[Tagging] Updating definition and description of place=square

Kevin Kenny kevin.b.kenny at gmail.com
Sun Mar 29 20:15:05 UTC 2020


So is the key difference between a town square and a village green(*)
the fact that the square is usually paved?

(*) No, I don't abuse 'village green' for 'any green space in a
village'. A lot of the older villages in the eastern US are laid out
roughly on the plan of English villages,  with a green in the center.
The green will typically be surrounded by such buildings as the
school, a church, a post office, a government center, an inn, perhaps
a few shops or private residences.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwich,_Vermont#/media/File:Norwich-VT-Winter-Panorama.jpg
is typical.


By the way, New York City has many squares; among others, the
architects of the grid system planned one for each point where
Broadway crosses an avenue. Verdi Square/Sherman Square, Lincoln
Center, Dante Park, Columbus Circle, Times Square, Herald Square,
Madison Square, Union Square, Washington Square, Sheridan Square,
Tompkins Square, Astor Place/Cooper Square, City Hall Park, Zuccotti
Park, and Bowling Green all come to mind. Some of these are better
modeled as very small `leisure=park`, but most have the property of
being public open spaces where major urban roads converge, that
function as urban gathering places. For instance, is
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/46/ac/ae/46acaefc5e243415deb7badb29b4113b.jpg
a square ? What about
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Square,_Manhattan#/media/File:1_new_york_city_union_square_2010.JPG
?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Circle#/media/File:ColumbusCirclefromTimeWarnerCenterNYC20050807.jpg
?

Let's not try to bend over backward to make sure that only European
squares qualify!

On Sun, Mar 29, 2020 at 3:10 PM Martin Koppenhoefer
<dieterdreist at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> sent from a phone
>
> On 29. Mar 2020, at 18:24, Greg Troxel <gdt at lexort.com> wrote:
>
> Really, it seems like
> you are trying to shoehorn european definitions into US naming when it
> is just not the way it is.
>
>
>
> Frankly, I am not really familiar with the situation in North America (besides some lessons about North American urbanism I have heard 20 years ago). I am aware there are some developments that imitate 19th century architecture, so even if many or most of the traditional city centers have been razed in the sixties, I would still expect to find at least some squares in north america.
>
> If you have a look at the wikipedia article on Times Square, it also mentions its nature as a town square: “ Times Square functions as a town square”
>
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Square
> It is also a model example in that it lies at the junction of import streets and is emphasized by the adjacent architecture.
>
> The existence of squares is not a recent or European invention, for example you’ll find squares in arabic or Chinese cities as well (you’ll indeed find them almost everywhere), here’s a list of some famous squares worldwide: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_city_squares
>
> Supposedly we would not want to have different specific top level place tags for neighbourhoods, depending on name components, so using place=square for neighborhoods seems not a sensible interpretation of the tag, I guess we can agree on this?
>
> Cheers Martin
>
>
>
>
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-- 
73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin



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