Union Square

An unidentified man was shot last night outside a house in Baltimore's Union Square neighborhood and died a short time later at Maryland Shock Trauma Center, city police said. Southern District officers responding to reported gunfire in the 100 block of S. Mount St. about 7:30 p.m. found the victim lying on the ground bleeding from gunshot wounds to the neck and back, police said. Police are also investigated the death Wednesday evening of another unidentified man who was found with an apparent gunshot wound in a dilapidated rowhouse in the Barclay neighborhood, a department spokeswoman said.

A 47-year-old man died Sunday after he was stabbed near the corner of West Lombard Street and South Calhoun Street in Baltimore's Union Square neighborhood, according to city police. Det. Kevin Brown said officers were called to the intersection around 3:10 p.m. Sunday and found a man with a stab wound to the leg. According to Brown, the victim was transported to University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he died of his wounds soon afterward. Brown said the man's identity has not been released, pending notification of family.

A 150-year-old Union Square townhouse used this summer in the movie "Washington Square" has sold for $174,000 -- complete with landscaping installed for the film.The buyers, Charlene Henry and Rebecca Henderson, moved from Bolton Hill to the 5,000-square-foot house in the 1400 block of Hollins St. in H. L. Mencken's old neighborhood.Jack and Duane Chadwick had owned the home for 11 years. They moved to a cooperative apartment on North Charles Street.The movie is an adaptation of a Henry James short story.

Chris Taylor peered down the street at the house. It was a vacant. And it was a problem. He'd been getting calls for weeks about this property, about the teenagers hanging out there, the drug dealing and prostitution. He dialed a number, placed his cell phone against his ear, and began walking around the side of the building toward the alley. As Taylor's phone connected to the person on the other end, he saw a door open. A young man walked out and pulled his hoodie over his head, casting a shadow on his face.

Someday, if I live long enough, I know I am going to turn on my television set and see a Latino leading lady in a sitcom who is not one more variation on the very old and extra-stupid "hot" and "spicy" stereotype.But it won't be tonight with the debut of "Union Square" on NBC, starring Constance Marie as aspiring actress Gabriella Diaz. The NBC press kit itself describes "Gaby" as: "Extra Hot! She's a spicy Texan blend of fresh attitude and feisty spirit."Why didn't they take it one step further into dumb and call her "a Charo for the '90s"?

At least seven people, several of them children, escaped a burning rowhouse in Baltimore's Union Square neighborhood yesterday morning. Three people suffered injuries and were treated at Johns Hopkins Hospital and the University of Maryland Medical Center. Chief Kevin Cartwright, a Fire Department spokesman, said firefighters were called to the 1400 block of W. Pratt St. about 10 a.m. and found fire on the second and third floors of a three-story brick rowhouse. The spokesman said the house was occupied by a woman and at least six children and young adults.

The front of the red-brick house facing Baltimore's Union Square Park has a familiar look. The exterior of the home, with white marble steps and 9-foot-tall windows, appeared in the 1997 movie Washington Square, an adaptation of the Henry James short novel. James wrote his story in 1880. The house, in the Union Square Historic District where the park and its environs were stand-ins for the New York neighborhood of the movie, dates to 1870. Inside, the Italianate-style home's first-floor ceilings are 13 feet high and adorned by large, decorative moldings.

It's not hard to look across the deep green grass to the turn-of-the-century brick and brownstone town houses of Union Square and imagine horse-drawn carriages where the cars are. And if you squint hard, you can almost see women in long hoopskirts strolling arm and arm with their beaux.But this Saturday you won't have to be squinting much at all to turn the clock back when the residents of neighborhood will be sponsoring the Union Square Victorian Festival from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.This year's festival will be different from the neighborhood festivals that have been held in the square during the past few years, which were more like carnivals with rides and gambling.

For years, some Union Square residents have felt that their labors to preserve one of the city's most historic neighborhoods went unappreciated by much of the public.But recently those feelings have been replaced by the warm glow that comes from being recognized by Hollywood.Union Square's red-brick townhouses take on a storybook quality in the new movie, "Washington Square." The New York Times' review of the film praised Union Square's portrayal of the downtown Manhattan neighborhood of the movie's title.

Named for its two dominant old features, the Union Square-Hollins Market Historic District is known for the shady park across the street from H.L. Mencken's home as well as the oldest public market building in Baltimore that is still in use. These days, the community, which lies less than a mile from Camden Yards and has easy access to major roads, is diverse ethnically, in age, by income and by occupation. Its wide streets are lined with brick homes of varying sizes dating mostly from the mid-to-late 1800s, many retaining original decorative architecture.

Prosecutors have dropped charges against a community leader who was arrested and given a citation for impeding a police investigation. Chris Taylor, 33, president of the Union Square community association, was arrested Dec. 3 after police said he interfered with an investigation into an alleged sex crime involving a teenage girl, who ran down the street and asked Taylor to call 911. Critics said the case was a clear incident of overly aggressive...

The front of the red-brick house facing Baltimore's Union Square Park has a familiar look. The exterior of the home, with white marble steps and 9-foot-tall windows, appeared in the 1997 movie Washington Square, an adaptation of the Henry James short novel. James wrote his story in 1880. The house, in the Union Square Historic District where the park and its environs were stand-ins for the New York neighborhood of the movie, dates to 1870. Inside, the Italianate-style home's first-floor ceilings are 13 feet high and adorned by large, decorative moldings.

Named for its two dominant old features, the Union Square-Hollins Market Historic District is known for the shady park across the street from H.L. Mencken's home as well as the oldest public market building in Baltimore that is still in use. These days, the community, which lies less than a mile from Camden Yards and has easy access to major roads, is diverse ethnically, in age, by income and by occupation. Its wide streets are lined with brick homes of varying sizes dating mostly from the mid-to-late 1800s, many retaining original decorative architecture.

Were it not for the Christmas Cookie Tour, Phyllis McKeen said she might never have moved to Union Square in 1985. She was relocating from New York City and fell in love with a park-front rowhouse on South Stricker Street. And she adored her would-be neighbors, including the Rahl family just a few doors down. Yesterday, 22 years after the first tour, more than 200 people stopped by the Rahls' house and about two dozen others to nibble cookies while admiring some of the city's most ornate homes.

Across from the rowhouse where writer H.L. Mencken once lived, a fountain in the middle of Union Square memorializes "The Sage of Baltimore." But it's in disrepair. The water has not flowed for years. Some of the cherub-like figures cavorting about the fountain's top are missing limbs. And of the 33 bronzed depictions of Mencken books dedicated to fountain donors that once dotted the granite seating circle, three are missing and several more are damaged. In early May, the Union Square Association voted to replace the fountain as part of a revitalization project.

An unidentified man was shot last night outside a house in Baltimore's Union Square neighborhood and died a short time later at Maryland Shock Trauma Center, city police said. Southern District officers responding to reported gunfire in the 100 block of S. Mount St. about 7:30 p.m. found the victim lying on the ground bleeding from gunshot wounds to the neck and back, police said. Police are also investigated the death Wednesday evening of another unidentified man who was found with an apparent gunshot wound in a dilapidated rowhouse in the Barclay neighborhood, a department spokeswoman said.

Were it not for the Christmas Cookie Tour, Phyllis McKeen said she might never have moved to Union Square in 1985. She was relocating from New York City and fell in love with a park-front rowhouse on South Stricker Street. And she adored her would-be neighbors, including the Rahl family just a few doors down. Yesterday, 22 years after the first tour, more than 200 people stopped by the Rahls' house and about two dozen others to nibble cookies while admiring some of the city's most ornate homes.

"Phenomenal houses," says John Scott, when asked what lures people to Union Square in West Baltimore. "You just can't beat the housing here, not for the price."Thirteen years ago, Mr. Scott decided to move from Towson into the city in search of a livelier neighborhood within walking distance of the Inner Harbor.He looked elsewhere but bought in Union Square, a close-knit neighborhood 10 blocks west of Martin Luther King Boulevard, because he found a 12-room, Victorian rowhouse for $43,000.

At least seven people, several of them children, escaped a burning rowhouse in Baltimore's Union Square neighborhood yesterday morning. Three people suffered injuries and were treated at Johns Hopkins Hospital and the University of Maryland Medical Center. Chief Kevin Cartwright, a Fire Department spokesman, said firefighters were called to the 1400 block of W. Pratt St. about 10 a.m. and found fire on the second and third floors of a three-story brick rowhouse. The spokesman said the house was occupied by a woman and at least six children and young adults.