Public Square

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Public Square

Public Square is the central plaza in downtown

Downtown Cleveland

Downtown Cleveland is the central business district of the City of Cleveland, Ohio and Northeast Ohio. Reinvestment in the area in the mid-1990s spurred a rebirth that continues to this day, with over $2 billion in capital projects slated to involve the downtown area over the next few years....
Cleveland

Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the most populous county in the state. The municipality is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately 60 miles west of the Pennsylvania border....
, Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern United States U.S. state of the United States. As part of the Great Lakes region , Ohio has long been a cultural and geographical crossroads in North America....
, United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
. It takes up four city blocks; Superior Avenue and Ontario Street cross through it. Cleveland's three tallest buildings, Key Tower

Key Tower

Key Tower is a skyscraper on Public Square in Downtown Cleveland Cleveland, Ohio designed by architect C?sar Pelli. It is the List of tallest buildings in Cleveland in both the city of Cleveland and the state of Ohio, the List of tallest buildings in the United States in the United States, and the List of tallest buildings in the world....
, the BP Tower

BP Tower

The BP Tower is the third tallest skyscraper in Cleveland, Ohio. The building, located on Public Square in Downtown Cleveland reaches 45 stories and 658 ft and holds 1.2 million square feet of office space....
and the Terminal Tower

Terminal Tower

The Terminal Tower is a landmark skyscraper located on Public Square in Downtown Cleveland Cleveland, Ohio, Ohio. It was built during the skyscraper boom of the 1920s and 1930s, and was the second-List of tallest buildings in the world when it was completed....
, face the square. Other Public Square landmarks include the 1855 Old Stone Church and the former Higbee's

Higbee's

Higbee's was a department store based in Cleveland, Ohio. It has been defunct since 1992....
department store made famous in the 1983 film A Christmas Story
A Christmas Story

A Christmas Story is a 1983 in film Cinema of the United States/Cinema of Canada comedy film based on the short stories and semi-fictional anecdotes of author and raconteur Jean Shepherd, including material from his books In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories....
.

A 125-foot monument to Civil War soldiers and sailors

Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument (Cleveland)

The Cuyahoga County Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument is a monument to American Civil War soldiers and sailors from Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Ohio. Located in the southeast quadrant of Public Square in Downtown Cleveland Cleveland, Ohio, it was designed by architect Levi T....
occupies the southeast quadrant of the square.

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Encyclopedia

Public Square is the central plaza in downtown

Downtown Cleveland

Cleveland, Ohio

Ohio

United States

Key Tower

BP Tower

Terminal Tower

Higbee's

Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument (Cleveland)

Moses Cleaveland

Tom L. Johnson

Tom Loftin Johnson was an United States politician of the United States Democratic Party from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He headed relief efforts after the Johnstown flood of 1889, was a U.S....
each have statues on the square.

Public Square was part of the Connecticut Land Company

Connecticut Land Company

The Connecticut Land Company was formed in the late eighteenth century to survey and encourage settlement in the Connecticut Western Reserve, part of the Old Northwest Territory....
's original plan for the city, which were overseen by Moses Cleaveland

Moses Cleaveland

Moses Cleaveland was a lawyer, politician, soldier, and surveyor from Connecticut who founded the United States city of Cleveland, Ohio, Ohio, while surveying the Connecticut Western Reserve in 1796....
in the 1790s. The square is signature of the layout for early New England towns, which Cleveland was modeled after. While it initially served as a common pasture for settlers' animals, less than a century later Public Square was the height of modernity, when in 1879 it became the first street in the world to be lit with electric street light

Street light

A street light, lamppost, street lamp, light standard, or lamp standard is a raised source of light on the edge of a road, which is turned on or lit at a certain time every night....
s, arc lamp

Arc lamp

An arc lamp or arc light is the general term for a class of lamps that produce light by an electric arc . The lamp consists of two electrodes typically made of tungsten which are separated by a gas....
s designed by Cleveland native Charles F. Brush

Charles F. Brush

Charles Francis Brush was a U.S. inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist....
. The square was added to the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation....
on December 18, 1975.

A parking lot now faces the northwest quadrant of the square. A 12-story building, which was built on the spot in 1913, was demolished in 1990 to make way for the new Ameritrust Center, an 1,197-foot skyscraper

Skyscraper

A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building. There is no official definition nor height above which a building may clearly be classified as a skyscraper....
designed by New York's Kohn Pedersen Fox

Kohn Pedersen Fox

Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates is an international architecture design firm located in New York, London and Shanghai providing urban design and master planning for public authorities and private companies....
. Before construction began, Ameritrust was acquired by Society Bank

Key Bank

KeyBank is a bank headquartered in the Key Tower in Cleveland, Ohio, Ohio. , it is the 16th largest bank in the United States based on total deposits.....
, which was also planning to construct and subsequently relocate to a new building on Public Square — the Key Tower (formerly known as the Society Center). Because Society did not need two skyscrapers, plans for the Ameritrust building across the square were scrapped.

U.S. routes 42

U.S. Route 42

U.S. Route 42 is an east-west United States highway that runs northeast-southwest for 355 miles from Cleveland, Ohio to Louisville, Kentucky. The route has several names including Pearl Road from Cleveland to Medina, Ohio in Northeast Ohio, the Cincinnati and Lebanon Pike in southwestern Ohio and Brownsboro Road in Louisville, Kentuck...
, 322

U.S. Route 322

U.S. Route 322 is a long, east-west United States Highway, traversing Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The road is a spur route of U.S. Route 22 and one of the original highways from 1926....
, and 422

U.S. Route 422

U.S. Route 422 is a long spur route of U.S. Route 22 split into two segments in the U.S. states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. The western spur begins in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, Ohio, and ends at Ebensburg, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania....
and several Ohio state highways begin at Public Square. U.S. Route 6

U.S. Route 6

U.S. Route 6, also called the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, is a main route of the U.S. Highway system, running east-northeast from Bishop, California to Provincetown, Massachusetts....
passes through the square on Superior, and U.S. Route 20

U.S. Route 20

U.S. Route 20 is an east-west United States highway. As the "0" in its route number implies, U.S. 20 is a coast-to-coast route; however, because national park roads do not have signage for U.S....
enters from the west on Superior and leaves via Euclid Avenue

Euclid Avenue

Euclid Avenue is a name applied to streets in many American cities. Cleveland, Ohio's Euclid Avenue received nationwide attention from the 1860s to the 1920s for its beauty and wealth....
.

Public Square is often the site of political rallies and civic functions, including a free annual Independence Day

Independence Day (United States)

In the United States, Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain....
concert by the Cleveland Orchestra

Cleveland Orchestra

The Cleveland Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Cleveland, Ohio, Ohio. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five "....
.

Public Square

See also

External links