Union Square

<p><strong>“The year it was even had a lovely ring to it. Nineteen fifty-two. The war and all it was over. Things were going to get better and better.”</strong> In the Union Square neighborhood of southwest Baltimore 1952 will in fact mark the beginning of what will come to be known as The Great Decline. Grand three-story row houses old money and stature frame the setting for descendants of European immigrants and slaves who exist side-by-side.</p><p>But in a community already marked by violence alcoholism and lurking poverty young Irish boxer Paddy Dolan personifies the shadow that lies over much of a city where religious tensions racial hatred and sexual violence work to make monsters.</p><p>A tale of damnation and redemption the sacred and the profane <em>Union Square</em> is also a story of deep humor and characters who will not soon be forgotten.</p>