Winthrop Square is a public square in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

. It is located in the city's financial district, in a small plot between Otis Street to the west and Devonshire Street to the east. It is three blocks south of the Old State House and two blocks west of Post Office Square.

Dedication

The square is named for

John Winthrop John Winthrop (January 12, 1587/88 – March 26, 1649) was an English Puritan lawyer and one of the leading figures in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the second major settlement in New England following Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led t ...

(1587/1588–1649), an English

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...

lawyer and one of the leading figures in founding the

Massachusetts Bay Colony The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as th ...

, the second major settlement in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

following

Plymouth Colony Plymouth Colony (sometimes Plimouth) was, from 1620 to 1691, the first permanent English colony in New England and the second permanent English colony in North America, after the Jamestown Colony. It was first settled by the passengers on the ...

."John Winthrop describes life in Boston, 1634"
– Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

Design

Situated in front of the 1873-constructed One Winthrop Square, the

columns A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression membe ...

on the building's façade were used as the inspiration for the square's paving pattern, which contains strips of

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies un ...

that "project in varied ways into the space to define entry, seating areas and diagonal circulation." A case study was undertaken in 2003 to determine whether the square and its two adjacent streets should be widened to make a better connection to Lincoln Street and improve the traffic flow from Devonshire Street to the South End.''The Limits of Power: Great Fires and the Process of City Growth in America, Christine Meisner Rosen (2003)

Businesses

The

Boston Flower Exchange The Boston Flower Exchange is a wholesale flower market located in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded as a marketplace that local growers could rent cooperatively to sell their products in a space more suited to their needs than Boston's historic H ...

, founded in 1892, opened a flower market at the corner of Otis Street and Winthrop Square in February 1913. They launched the new location, in what was known as the Wholesale Flower District, with a reception and flower show.

Newspapers and publishers

The Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'' had its Boston offices at 220 Devonshire Street in Winthrop Square in the 19th century. The magazine was established in the city in 1857.

James R. Osgood James Ripley Osgood (1836–1892) was an American publisher in Boston. He was involved with the publishing company that became Houghton Mifflin. Life and work James Ripley Osgood was born in Fryeburg, Maine, on February 22, 1836. A reputed child ...

and Company inherited ''The Atlantic Monthly'' and its office location. In 1878, publishers Houghton, Osgood and Company were based in the square. Robert Burns Winthrop Square

In early years of the 20th century, the

pressroom A newsroom is the central place where journalists—reporters, editing, editors, and Television producer, producers, associate producers, news anchors, news designers, photojournalists, videojournalists, associate editor, residence editor, visu ...

s of ''

Boston American The ''Boston American'' was a daily tabloid newspaper published in Boston, Massachusetts from March 21, 1904 until September 30, 1961. The newspaper was part of William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August ...

'' were located here.

Statue of Robert Burns

The square was home to a statue of Scottish poet

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...

for 44 years, having been moved from Boston's Back Bay Fens in 1975. It was returned to its original location in 2019.

References

External links

"Winthrop Square Boston skyscraper downsizes, switches to apartments, cuts affordable-housing cash"
– ''

Boston Herald The ''Boston Herald'' is an American daily newspaper whose primary market is Boston, Massachusetts, and its surrounding area. It was founded in 1846 and is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States. It has been awarded eight Puli ...

'', July 16, 2020 {{Streets and squares in Boston Landmarks in Financial District, Boston Squares in Boston