Five Public Squares

The Five Public Squares are open spaces incorporated into William Penn's original 1682 plan for Philadelphia, designed to provide public green space, light, and air within the city's grid layout. Penn placed one square at the center of his plan—Centre Square, now occupied by Philadelphia City Hall—and four others near the corners: Northeast Square (now Franklin Square), Northwest Square (now Logan Square), Southeast Square (now Washington Square), and Southwest Square (now Rittenhouse Square). Penn intended these squares to remain open forever, serving as commons for public use and preventing the kind of overcrowded, fire-prone development that characterized European cities of his era. Surveyed by Thomas Holme and recorded in the 1682 "Portraiture of the City of Philadelphia," the five squares were embedded in the city's legal and physical fabric from the very beginning. After more than three centuries, four of the five squares remain active public parks, fulfilling Penn's vision of a "greene countrie towne" even as the city has grown far beyond its original boundaries along the Delaware River. The squares are today managed primarily by the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation and stand as some of the oldest planned public open spaces in North America.

History

Origins in Penn's Charter and Plan

William Penn received his charter for Pennsylvania from King Charles II in 1681 as partial repayment of a debt owed to Penn's father, Admiral Sir William Penn. Almost immediately, Penn began planning the city that would serve as the capital of his new colony. Drawing on contemporary English urban planning thought—much of it shaped by the aftermath of the Great Fire of London in 1666—Penn envisioned a city that would avoid the dense, chaotic character of English urban centers. His instructions to Thomas Holme, the surveyor-general he dispatched to lay out the city, called explicitly for a generous grid of streets and for the reservation of open land for public use.

Holme produced his famous "Portraiture of the City of Philadelphia" in 1682, a plan that showed the five squares clearly positioned within the grid. The city was laid out on a roughly rectangular peninsula between the Delaware River to the east and the Schuylkill River to the west, with Broad Street running north-south and High Street (later renamed Market Street) running east-west as the two principal axes. Centre Square sat precisely at their intersection, while the four corner squares were placed symmetrically within the quadrants formed by those axes. Each square was intended to measure approximately eight acres, giving residents throughout the city walkable access to open green space regardless of their position within the grid. This arrangement was unusual for its time; while European cities had plazas and commons, the deliberate integration of multiple open squares into a comprehensive city plan was a notable innovation in urban design.

Penn explicitly intended that the squares function as public commons, available to all colonists regardless of social standing. This democratic impulse was consistent with his Quaker faith, which rejected the hierarchical social structures of English society and emphasized the equal spiritual worth of all individuals. Penn hoped that the squares would serve practical purposes—grazing land for livestock, sites for markets, firebreaks against the spread of urban fires—as well as social ones, functioning as gathering places where the community could come together. His letter describing Philadelphia as a "greene countrie towne" that would "never be burnt and always be wholesome" captured his dual intention: the squares were simultaneously a practical urban planning tool and an expression of his idealistic vision for a more equitable and healthy society.

Early Development and Neglect

Despite Penn's intentions, the five squares spent their first century and a half in a state of considerable neglect. Philadelphia's actual development hugged the Delaware waterfront, and for much of the colonial period the western portions of Penn's planned grid—including the areas around Rittenhouse and Logan Squares—remained largely unbuilt. The squares served various informal purposes: as grazing land for pigs and cattle, as sites for tanneries and other noxious industries that were unwelcome in denser neighborhoods, and occasionally as burial grounds during epidemic years. Yellow fever epidemics struck Philadelphia repeatedly in the late 18th century, and several of the squares were pressed into service as emergency burial sites. Washington Square, in particular, received large numbers of the dead from both the Revolutionary War period and subsequent epidemic years.

The legal status of the squares was occasionally contested in the early republic. As Philadelphia grew and real estate values rose, there were periodic attempts to develop portions of the squares or to divert them to uses that Penn had not intended. The city government's commitment to maintaining the squares as public land fluctuated depending on political circumstances and fiscal pressures. It was not until the early 19th century that systematic efforts were made to improve and formalize the squares as recreational parks, in keeping with emerging ideas about the importance of public green space in industrial cities. The renaming of four of the squares in 1825—from their directional designations (Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, Southwest) to the names of celebrated Americans and colonial figures—reflected a new civic consciousness about the squares' symbolic and cultural importance.

The Park Movement and Victorian Improvements

The mid-19th century brought a new appreciation for urban parks across American cities, driven by reformers who argued that green spaces were essential for the physical and moral health of urban populations. Philadelphia's five squares benefited from this movement, though unevenly. Rittenhouse Square and Washington Square received formal landscape improvements in the latter half of the 19th century, with gravel paths, iron fencing, and ornamental plantings transforming them from rough open land into refined Victorian parks. The improvements reflected the social geography of the surrounding neighborhoods: Rittenhouse Square's enhancements tracked the arrival of wealthy residents in the southwestern quadrant, while Washington Square's development was tied to its emergence as the center of Philadelphia's publishing and legal professions.

Logan Square's transformation was the most dramatic and occurred latest, driven not by neighborhood gentrification but by the grand civic ambitions of the early 20th century City Beautiful movement. The construction of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in the 1910s and 1920s radically reshaped Logan Square, converting it from a traditional city park into a Parisian-style traffic circle and monumental plaza. Franklin Square, by contrast, languished through most of the 20th century, declining along with the surrounding neighborhood and not receiving significant investment until the early 2000s. The divergent trajectories of the five squares across the 19th and 20th centuries illustrate how deeply tied public spaces are to the fortunes of their surrounding neighborhoods and to the priorities of municipal government at any given time.

Penn's Vision

William Penn's inclusion of public squares in his city plan reflected both practical concerns and an idealistic vision rooted in his experience and faith. Having witnessed the Great Fire of London in 1666, which destroyed much of the crowded medieval city, Penn sought to create urban spaces that would resist fire and promote health. Open squares would serve as firebreaks, preventing flames from spreading across entire neighborhoods. They would also provide fresh air and sunlight in a city that Penn hoped would remain spacious, with each house standing in the middle of its lot surrounded by gardens. The squares represented Penn's belief that public amenities should be accessible to all citizens, not reserved for the wealthy—a democratic impulse rooted in his Quaker faith and in the broader dissenting Protestant tradition that emphasized the common good over private accumulation.

Thomas Holme, Penn's surveyor, positioned the squares strategically within the grid. Centre Square occupied the intersection of Broad Street and High Street (now Market Street), marking the geometric and symbolic center of the city. Penn intended this square to eventually host important public buildings, though development proceeded slowly and the square remained largely open for its first two centuries. The four corner squares were distributed to ensure that residents throughout the city had convenient access to public open space—a principle that anticipates by more than a century the service-area calculations that modern urban planners use when siting parks. Each square measured approximately eight acres in Penn's original plan, though later development has altered their sizes and configurations significantly, particularly in the case of Logan Square, whose boundaries were redrawn to accommodate the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Penn's vision of Philadelphia as a "greene countrie towne" was not merely rhetorical. His promotional tracts describing the city to potential settlers in England and Wales specifically highlighted the open squares and generous lot sizes as evidence that Philadelphia would offer a quality of life unavailable in England's overcrowded cities. In an era when urban density was closely associated with disease, crime, and moral degradation, the promise of a spacious, well-aired city with reserved public green space was a genuine selling point for emigration. The squares thus served a promotional function as well as a practical one, helping Penn attract the settlers whose labor and investment were essential to the colony's success.

Centre Square (City Hall)

Centre Square occupied the most prominent location in Penn's plan, at the crossing of the city's two principal streets. For nearly two centuries, the square remained open public land, used for various purposes including a waterworks that supplied the growing city. The Centre Square Waterworks, designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe and operational by 1801, occupied a portion of the square and represented one of the first municipal water supply systems in the United States. Steam-powered pumps drew water from the Schuylkill River and distributed it through wooden pipes to subscribers throughout the city. The waterworks was relocated to Fairmount along the Schuylkill in the early 1820s when demand outgrew the Centre Square facility's capacity, leaving the square once again open.

The construction of Philadelphia City Hall, begun in 1871 and completed in 1901, transformed Centre Square from open green space into the site of one of the largest municipal buildings in the world. Designed by architect John McArthur Jr. in the French Second Empire style and crowned by a statue of William Penn atop its tower, City Hall occupied essentially the entire footprint of Centre Square. The building's construction required decades of work and cost approximately $24 million—an enormous sum for the era—and its completion made it the tallest habitable building in the world for a brief period. This development represented a significant departure from Penn's vision of an open square, though City Hall's public civic function maintains the square's original role as the symbolic heart of Philadelphia's civic life.

City Hall's placement on Centre Square was controversial at the time of its proposal and construction, with critics arguing that Penn's intention for the squares to remain open should be honored. Proponents countered that a grand civic building at the center of the city was consistent with Penn's vision of the square as a public space, even if not literally open parkland. The debate foreshadowed similar controversies that would arise in other American cities as the 19th century's park movement collided with the competing demands of urban development. City Hall's construction ultimately transformed the area, making the intersection of Broad and Market Streets the undisputed symbolic and functional center of Philadelphia in a way that an empty square might never have achieved. The open spaces around the building's base, particularly the plaza known as Dilworth Park to the west, provide some public green space in the vicinity, though nothing approaching what Penn originally envisioned.

Rittenhouse Square

Rittenhouse Square, in the southwestern quadrant of Penn's plan, is today the most fashionable of Philadelphia's original squares. Named in 1825 for David Rittenhouse, the noted Philadelphia astronomer, clockmaker, and patriot who served as director of the United States Mint, the square was originally known simply as Southwest Square. For its first century, Rittenhouse Square was a neglected open space on the western edge of developed Philadelphia, used primarily for livestock grazing and occasional public gatherings. The neighborhood began to attract wealthy residents in the decades following the Civil War, and by the late 19th century Rittenhouse Square had become the center of Philadelphia's most prestigious residential address.

The square received formal landscape improvements in the 1910s under the supervision of the Fairmount Park Commission, which installed the central reflecting pool and fountain that remain today. The surrounding streets were lined with some of Philadelphia's finest Victorian and Edwardian townhouses, and the area attracted cultural and intellectual figures as well as social elites. Several notable institutions have historically been associated with the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood, including the Art Alliance at 251 South 18th Street and the Curtis Institute of Music two blocks to the south. The square's social prestige has remained remarkably stable across more than a century, weathering the broader suburbanization that depopulated many Philadelphia neighborhoods after World War II.

Today Rittenhouse Square is one of Philadelphia's premier public spaces, surrounded by high-rise apartment buildings, luxury hotels, and upscale restaurants. The square itself features formal landscaping, a central fountain and pool, bronze sculptures including Lion Crushing a Serpent by Antoine-Louis Barye, and abundant seating that attracts office workers, tourists, and residents throughout the year. Seasonal events, including a celebrated outdoor art show held each spring and fall and a holiday tree lighting ceremony, draw crowds to the square and maintain its function as a genuine community gathering place even as the surrounding neighborhood has become increasingly expensive. The square's consistent programming and high level of maintenance reflect both private philanthropy through the Rittenhouse Square Improvement Association and sustained public investment from the city.

Washington Square

Washington Square, originally Southeast Square, occupies a location with profound historical significance that distinguishes it from the other four squares. During the Revolutionary War, the square served as a burial ground for soldiers who died in nearby military hospitals and in the notorious British-operated prisoner-of-war ships anchored in the Delaware River. Estimates suggest that thousands of American and British soldiers, as well as civilians who perished in the yellow fever epidemics of the 1790s, lie buried beneath the square, making it one of the largest and most significant burial sites associated with the Revolutionary War era in the United States. The square was renamed for George Washington following his death in 1799, acknowledging both his role in the Revolution and the sacrifices of the soldiers buried there.

For much of the 19th century, Washington Square functioned as a prosperous residential park, surrounded by the homes of publishers, lawyers, and merchants who valued its proximity to the commercial and governmental center of the city. The square marked the heart of what was briefly known as "publishers' row," as printing and publishing firms clustered in the surrounding blocks during the mid-1800s. The Athenaeum of Philadelphia, a private library and cultural institution founded in 1814, occupies a landmark building at the square's northeastern corner, and the neighborhood retains a high concentration of historic architecture from this prosperous era.

A memorial to the Revolutionary War dead was formally dedicated in the square in 1954, consisting of a tomb containing the remains of an unknown soldier, an eternal flame, and a statue of George Washington. The memorial transformed Washington Square into an explicitly commemorative space as well as a recreational one, adding a layer of historical meaning that is unique among the five squares. The current landscape design, with its formal allées of elm trees and curving paths converging on the central monument, dates largely from a mid-20th century renovation. The neighborhood surrounding Washington Square—known as Washington Square West or informally as "Wash West"—is one of Center City's most diverse residential communities, home to a significant LGBTQ+ population and a mix of longtime residents and newer arrivals attracted by the neighborhood's historic character and central location.

Logan Square

Logan Square, originally Northwest Square, was renamed in 1825 for James Logan, William Penn's secretary, confidant, and one of colonial Pennsylvania's most consequential figures. Logan served as Penn's personal representative in the colony for decades, accumulated substantial wealth and land, and built the estate of Stenton in what is now North Philadelphia. The square's naming honored his central role in the founding generation. For most of its first two centuries, Logan Square functioned as a conventional urban park, though its development lagged behind that of Rittenhouse and Washington Squares due to its location in the northwestern portion of the original grid, which was slower to attract dense residential development.

The square's character was dramatically and permanently transformed in the early 20th century when it became the pivotal element of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the grand diagonal boulevard conceived to connect Philadelphia City Hall to the Philadelphia Museum of Art atop Fairmount. The parkway project, which required the demolition of hundreds of buildings in a dense residential neighborhood, was inspired by the City Beautiful movement and more specifically by the plan of Paris's Champs-Élysées. Logan Square was redesigned as a traffic circle centered on the Swann Memorial Fountain, also known as the Fountain of the Three Rivers, which was completed in 1924. The fountain was designed by sculptor Alexander Stirling Calder—son of the sculptor Alexander Milne Calder, who created the statue of Penn atop City Hall, and father of the mobile artist Alexander Calder—and features three large bronze figures representing the Delaware, Schuylkill, and Wissahickon waterways that define the Philadelphia region's geography.

Logan Square today functions as a monumental civic space rather than the pastoral green that Penn envisioned, but it is surrounded by some of the city's most important cultural and religious institutions. The Free Library of Philadelphia's main branch and the Family Court building flank the parkway on either side. The Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art are all within close proximity. The Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, the seat of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the largest Catholic church in Pennsylvania, occupies the square's southwestern edge. The Swann Fountain, particularly spectacular when illuminated at night and surrounded by the reflecting pool, has become one of Philadelphia's most recognizable and beloved landmarks. Though Logan Square's transformation departed most dramatically from Penn's original conception among the surviving four squares, it remains accessible public space at the heart of the city's cultural district.

Franklin Square

Franklin Square, originally Northeast Square, was renamed for Benjamin Franklin in 1825, honoring the polymath statesman, scientist, and publisher who had lived much of his life in Philadelphia. For much of its history, Franklin Square was the most neglected and troubled of the five squares. Located in a portion of Center City that experienced significant economic decline during the mid-20th century as residents and businesses migrated to the suburbs, the square fell into disrepair and became an underutilized, sometimes unsafe space that many Philadelphians avoided entirely. Its proximity to the elevated Interstate 95 highway, which was constructed through the adjacent neighborhood in the 1960s and 1970s, further damaged the surrounding streetscape and contributed to the area's decline.

The square's fortunes reversed dramatically beginning in 2006, when Historic Philadelphia, Inc., a nonprofit organization, undertook a major renovation and programming initiative that transformed Franklin Square into a family-oriented destination. The renovation introduced a miniature golf course with holes themed to Philadelphia's historic landmarks—including Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge—along with a restored antique carousel, improved landscaping, new benches and lighting, and a food stand known as SquareBurger, operated in partnership with restaurateur Stephen Starr. The design philosophy was deliberately playful and accessible, in contrast to the more formal character of the other renovated squares, and was intended to attract families and children to a part of Center City that had long been inhospitable to recreational use.

The renovated Franklin Square has been widely regarded as one of the more successful public space revivals in Philadelphia's recent history. The square hosts a popular holiday festival each winter featuring a light show and seasonal programming, and the miniature golf course operates through much of the warmer months. Franklin Square's revival has contributed to the broader revitalization of the surrounding areas, including the neighborhood sometimes called Old City and the edges of Chinatown, demonstrating how thoughtful investment in public spaces can catalyze renewed interest and activity in adjacent streets and blocks. Penn's vision of squares as community gathering places finds contemporary expression in Franklin Square's conscious effort to serve a broad, multigenerational public, even if the means—a miniature golf course and a carousel—are far removed from anything Penn could have imagined.

Governance and Management

The five squares have been governed and managed through a variety of institutional arrangements over the centuries, reflecting changing ideas about the proper relationship between public land, municipal government, and private civic organizations. For most of their history, the squares were under the nominal jurisdiction of the city government, which provided varying—and often inadequate—levels of maintenance and programming. The Fairmount Park Commission, established in 1867 primarily to oversee the large park along the Schuylkill River, eventually assumed responsibility for the Center City squares as well, bringing more systematic management practices. Following a reorganization of city government in the early 21st century, responsibility for the squares was consolidated within the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation.

Private civic organizations have played an increasingly important role in the management and programming of the squares, particularly in recent decades as city budget constraints have limited public investment in park maintenance. The Rittenhouse Square Improvement Association and analogous friends groups for the other squares have raised private funds for landscaping, maintenance, and events. The success of Historic Philadelphia, Inc.'s management of Franklin Square has been particularly influential in demonstrating the potential of public-private partnerships in urban park management. These arrangements raise ongoing questions about equity and access—when private organizations contribute substantially to park upkeep, there is a risk that the character and programming of parks will reflect the preferences of those donors rather than the broader public that Penn intended to serve.

Legacy

The Five Public Squares remain among William Penn's most enduring and tangible legacies to Philadelphia and to American urban planning. Though Centre Square was built over with City Hall in the late 19th century—a development that remains the subject of occasional historical regret—the other four squares continue to provide public green space in the heart of a dense urban environment that now encompasses far more than Penn's original grid. The squares have adapted to changing needs and values over the centuries, functioning at various times as livestock commons, military burial grounds, fashionable residential parks, monumental civic spaces, and family recreation areas, while maintaining their fundamental identity as public land accessible to all.

Penn's decision to incorporate multiple open squares into his city plan was prescient in ways that could not have been fully appreciated in 1682. The park reform movements of the 19th century, the City Beautiful movement of the early 20th century, and contemporary urban planning's emphasis on walkable access to green space all validate the basic principle that guided Penn's plan: that cities function better—for health, for community, for quality of life—when open public spaces are woven into the urban fabric rather than treated as afterthoughts. Philadelphia's five squares stand as reminders that decisions made at a city's founding can shape its character for centuries, and that the reservation of public land against private development is one of the most consequential gifts that a city's founders can bestow upon its future inhabitants.

The squares' survival through more than three centuries of development pressure testifies to the extraordinary durability of Penn's original vision and to the civic commitment of successive generations of Philadelphians who resisted the temptation to develop extremely valuable real estate. They are recognized today not only as parks but as historical documents—physical evidence of a 17th-century utopian urban vision that, however imperfectly realized, helped shape one of America's great cities. As Philadelphia continues to evolve in the 21st century, the five squares remain central to the city's identity, offering a continuous thread connecting contemporary urban life to the ideals of the city's founder.

See Also

• William Penn
• Philadelphia's Grid Plan
• Thomas Holme
• Rittenhouse Square
• Logan Square
• Washington Square
• Franklin Square
• Philadelphia City Hall
• Benjamin Franklin Parkway
• Fairmount Park
• Philadelphia Parks and Recreation
• Swann Memorial Fountain