Copley Square
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Copley Square is an area in the Back Bay of Boston, Massachusetts. Copley Square is a city square situated between the Boston Public Library, Old South Church, Copley Trinity Church, and the John Hancock Tower. It is near the finish line of the Boston Marathon (and has a statue honoring the marathon in its park). It is adjacent to Boylston Street, Dartmouth Street, St. James Street, and Clarendon St. It is named for John Singleton Copley, (1738 – 1815) an early American portrait artist.
The word "square" means an open area at the meeting of two or more streets. By contrast, Copley Square has been a square in the usual sense of the word since 1994, when its street pattern was reconfigured to create what is now Copley Square Park. Before 1916, it was the site of the campus of MIT, which moved across the river to Cambridge in that year. Copley Square is the terminus of the Boston Marathon.
Copley Square is best known for its architectural landmarks, which include:
- H.H. Richardson's Romanesque Revival Trinity Church
- Charles Follen McKim's Beaux Arts Boston Public Library
- Charles Amos Cummings' Venetian Gothic Revival Old South Church in Boston
- Three John Hancock buildings:
- The Stephen L. Brown Building at 197 Clarendon, 1922
- The Old John Hancock Building at 200 Berkeley, 1947
- I.M. Pei's 1976 Hancock Place office tower at 200 Clarendon
Copley is a stop on the MBTA Green Line subway; the Orange Line and commuter rail trains stop at nearby Back Bay Station. It was also at one time the terminal of the Boston and Providence Railroad, before South Station was built.
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