Named for the graceful park at its center, Union Square combines with the Hollins Market area as the Union Square-Hollins Market Historic District – designated a National Register Historic District in 1967. It is a diverse residential urban setting in SoWeBo (SouthWest Baltimore) – home to art galleries, studios, and spacious examples of traditional Baltimore rowhomes with Federal, Greek Revival, and Italianate architecture.
Hollins Market, built in 1838, is Baltimore’s oldest home to food merchants. Also in the Union Square Historic District, attractions include annual events such as the Union Square Christmas Cookie Tour and the Sowebo Arts, Inc. Sowebohemian Festival, plus the Black Cherry Puppet Theatre, the H. L. Mencken House, the Southwest Baltimore Charter School, the H. L. Mencken Memorial Fountain (1976), the Enoch Pratt Free Library No. 2 Branch (1886), and Union Square Park with its Greek Revival Pavilion (1847).
The District is bounded by South Fulton Street to the west and South Schroeder Street to the east, with north and south borders of West Baltimore and West Pratt Streets. The area is built on a grid street system which conforms to the original 1818 layout of the area. Located approximately ten blocks west of the Inner Harbor, other nearby sites of interest include Camden Yards, Ravens Stadium, the B&O Railroad Museum, the Lithuanian Hall, Carroll Park (and the Carroll Park Golf Course), the Mount Clare Museum House, the Babe Ruth Birthplace & Museum, the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum, the Irish Shrine and Railroad Workers Memorial Museum, the UMB BioPark, and the new Horseshoe Casino.