Williams, who has amazing stuff from places like Congo and Benin.

SHELF LIFE: I knew I needed a bookcase and after thinking about it for over a year and having my books scattered all over the place, I had the metal framework manufactured down in Pigtown. I bought old planks of wood from Second Chance for the shelves and now I have a bookcase. I stained the wood to match the existing wood. What I like about it most is that it looks like it was always there.