Copley Square

In the greater Boston area, the word square is often used to refer merely to an intersection of two streets that has been named in somebody's honor and labelled by a sign announcing the name. By contrast, Boston's Copley Square in the Back Bay area is a square in the usual sense of the word. Before 1916, it was the site of the campus of MIT, which moved across the river to Cambridge in that year. Copley Square is the terminus of the Boston Marathon.

Copley Square is best known for its architectural landmarks, which include:

• H.H. Richardson's Trinity Church
• Charles Follen McKim's Boston Public Library
• New Old South Church
• Three John Hancock buildings:
  • The Stephen L. Brown Building at 197 Clarendon, 1922
  • The Old John Hancock Building at 200 Berkeley, 1947
  • I.M. Pei's 1976 Hancock Place office tower at 200 Clarendon