Washington Square, San Francisco

Washington Square—the green heart of San Francisco’s North Beach—is one of the city’s oldest and most cherished public parks. It was laid out in 1847 when surveyor Jasper O’Farrell penciled it into the city’s early street grid. Three years later, Mayor John W. Geary made it official, though back then it was less “picturesque picnic spot” and more “everything the city didn’t know what to do with.” Prior to becoming a public gathering space, it served as a dump, a pasture, a cemetery, and even a construction site—all on land once owned by Juana Briones, a Mexican rancher who raised her cattle and potatoes there long before brunch crowds claimed the turf.

During the 1860s, Washington Square became a setting for civic events such as Independence Day celebrations and later (as the surrounding neighborhood grew into a predominantly Italian enclave) for Italian-American festivities. When Columbus Avenue sliced diagonally through the square in the 1870s, it gave the park its current asymmetrical charm — a quirk that San Franciscans have been proud of ever since. After the 1906 earthquake, Washington Square doubled as a tent village for hundreds of displaced residents, proving once again that it’s the kind of place people naturally gravitate to when everything else falls apart.

Throughout the 20th century, the park remained a focal point of community life, though not without controversy—recurring schemes to dig an underground parking lot were met by the locals saying “no thanks” every single time. Visionary designers Lawrence Halprin and Douglas Baylis gave the square its modern, circular layout in 1958. Officially designated a San Francisco landmark in 2000, the square now thrives as a rare slice of continuity amid the city’s constant reinvention.

Today, the park is pure energy, with morning Tai Chi sessions, families picnicking under the sun, kids chasing pigeons, bells from the historic Saints Peter and Paul Church (the one often referred to as the “Italian Cathedral of the West”), and the hum of conversations in Italian, English, and caffeine. The bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin, installed in 1879 by philanthropist Henry Cogswell, conceals a time capsule beneath its feet, set to be opened every hundred years—proof that even history here comes with a wink and a deadline...