Public Square Historic District (Boundary Increase)

Public Square Historic District covers the heart of downtown Watertown, New York. It includes 66 properties: 64 buildings, a monument and the village green itself, which was created in 1805 and landscaped in 1855. Most buildings are three- to four-story attached masonry rows, chiefly brick, built between the late 1840s and early 1930s in styles such as Italianate, Romanesque Revival, Neoclassical, Commercial and Art Deco. Fires in 1848 and 1849 and in the years after destroyed nearly the whole business district, and the city rebuilt it in the third quarter of the nineteenth century with finely crafted masonry structures, financed by prosperity from steam engine, textile and paper industries. Landmarks include the Paddock Arcade, the Marble Block, the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument and a cast-iron fountain from 1869. Similar scale, form and materials give the streets a cohesive look, and the district marks Watertown's long standing as a regional commercial center.