Public Square Historic District

Public Square Historic District covers 66 properties in downtown Watertown, New York, organized around a village green laid out in 1805 and landscaped in 1855. Sixty-four buildings, a monument and the green itself make up the district, and 63 of the components contribute to its character. Most buildings are three- to four-story attached brick rows, in styles from Italianate and Romanesque Revival to Neoclassical, Commercial and Art Deco. Fires in 1848 and 1849 destroyed most of the earlier wooden downtown, and prosperity from steam engine manufacturing, textiles and paper making paid for a rebuilding in masonry from about 1850 to the early 1870s. Notable elements include the Paddock Arcade, a cast-iron fountain from 1869, the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument of 1890, and the Marble Block of about 1873. Surrounding areas have been altered by modern construction and urban renewal, so the district preserves the only intact historic commercial core in the city.