The 16-acre Green at the centre of downtown is one of the oldest public squares in America, laid out in 1638 by the original Puritan settlers. Three historic churches stand along its north edge: Centre Church on the Green (1812), Trinity Episcopal Church (1816), and United Church on the Green (1815). The Green is still used for outdoor concerts, political gatherings, and the kind of daily urban life that makes it feel genuinely alive rather than merely preserved. Beneath it, the crypt of Centre Church holds the graves of some of the earliest colonists.