Hollins

On November 4, 2003, WILLIAM JOHN HOLLINS; devoted father of Michael S. Hollins, Beverly J. Redford, Douglas A. Hollins and Sharon L. Early; dear brother of Louise VanLeeuwen, Ruth Bly and Edwin Hollins. Also survived by ten grandchildren. Friends may call at the family owned Ruck Towson Funeral Home, Inc., 1050 York Road (beltway exit 26A), on Wednesday, from 7 to 9 P.M., and Thursday, 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. A Funeral Service will be held in the Epiphany Episcopal Church, on Friday, at 1 P.M. Interment Garrison Forest Veterans Cemetery.

Two men were shot in separate incidents Sunday in Baltimore, police said, and both were expected to survive their injuries. In the first incident, a man was shot in the leg in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Baltimore on Sunday afternoon, police said. He was shot in the 3900 block of 8th street about 1:50 p.m. In the second incident, in the Hollins Market neighborhood, police responded to the 1200 block of West Lombard Street about 8:15 p.m. for a report of a shooting. They found a man suffering from a gunshot wound to his leg. He was taken to a local hospital.

On Saturday, February 22, 2003; BERNICE HOLLINS PACKER. Beloved wife of the late Harold P. Packer; devoted sister of the late Stanley M. Hollins; loving aunt of Marguerite H. Modan and her husband Michael; cherished great-aunt of Gabriella and Jonathan Modan; dearest cousin of Betty H. Lawrence. Family will receive friends on Friday, February 28 at 10 AM at Sol Levinson and Bros, Inc. Interment Service to follow at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation Cemetery. There will be no visiting hours.

After two years, the original owners of Zella's Pizzeria on Hollins Street are coming back. Julie Ernst and Cem Ari opened Zella's in 2007. It found a loyal following and helped to anchor the struggling Hollins Market neighborhood. They sold the business in 2010, but it floundered without them and eventually closed. In 2011, Ernst and Ari opened Toss , a pizzeria near the Senator Theatre in Rosebank, where they reunited with some of their old patrons, who encouraged them to return to Hollins Market.

In the area around Hollins Market in West Baltimore, more than 50 restored town houses used as rental housing have been put up for sale, at prices ranging from $60,000 to $120,000.Known as the Hollins Townhouses, the 54 historic properties represent one of the largest single groups of rehabilitated residences ever to go on the market at one time near Hollins Market and Union Square.With state funding assistance that enables them to be sold for little or no down payment and at below-market interest rates, they also represent an opportunity for renters to become first-time buyers.

Flora L. Hollins, former co-owner of an Eastern Shore department store and retired executive secretary, died of complications from a stroke Sunday at Consulate Health Care Center in Sarasota, Fla. She was 92. The former Flora Lebowich was born in Baltimore and raised on Pennsylvania Avenue. After graduating from Western High School in 1930, she worked as a stenographer and secretary for United Telegraph. She was married in 1938 to Morton I. Hollins, and together they owned I. Hollins Department Store in Millington, Kent County.

When they bought their $82,000 home near Hollins Market three years ago, Tamara and Nathan Schoffer thought they were getting in on the ground floor of an urban neighborhood renaissance.Late last month, as they prepared to pack up their belongings into a U-Haul truck bound for New Jersey, Ms. Schoffer lamented that their home purchased through a state-backed program "has been such a disaster."The Schoffers said fleeing the neighborhood was their only recourse after house prices plummeted when the state foreclosed in July on 80 townhouses and apartments owned by New York developer Howard Loewentheil, a principal of the Hollins Townhouses and Market Mews limited partnerships.

The Hollins Market district in southwest Baltimore looks like an Aaron Sopher ink sketch from the 1940s. On a Saturday morning, produce vendors dip into wooden crates to sell their wares at Lombard Street and Carrollton Avenue. Women and their children and grandchildren emerge from the old market building with bulging shopping bags full of such items as tripe, sweet potatoes and chicken wings.The scent of fresh baked rye bread permeates the area.Generations who grew up in the Hollins Street neighborhood -- in the old parishes of St. Peter the Apostle, 14 Holy Martyrs, St. Luke's Carey Street and St. Martin's -- still return to the market for shopping even though they now live in Columbia, Ellicott City and Catonsville.

Thirty-seven tenants who were burned out of the Hollins Street Exchange in Southwest Baltimore last fall have sued their former landlords for $4.8 million, claiming they rented the building without any permits that could have ensured the building's safety.Lawyers for the former tenants filed the suit yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court against landlords Alvin and Cary Blank and their company, Hollins Street Investment Associates, owners the seven-story building that burned Nov. 10.The suit also names the owners and former operator of a vacant building on Landwehr Lane, where the fire began across the street from Hollins Street Exchange.

An article in the Maryland section Tuesday incorrectly stated that there are no nonchain restaurants within walking distance of Baltimore's Union Square and Sowebo neighborhoods. Two that remain open are Glen & Nan's Beer Garden Cafe at 1101 Hollins St. and Sushi Cafe at 1120 Hollins St.The Sun regrets the errors.Sixteen months after the H. L. Mencken House closed to the public, another Southwest Baltimore attraction bearing the writer's name has shut down.Short of money and customers, owners of Mencken's Cultured Pearl Cafe closed the restaurant permanently Saturday.

The original owners of Zella's Pizzeria on Hollins Street are coming back. Julie Ernst and Cem Ari opened Zella's in 2007. It found a loyal following and helped to anchor the struggling neighborhood. They sold the business in 2010, but it floundered without them and eventually closed. Meanwhile, Julie Ernst and Cem Ari opened Toss, a pizzeria near the Senator Theatre in Rosebank, where they reunited with some of their old patrons, who encouraged them to return to Hollins Market.

There are signs of renewal around Hollins Market, the west-side neighborhood whose fortunes have flowed and ebbed over the past few decades. The old Mencken's Cultured Pearl space on Hollins Street might be getting a new tenant soon. The Cultured Pearl flourished in the early 1990s, the neighborhood's heyday, and finally closed in 1998, after the demise of Gypsy's Cafe, the Market Cafe and the Tell Tale Hearth. In 2008, a Hollins Market booster opened Baltimore Pho in the Cultured Pearl space, in an effort, he said, to bring activity and interest back to the neighborhood.

About 15 vehicles driving on the inner loop of Interstate 695 in southwestern Baltimore County were damaged Monday night after hundreds of rocks from a railroad overpass fell onto the busy highway, according to Maryland State Police. No injuries were reported, but vehicles were damaged with dents, scratches and cracked windshields, police said. Police began receiving reports from motorists just before 7 p.m. that rocks were falling from the Hollins Ferry railroad overpass. Officials from the State Highway Administration responded to the scene and helped clear rocks from I-695, which was temporarily closed.

John Houser III reviews Patrick's of Pratt Street, which claims to be the United States oldest Irishpub still in existence. Patrick's of Pratt Street was founded was established by the great great-uncle of its current owners in 1847 and has been in its current location since 1862. It has been in more or less continuous use as a public bar or tavern since. However, it has not always been called Patrick's of Pratt Street and for much of the time was not an Irish bar. Still. When I checked into this claim eight years ago, I could find no Irish bar in America with a convincing claim otherwise.  McSorley's in New York, in case you were wondering, was established in 1852.

He was shielded from the afternoon sun by the awning that covered his booth, but the bright mood emanating from Larry Stevens was hard to miss. An artist who grew up in Baltimore, Stevens was so busy selling prints of his colorful cityscapes he barely had time to talk Sunday — until it came time to discuss the bustling SoWeBo Arts and Music Festival that was unfolding all around him, the 26th in a row to be held in the Hollins Market neighborhood on...

News of a closing is easier to swallow when it arrives with news of an opening. A new pub named Cockey's Tavern at Hollins is set to open as soon as Aug. 6 in the space that was the charming Vietnamese restaurant Baltimore Pho , which closed July 24. Jim Collins, the man who opened Baltimore Pho, was always open about his intentions. Not a restaurateur by trade, Collins is both a resident of and a developer in Hollins Market. Opening a restaurant in the long abandoned Cultured Pearl space was his way of bringing activity and interest back to the neighborhood.

Ten hours after the fire started at the Hollins Street Exchange yesterday, the smoke lingered up a trash-strewn block of Hollins Street over Adell Redden's gardens of collard greens and sweet potatoes.The former president of Boyd-Booth Concerned Citizens Inc. had been up all night at her house, two blocks from the 11-alarm fire, where she listened to sirens and watched the flames and smoke.By morning, two homeless men knocked on her door for breakfast.They had been living in the vacant building where the fire started, then spread across the street and destroyed the seven-story, brick Hollins Street Exchange, where artists, furniture makers and musicians worked and lived.

Baltimore will receive less than 50 cents on the dollar for $266,666 in city loans to the owners of the burned-out Hollins Street Exchange and assurance that the owners will raze the building under an agreement approved yesterday by the Board of Estimates.Under the agreement, the city will receive $50,000 now from the Hollins Street Exchange Limited Partnership -- and either another $50,000 in a year or $75,000 in 18 months.The owners also will use $80,000 from fire insurance and any other funds needed to tear the building down, according to the agreement.

Police were investigating two serious shootings Monday. An adult man was taken to a local hospital in critical condition after being found late Sunday in the 800 block of W. Lombard St., in the Hollins Market neighborhood, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, police said. At last update, he remained in critical condition. On Monday afternoon, officers were called to the area of New Hope Circle and North Aisquith Street, in the Pleasant View Gardens neighborhood, for a report of an adult man who had been shot in the head.

The colorful murals on the side of the Hollins Street Market glittered in the afternoon sun as small knots of middle school students and their teachers walked up and down the street looking astonished at the art they had created. Seven murals made by Baltimore City and Baltimore County public school students had been inserted into the large arches, an art project that celebrates the neighborhood's rich history and the creativity of children unfamiliar with Union Square or Hollins Market.