Copley Square , named for painter
John Singleton Copley
John Singleton Copley (July 3, 1738 – September 9, 1815) was an Anglo-American painter, active in both colonial America and England. He was probably born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Anglo-Irish. Afte ...
, is a public square in Boston's
Back Bay
Back Bay is an officially recognized neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, built on reclaimed land in the Charles River basin. Construction began in 1859, as the demand for luxury housing exceeded the availability in the city at the time, and t ...
neighborhood, bounded by
Boylston Street
Boylston Street is a major east–west thoroughfare in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. The street begins in Boston's Chinatown neighborhood, forms the southern border of the Boston Public Garden and Boston Common, runs through Back Bay, and e ...
, Clarendon Street, St. James Avenue, and Dartmouth Street. Prior to 1883 it was known as Art Square due to its many cultural institutions, some of which remain today. It was proposed as a
Boston Landmark
A Boston Landmark is a designation by the Boston Landmarks Commission for historic buildings and sites throughout the city of Boston based on the grounds that it has historical, social, cultural, architectural or aesthetic significance to New Engla ...
.
Architecture
Within the square are several architectural landmarks:
*
Old South Church (1873), by
Charles Amos Cummings
Charles Amos Cummings (June 26, 1833 – August 11, 1905) was a nineteenth-century American architect and architectural historian who worked primarily in the Venetian Gothic style. Cummings followed the precepts of British cultural theoris ...
and
Willard T. Sears
Willard Thomas Sears (November 5, 1837 – May 21, 1920) was a prominent New England architect of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who worked primarily in the Gothic Revival and Renaissance Revival styles.
In 1861, Sears opened ...
in the
Venetian Gothic Revival style
*
Trinity Church (1877,
Romanesque Revival
Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...
), considered
H. H. Richardson
Henry Hobson Richardson, FAIA (September 29, 1838 – April 27, 1886) was an American architect, best known for his work in a style that became known as Richardsonian Romanesque. Along with Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, Richardson is one ...
's ''tour de force''
*
Boston Public Library
The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also the Library for the Commonwealth (formerly ''library of last recourse'') of the Commonwea ...
(1895), by
Charles Follen McKim
Charles Follen McKim (August 24, 1847 – September 14, 1909) was an American Beaux-Arts architect of the late 19th century. Along with William Rutherford Mead and Stanford White, he provided the architectural expertise as a member of the partn ...
in a
revival of Italian Renaissance style, incorporates artworks by
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...
,
Edwin Austin Abbey
Edwin Austin Abbey (April 1, 1852August 1, 1911) was an American muralist, illustrator, and painter. He flourished at the beginning of what is now referred to as the "golden age" of illustration, and is best known for his drawings and paintings ...
,
Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French (April 20, 1850 – October 7, 1931) was an American sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, best known for his 1874 sculpture ''The Minute Man'' in Concord, Massachusetts, and his 1920 monume ...
, and others
* The
Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel (1912) by
Henry Janeway Hardenbergh
Henry Janeway Hardenbergh (February 6, 1847 – March 13, 1918) was an American architect, best known for his hotels and apartment buildings, and as a "master of a new building form — the skyscraper."
Life and career
Hardenbergh was born in ...
in the
Beaux-Arts style (on the site of the original
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...
)
*The
John Hancock Tower
200 Clarendon Street, previously John Hancock Tower and colloquially known as The Hancock, is a 60-story, skyscraper in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston. It is the tallest building in New England. The tower was designed by Henry N. Cobb of ...
(1976, late
Modernist
Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
) by
Henry N. Cobb
Henry Nichols Cobb (April 8, 1926 – March 2, 2020) was an American architect and founding partner with I.M. Pei and Eason H. Leonard of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, an international architectural firm based in New York City.
Early life
Henry N. ...
, at
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 ...
's tallest building
* The
BosTix Kiosk (1992,
Postmodernist
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
), at the corner of Dartmouth and Boylston streets, by
Graham Gund
Graham de Conde Gund is an American architect and the president of the Gund Partnership, an American architecture firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and founded by Gund in 1971. An heir to George Gund II, he is also a collector of contempo ...
with inspiration from Parisian park pavilions
Notable buildings later demolished:
* Peace Jubilee Coliseum (1869, demolished the same year) A temporary wooden structure, seating fifty thousand, was built on St. James Park for the 1869
National Peace Jubilee
The National Peace Jubilee was a celebration that commemorated the end of the American Civil War, organized by Patrick Gilmore in Boston from June 15-19, 1869. It featured an orchestra and a chorus, as well as numerous soloists. More than 11,000 p ...
. Replaced by
World's Peace Jubilee Coliseum (1872), which was replaced by the Museum of Fine Arts.
*
Second Church (1874, sold 1912, demolished by 1914) A
Gothic Revival
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
church by
N. J. Bradlee.
*
Chauncy Hall School (, demolished 1908), a tall-gabled High Victorian brick school building on Boylston St. near Dartmouth Street.
*
Museum of Fine Arts (1876, demolished 1910) by
John Hubbard Sturgis
John Hubbard Sturgis (August 5, 1834 – February 14, 1888)Boit, Robert Apthorp p. 207 was an American architect and builder who was active in the New England area during the late 19th century. His most prominent works included Codman House, Li ...
and
Charles Brigham
Charles Brigham (June 21, 1841 – July 1925) was an American architect based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Life
Brigham was born, raised, and educated in Watertown, Massachusetts schools and graduated at age 15 in 1856 in the first class of Wa ...
in the Gothic Revival style, was the first purpose-built public art museum in the world.
*
S.S. Pierce
Samuel Stillman Pierce (1807–1880) was a grocer in Boston, Massachusetts, who established the S.S. Pierce company in 1831.
Biography
Samuel Stillman Pierce was born in Cedar Grove, Dorchester, in 1807. In 1836, he married Ellen Maria Wallis. ...
Building, (1887, demolished 1958) by S. Edwin Tobey, "no masterpiece of architecture,
utgreat urban design. A heap of dark Romanesque masonry, it anchored a corner of Copley Square as solidly as a mountain."
* Hotel Westminster (1897, demolished 1961), Trinity Place, by Henry E. Cregier; now replaced by the northeast corner of the new John Hancock Tower. Razed in 1961 by owner
John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company for a parking lot.
*
Grundmann Studios
Grundmann Studios (1893–1917) in Boston, Massachusetts, was a building on Clarendon Street in the Back Bay. It contained artist's workspaces and multipurpose function rooms Copley Hall and Allston Hall. Prior to 1893, it functioned as a s ...
(1893, demolished 1917), home of the Boston Art Students Association (later known as the
Copley Society), contained artist studios and Copley Hall, a popular venue for exhibitions, lectures and social gatherings.
Public art
*
Statue of Phillips Brooks,
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (; March 1, 1848 – August 3, 1907) was an American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who embodied the ideals of the American Renaissance. From a French-Irish family, Saint-Gaudens was raised in New York City, he trave ...
(1907–1910)
* The
Kahlil Gibran
Gibran Khalil Gibran ( ar, جُبْرَان خَلِيل جُبْرَان, , , or , ; January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931), usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran (pronounced ), was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist ...
Memorial,
Kahlil Gibran
Gibran Khalil Gibran ( ar, جُبْرَان خَلِيل جُبْرَان, , , or , ; January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931), usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran (pronounced ), was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist ...
, nephew and godson of the poet (1977)
*
The Tortoise and the Hare
"The Tortoise and the Hare" is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 226 in the Perry Index. The account of a race between unequal partners has attracted conflicting interpretations. The fable itself is a variant of a common folktale theme in wh ...
,
Nancy Schön
Nancy Schön (born 1928) is a sculptor of public art displayed internationally. She is best known for her work in the Boston, Massachusetts area, notably her bronze duck and ducklings in the Boston Public Garden, a recreation of the duck famil ...
(1994)
* The Boston Marathon Centennial Monument, Mark Flannery (1994). Additions by Robert Shure and Robert Lamb (1996).
*
Statue of John Singleton Copley
A statue of painter John Singleton Copley by Lewis Cohen is installed in Boston's Copley Square, in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. The bronze sculpture was installed in 2002.
A booklet published by the Friends of Copley Square describes the pr ...
, Lewis Cohen (2002)
Public events
One of the most popular attractions in Copley Square is the Farmers Market, held Tuesdays and Fridays from May through November.
Annual events include
First Night
First Night is a North American artistic and cultural celebration on New Year's Eve, taking place from afternoon until midnight. Some cities have all their events during the celebration outside, but some cities have events that are hosted indoors ...
activities and ice sculpture competition, the Christmas tree lighting, the
Boston Book Festival, and, for several years, the Boston Summer Arts Weekend. The park's central location also makes it a natural gathering place for protests and vigils.
The water level in the fountain pool can be lowered, turning it into a stage for concerts and theatrical performances.
History
![Boston 1888 Sampson ArtSquare](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Boston_1888_Sampson_ArtSquare.jpg)
A significant number of important Boston educational and cultural institutions were originally located adjacent to (or very near) Copley Square, reflecting 19th-century Boston's aspirations for the location as a center of culture and progress.
These included
the
Museum of Fine Arts, the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
,
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...
, the
New England Museum of Natural History
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...
(today's Museum of Science),
Trinity Church, the
New Old South Church
Old South Church in Boston, Massachusetts, (also known as New Old South Church or Third Church) is a historic United Church of Christ congregation first organized in 1669. Its present building was designed in the Gothic Revival style by Charl ...
, the
Boston Public Library
The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also the Library for the Commonwealth (formerly ''library of last recourse'') of the Commonwea ...
, the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
, the Massachusetts Normal Art School (today's
Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Massachusetts College of Art and Design, branded as MassArt, is a public college of visual and applied art in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1873, it is one of the nation’s oldest art schools, the only publicly funded independent art school ...
), the Horace Mann School for the Deaf,
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
,
Emerson College
Emerson College is a private college with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts. It also maintains campuses in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California and Well, Limburg, Netherlands ( Kasteel Well). Founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as a ...
, and
Northeastern University
Northeastern University (NU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston. Established in 1898, the university offers undergraduate and graduate programs on its main campus as well as satellite campuses in ...
.
By 1876, with the completion of the Museum of Fine Arts,
Walter Muir Whitehill
Walter Muir Whitehill (1905 – 1978) was an American writer, historian, medievalist, and the Director and Librarian of the Boston Athenaeum from 1946 to 1973.Current biography yearbook H.W. Wilson Company - 1961 "The only child of the Reverend Wal ...
noted that "Copley Square which unlike the rest of the Back Bay had never been properly or reasonably laid out, was beginning to stumble into shape". But the land comprising the current square, bisected diagonally by Huntington Avenue, was still available for commercial development. The city purchased the larger triangle, then known as Art Square, in 1883 and dubbed it Copley Square. The smaller plot, known as Trinity Triangle, was the subject of several lawsuits against the property owner, who planned to put up a six-story apartment building directly in front of Trinity Church. Foundations were laid but further construction was delayed by various injunctions. The city council appropriated funds for purchase of the triangle in 1885. Calls to close off Huntington between Dartmouth and Boylston streets began almost immediately, but that was not accomplished until 1968.
![Copley Square fountain c1970](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Copley_Square_fountain_c1970.jpg)
In 1966, a proposal by the Watertown, Massachusetts, landscape design firm
Sasaki, Dawson, DeMay was selected from 188 entrants in a national competition sponsored by the city and private development concerns. The design centered on a sunken terraced plaza, intended to separate the pedestrian from the noise and bustle of the surrounding streets, but it also isolated the square from the community. As the architecture critic
Robert Campbell noted, "From the day it opened, it didn't work".
In 1983 the Copley Square Centennial Committee, consisting of representatives of business, civic and residential interests, was formed. They announced a new design competition, funded by a grant of $100,000 from the
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
. The winner, announced in May, 1984, was Dean Abbott of the New York firm Clarke & Rapuano. The park was raised to street-level and a lawn and planting beds were added. The fountain, which had rarely functioned as intended, was re-configured. The updated park was dedicated on June 18, 1989, and received mixed reviews.
By 2021 the park, now heavily used, was again in need of redesign; requirements included alleviating stress on existing trees, adding more trees, making the fountain safer, and prioritizing ease of maintenance. After a series of public meetings, the final proposal by Sasaki Associates was presented to the city in May, 2022.
The non-profit membership organization Friends of Copley Square was formed in 1992 as a successor to the Copley Square Centennial Committee. It raises funds for care of the square's plantings, fountain, and monuments, and also manages the Copley Square Charitable trust.
The
Boston Marathon
The Boston Marathon is an annual marathon race hosted by several cities and towns in greater Boston in eastern Massachusetts, United States. It is traditionally held on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897, the event was i ...
foot race has finished at Copley Square since 1986. A memorial celebrating the race's 100th running (in 1996) is located in the park, near the corner of Boylston and Dartmouth streets.
Boston Marathon bombing
On April 15, 2013, around 2:50 pm (about three hours after the first runners crossed the line) two bombs explodedone near the finish line near the Boston Public Library, the other some seconds later and one block west. Three people were killed and at least 183 injured, at least 14 of whom lost limbs.
Unrealized projects
![Copley Square map 1874](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Copley_Square_map_1874.png)
* 1874 A surveyor's map shows a "Chemical School, Inst. Tech." (never built) and four house lots on the larger triangle.
* 1894 A circular, sunken garden combining designs by
Rotch & Tilden
Rotch & Tilden was an American architectural firm active in Boston, Massachusetts from 1880 through 1895.
The firm was organized by partners Arthur Rotch and George Thomas Tilden. Both had studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology an ...
and
Walker and Kimball, ringed with trees and marble balustrades, centered on a small fountain.
* 1912 A plan by architect Frank Bourne eliminated the Huntington Avenue crossing and sunk the square 2.5 feet below street level. One version featured an enormous monumental column in the center of the plaza.
* 1914 Landscape architect
Arthur Shurtleff Arthur Asahel Shurcliff (1870–1957) was a noted American landscape architect. Born Arthur Asahel Shurtleff, he changed his last name in 1930 in order, he said, to conform to the "ancient spelling of the family name". After over 30 years of succes ...
envisioned a circle of trees around the
Brewer Fountain, which would be moved from
Boston Common
The Boston Common (also known as the Common) is a public park in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest city park in the United States. Boston Common consists of of land bounded by Tremont Street (139 Tremont St.), Park Street, Beacon ...
.
* 1927 A proposal for a State War Memorial, from plans by
Guy Lowell
Guy Lowell (August 6, 1870 – February 4, 1927), was an American architect and landscape architect.
Biography
Born in Boston, Lowell was the son of Mary Walcott (Goodrich) and Edward Jackson Lowell, and a member of Boston's well-known Lowe ...
, placed a large, cylindrical granite structure in a basin. The inner chamber rose fifty feet to a domed ceiling and the memorial was topped with bronze representation of ''Hope''.
* 2012 A juried competition held by SHIFTBoston invited designs for creative illumination. First prize was awarded to the firm Khoury Levit Fong for their conceptual chandelier of LEDs suspended over the square.
Transportation
Copley is served by several forms of public transportation:
*
Copley Station on the
MBTA Green Line
The Green Line is a light rail system run by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) in the Boston, Massachusetts, metropolitan area. It is the oldest MBTA subway line, and with tunnel sections dating from 1897, the oldest subway ...
* Several
MBTA bus
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) operates List of MBTA bus routes, 170 bus routes in the Greater Boston area. The MBTA has a policy objective to provide transit service within walking distance (defined as ) for all residents ...
routes; the square is a major transfer point and terminal for several local and express routes
*
Logan Express
The Logan Express is an airport bus shuttle which operates between Boston Logan International Airport and Massachusetts suburbs. The service, which is funded by Massport, consists of five routes that run between all of Logan Airport's terminals ...
to
Logan International Airport
General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport , also known as Boston Logan International Airport and commonly as Boston Logan, Logan Airport or simply Logan, is an international airport that is located mostly in East Boston and partially ...
* Nearby
Back Bay station
Back Bay station (also signed as Back Bay · South End) is an intermodal passenger station in Boston, Massachusetts. It is located just south of Copley Square in Boston's Back Bay and South End neighborhoods. It serves MBTA Commuter Rail and M ...
for
MBTA Orange Line
The Orange Line is a rapid transit line operated by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) as part of the MBTA subway system. The line runs south on the surface from Oak Grove station in Malden, Massachusetts through Malden and Me ...
,
MBTA Commuter Rail
The MBTA Commuter Rail system serves as the commuter rail arm of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's transportation coverage of Greater Boston in the United States. Trains run over of track to 141 different stations, with 58 statio ...
, and
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...
Major roads:
*
Massachusetts Turnpike
The Massachusetts Turnpike (colloquially "Mass Pike" or "the Pike") is a toll highway in the US state of Massachusetts that is maintained by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT). The turnpike begins at the New York state li ...
*
Boylston Street
Boylston Street is a major east–west thoroughfare in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. The street begins in Boston's Chinatown neighborhood, forms the southern border of the Boston Public Garden and Boston Common, runs through Back Bay, and e ...
Notes
References
Sources
*
*
*
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*Shand-Tucci, Douglass. "The Gods of Copley Square: Dawn of the Modern American Experience, 1865-1915", www.backbayhistorical.org/Blog, 2009. All chapters archived a
Open Letters Monthly
*Shand-Tucci, Douglass. "Renaissance Rome and Emersonian Boston: Michelangelo and Sargent, between Triumph and Doubt", Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2002, 995–1008.
*
External links
Copley Square Farmers' Market siteFriends of Copley Square* A history of public transportation around and through Copley Square
View of Copley Square, 1974Photograph by Nicholas Nixon of the first iteration of the plaza with the John Hancock building in its "plywood palace" phase.
{{Authority control
Culture of Boston
Squares in Boston