Post Office Square, Boston, Massachusetts
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Post Office Square (named after the post office which fronted it,[1] now replaced by the John W. McCormack Post Office and Court House) in Boston is almost entirely occupied by a privately-owned and -managed but publicly-accessible park, Norman B. Leventhal Park, (named for the Boston building manager and designer who designed it.) It sits above a parking garage in the heart of the Financial District. This garage, creatively named "The Garage at Post Office Square,"[2] lies 80 ft (24 m) below the surface, the deepest point of excavation in the city. Revenues from parking fund the maintenance of the park. The 1.7-acre (6,900 m²) park is a popular lunchtime destination for area workers. It features a cafe, fountains, and a pergola around a central lawn, and the management provides seat cushions for visitors during the summer. Designed by landscape architects The Halvorson Company, the park is also home to "125 species of plants."[3]
Also on the square is the New England Telephone Building, where the laboratory in which the first telephone was built has been reconstructed.[4]
Harvard University reached an agreement with the Friends of Post Office Square to place six large trees from its Arnold Arboretum collection on permanent loan in the square, but, as of 2003, only one remains.[5]
[edit] History
Post Office Square was the site of a 1964 speech by Lyndon B. Johnson.[6]
There was a transformer explosion and fire in the One Post Office Square building in December 1986. An electric company worker was killed but fortunately it was after normal business hours and the building was able to be evacuated with only a few injuries.[7]
It was also the site of the now-closed Boston Claim Assistance Site of the September 11th Victim Compensation Program.[8]
[edit] Notes
- ^ McNulty, Elizabeth (2002). Boston Then and Now (Then & Now). Thunder Bay Press. ISBN 1571451773pages=52.
- ^ "Garage At Post Office Square". http://www.posquare.com/. Retrieved 2007-06-30.
- ^ Zhan Guo and Alex-Ricardo Jimenez. "Boston.com / Beyond the Big Dig / Case Studies". http://www.boston.com/beyond_bigdig/cases/post_office.htm. Retrieved 2007-06-30.
- ^ Kruh, David (2004). Scollay Square (MA) (Images of America). Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0738536679.
- ^ http://oasis.harvard.edu:10080/oasis/deliver/~ajp00025
- ^ John Woolley and Gerhard Peters. "Lyndon B. Johnson: Remarks in Boston at Post Office Square". http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=26673. Retrieved 2007-06-30.
- ^ "AROUND THE NATION; 9 Injured in Explosion At Boston Skyscraper". http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DEFDE163AF933A25751C1A960948260. Retrieved 2008-04-28.
- ^ "September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001". http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/victimcompensation/boston_site.html. Retrieved 2007-06-30.
[edit] External links
Coordinates: 42°21′23″N 71°03′21″W / 42.356260°N 71.055707°W
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