Over the years, Copley Square has worn a number of different looks. The square, “…has long been one of the glories in Boston,” said William Young, Senior Preservation Planner for the City of Boston’s Back Bay Architectural Commission. “It was especially glorious in the days of the original Museum of Fine Arts.” Until 1909, the museum was housed in an 1886 Gothic Revival building that stood where the Copley Plaza Hotel is today.
The Copley Triangle
An atlas from 1874 shows a school and four lots on the triangle where Huntington Avenue intersected Boylston Street. By 1883, the Bromley Atlas showed the same triangle as Copley Square.
That traffic configuration remained in place until the “urban renewal” of the area in 1966. Then a square, mostly-paved park, recessed almost 12 feet below the surrounding sidewalks was created. A cone-shaped fountain, located where a different fountain is today, was a popular climbing spot for adventurous visitors.
By 1983, Boston Globe architecture critic, Robert Campbell wrote, “What’s wrong with Copley Square is that it contains no life of its own – no activities like shopping, eating, performance or recreation – while, at the same time, it is walled off from the city activity around it by being sunk behind big, fortress-like concrete mounds. This was all deliberate. Copley Square was planned as an ‘oasis’ from the busy city. The trouble is that people don’t like dead, isolated places and don’t go there.”
One More Redesign
That same year, the Copley Square Centennial Committee (CSCC) was formed and public meetings were held to gather criteria for a redesign. A national design competition was held, a winner was selected, and the CSCC began the work of finding funds to construct the new park.
On June 22, 1989, Copley Square was rededicated as the space we know today. The concrete pit was replaced by a wide lawn and brick sidewalks. Benches and trees were placed carefully so they did not interfere with views of the architectural attractions surrounding the park.
Keeping trees alive and healthy in the park has been a problem from the beginning. Within 13 months a Globe editorial said, “Trees that were supposed to soften the bricks are dying, the two lawns are drying up, the flower beds are unplanted, and the broken fountain has become the domain of skateboarders and graffiti artists.”
These are some of the same issues that the park’s advocates face today. This year, there has been a problem with diseased trees. And, like other urban parks, overuse, vandalism, homelessness, and the push and pull of special interests are daily concerns for park advocates.
In 2010, The Friends of Copley Square launched a revitalized effort to support the park under the leadership of their new president, Dan Donahue, managing director of The Lenox Hotel.
Today’s Copley Square is a space filled with life. It hosts special events, a farmers’ market, food vendors, demonstrations, and is a crossroads for a wide slice of city life. It sparkles on First Night, is a haven for runners on Marathon Day, a reading room for library users on warm summer afternoons, and a lunchroom for office workers.
It serves as a link between those who live here and those who work here; farmers who come to meet their urban customers twice a week; businesses and residents of the Back Bay, South End and Prudential complex. It’s a part of normal days, special occasions, and has an important place in the life of the Back Bay.