Washington Square is one of the five original squares laid out by William Penn in his 1682 plan for Philadelphia, and it has had a stranger history than most city parks. During the Revolutionary War, thousands of soldiers died in British-held Philadelphia and were buried here in mass graves — an estimated 2,000 to 5,000 American soldiers and British soldiers alike, along with victims of the yellow fever epidemics that swept the city in the late 18th century. The park sits on top of all of them.
Today it is a lovely, shaded city square in the heart of the Washington Square West neighborhood, surrounded by handsome brick townhouses and bordered by the publishing district that once made it one of the most literary blocks in America. An eternal flame marks the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution at the center — the only such memorial in the country dedicated to the Revolutionary War's anonymous dead. It is a quiet and moving place, and rarely crowded. Sit on a bench in the afternoon and watch the light come through the plane trees.