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Washington Square

Washington Square – Washington Square, originally designated in 1682 as Southeast Square, is a 6.4 acres (2.6 ha) open-space park in Center City Philadelphia’s southeast quadrant and one of the five original planned squares laid out on the city grid by William Penn’s surveyor, Thomas Holme. It is part of both the Washington Square West and Society Hill neighborhoods. In 2005, the National Park Service took over ownership and management of Washington Square, through an easement from the City of Philadelphia. It is now part of Independence National Historical Park.

In 1954, the Washington Square Planning Committee decided that, instead of the original proposed monument to Washington, a monument to all soldiers and sailors of the Revolutionary War would be built. The monument, designated the “Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldier”, was designed by architect G. Edwin Brumbaugh and includes a bronze cast of Houdon’s statue of Washington as the monument’s centerpiece. The Tomb includes remains which were disinterred, after archeological examination, from within the park from when it was a cemetery. The remains are that of a soldier, but it is uncertain if he was Colonial or British. An unknown number of bodies remain buried beneath the square and the surrounding area; some are still occasionally found during construction and maintenance projects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Square_(Philadelphia)


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