Copley Square
Stand at Dartmouth and Boylston: Romanesque Revival, Italian Renaissance, and a 790-foot glass tower all stare each other down across one square.
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Called Art Square until 1883, this Back Bay square still earns the name. Trinity Church (1877) — widely considered Richardson's tour de force — faces the Boston Public Library (1895), where Charles Follen McKim's Italian Renaissance shell holds artworks by John Singer Sargent and artworks by Daniel Chester French. The John Hancock Tower (1976), New England's tallest building at 790 feet, closes the frame.
What to look for
- Trinity Church's Romanesque Revival stonework — widely considered Richardson's tour de force
- Sargent's artworks and Daniel Chester French's artworks inside the Boston Public Library (1895)
- The BosTix Kiosk at the corner of Dartmouth and Boylston — a 1992 Postmodernist pavilion inspired by Parisian park pavilions
The square is bounded by Boylston, Clarendon, St. James Avenue, and Dartmouth Street — any of those streets drops you at its edge.
Copley Square is one of 31 sights worth the detour in Boston, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Boston pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Boston
- Museum of Fine Arts BostonFour hundred and fifty thousand works of art under one roof — one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas.
- TD GardenThe subway stops underneath it — TD Garden is built directly above MBTA's North Station, so you step off the train and you are already at the door.
- Harvard College ObservatoryOn the night of July 16-17, 1850, astronomers here made the first daguerreotype of a star — Vega — through a telescope that was the largest in North America.
- Fenway ParkThe oldest active ballpark in MLB, where a cramped city block accidentally invented some of baseball's most famous features.
- Isabella Stewart Gardner MuseumIn 1990, thieves walked out with thirteen works worth $500 million — none have ever come back, and the case is still open.
- Boston Public LibraryJohn Adams' personal 3,800-volume library lives here — and any Massachusetts adult can walk in and access it.