Boston Common

Public park covering 19 hectares/48 acres in Boston, Massachusetts. The oldest public park in the USA, it is a venue for public events and is popular with political protesters, picnickers, and street performers. It is the anchor for the city's series of connected parks, the Emerald Necklace. The common was set up in 1634 for common use as cow pasture and a training ground. Cows were kept on it until the 1830s, and public hangings were held there until 1817.

Along Beacon Hill, Boston Common is bounded by Beacon Street, and is enclosed on the other sides by Park, Tremont, Boylston, and Charles streets (the last of which separates it from the Public Garden). The Common was acquired by the city in 1634 from William Blackstone, the first European inhabitant on the Shawmut Peninsula, to provide pasturage for livestock. During the Revolution, it was used as a military training ground. The most famous monument here is the memorial (1897) to the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, a renowned Black Civil War unit, often referred to as the ‘Shaw Memorial’ after the regiment's commander, Robert Gould Shaw; it stands at the northeastern corner of the park, opposite the Massachusetts State House.