Gilman Square is a neighborhood in the area around Central Hill in Somerville, Massachusetts, United States. Historic Gilman Square is at the junction of Medford, Pearl, and Marshall streets[1][2] and has been a small commercial center since the mid 19th-century[3] but with the development of the Gilman Square Green Line station, city planning documents consider the area within a rough ten-minute walk of the new station to be part of the Gilman Square neighborhood.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a5/Somerville_1915_postcard_view_from_High_School_grounds.jpg/220px-Somerville_1915_postcard_view_from_High_School_grounds.jpg)
Neighborhood lines are fuzzy and Gilman Square is sometimes considered part of the extensive Winter Hill neighborhood[citation needed]. The area has also been referred to as Central Hill, and distinct from Winter Hill to the north, Spring Hill to the southwest, and Prospect Hill to the southeast.[4][5]
History
editThe Boston and Lowell Railroad came to the area in the mid 19th century, and rapid property development followed. By the turn of the century, Gilman Square featured a public green surrounded by four-story commercial buildings.[3]
Gilman Square was named for Charles E. Gilman.[1] Gilman was Somerville's town clerk during its entire existence as a town and the first elected city clerk, a position he remained in until his death.[6]
References
edit- ^ a b Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell (2003). Somerville (Images of America: Massachusetts). Arcadia Publishing. p. 45. ISBN 0738512907.
- ^ "Report Depicts Possible Future for Gilman Square". Somerville, MA Patch. 2012-01-06. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
- ^ a b Gilman Square Station Area Plan, page 24
- ^ "G. M. Hopkins Atlas of the City of Somerville, Massachusetts, 1874, Graphic Index". Scanned Maps - CURIOSity Digital Collections. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
- ^ "Walker Lith. & Pub. Co. 1913 Map of Cambridge and Somerville, Mass". Scanned Maps - CURIOSity Digital Collections. 1913. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
- ^ Samuels, Edward A. (Edward Augustus); Kimball, Henry H. (Henry Hastings) (1897). Somerville, past and present : an illustrated historical souvenir commemorative of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the establishment of the city government of Somerville, Massachusetts. Boston Public Library. Boston : Samuels and Kimball. p. 543.