Washington Square, originally designated in 1682 as Southeast Square, is a open-space

park A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...

in Center City,

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, The southeast quadrant and one of the five original planned

squares In geometry, a square is a regular polygon, regular quadrilateral. It has four straight sides of equal length and four equal angles. Squares are special cases of rectangles, which have four equal angles, and of rhombuses, which have four equal si ...

laid out on the city grid by

William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer, religious thinker, and influential Quakers, Quaker who founded the Province of Pennsylvania during the British colonization of the Americas, British colonial era. An advocate of democracy and religi ...

's surveyor,

Thomas Holme Thomas Holme (1624–1695) was the first surveyor general of the colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania. He laid out the first and original plan for the city of Philadelphia. Holme was a member of the Valiant Sixty, a group of early leaders and ...

. It is part of both the Washington Square West and Society Hill neighborhoods. In 2005, the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

took over ownership and management of Washington Square, through an easement from the City of Philadelphia. It is now part of

Independence National Historical Park Independence National Historical Park is a federally protected historic district in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that preserves several sites associated with the American Revolution and the nation's founding history. Administered by the National ...

History

By the early 18th century the square started being used as a burial ground.UShistory.org page on Washington Square
/ref> Originally divided into triangles by two creeks, the northwestern portion was the potter's field, and the southeastern section was for the burial of Catholics. The joining of the creeks created a fishing pond, and the grounds were commonly used for grazing by neighbors' cows. In 1776, it became the final resting place for Washington's fallen soldiers. Long mass grave trenches the width of the square were first dug along 7th and Walnut Streets, and were eventually expanded to the South side. And during the British occupation of Philadelphia in 1777, the dead from the neighboring Walnut Street Jail were also interred here. Many victims of the city's yellow fever epidemic of 1793 were interred here, and the square was also used for cattle markets and camp meetings. The square was closed as a cemetery, and improvement efforts began in 1815, as the neighborhoods around the square were developed and became fashionable. In 1825, the park was named Washington Square in tribute to

George Washington George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...

and a monument to Washington was proposed. This monument was never built but served as the seed for the eventual tribute to soldiers of the Revolutionary War. The periphery of Washington Square included an area called Lawyer's Row at 6th and Walnut, on the site of the former Walnut Street Prison. Around the square was also home to the city's publishing industry, including the Curtis Publishing Company, J. B. Lippincott, W. B. Saunders, Lea & Febiger, the Farm Journal, and George T. Bisel Co., law publishers, now the sole remaining publishing house on the square, with Franklin Jon Zuch serving as president since 1992. It has been located there since 1876 and still owned by the Bisel family.

American Civil War

Initially, the square contained monuments to those who had fought in the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. One such monument was the Washington Grays Monument. In 1954, the decision was made to remove the civil war commemorations and focus the square solely on the memory of the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldier

In 1954, the Washington Square Planning Committee decided that, instead of the original proposed monument to Washington, a monument to all soldiers and sailors of the Revolutionary War would be built."Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary Soldier"
on USHistory.org The monument, designated the "Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldier", was designed by architect G. Edwin Brumbaugh and includes a bronze cast of Houdon's statue of Washington as the monument's centerpiece. The Tomb includes remains which were disinterred, after archeological examination, from within the park from when it was a cemetery. The remains are that of a soldier, but it is uncertain if he was Colonial or British. An unknown number of bodies remain buried beneath the square and the surrounding area; some are still occasionally found during construction and maintenance projects.

Moon Tree

sycamore Sycamore is a name which has been applied to several types of trees, but with somewhat similar leaf forms. The name derives from the Ancient Greek () meaning . Species of otherwise unrelated trees known as sycamore: * ''Acer pseudoplatanus'', a ...

Moon tree in the square, planted in 1975, was grown from seeds that had been carried to the Moon by astronaut

Stuart Roosa Stuart Allen Roosa (August 16, 1933 – December 12, 1994) was an American aeronautical engineer, smokejumper, United States Air Force pilot, test pilot, and NASA astronaut, who was the Command Module Pilot for the Apollo 14 mission. The mis ...

on the

Apollo 14 Apollo 14 (January 31February 9, 1971) was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, the third to Moon landing, land on the Moon, and the first to land in the Geology of the Moon#Highlands, lunar highlands. It was the las ...

mission. The Moon tree died in 2009 and was replaced with a clone in 2011, which had also died as of November 2019, leaving the plaque about the Moon tree in place.Atlas Obscura
/ref>

In popular culture

The

pop-punk Pop-punk (also punk-pop, alternatively spelled without the hyphen) is a rock music fusion genre that combines elements of punk rock with power pop or pop music, pop. It is defined by its fast-paced, energetic tempos, and emphasis on classic pop s ...

group

The Wonder Years ''The Wonder Years'' is an American coming-of-age comedy television series created by Neal Marlens and Carol Black. It ran on ABC from January 31, 1988, until May 12, 1993. The series premiered immediately after ABC's coverage of Super Bowl X ...

wrote about Washington Square in their song "Washington Square Park", from their album '' The Upsides''.

References

Notes

External links

Washington Square
- Independence National Park, National Park Service
Philadelphia.gov website
* {{Authority control Historic American Buildings Survey in Philadelphia Independence National Historical Park National Register of Historic Places in Philadelphia Parks in Philadelphia Parks on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Society Hill, Philadelphia Walnut Street (Philadelphia) Washington Square West, Philadelphia