Plaza de la Constitución, laid out in 1573 — the oldest public square in the US, its old market, and the city's role from Spanish colony to the 1964 civil-rights movement.
Saint George Street opens out here into the Plaza de la Constitución — and stop a moment, because you've reached the true heart of the old city, and one of the most historic patches of open ground in the country. The Spanish laid out this plaza in fifteen seventy-three, following the royal Laws of the Indies, which told every Spanish town in the New World to build itself around exactly such a central square. It has been the center of St. Augustine's life ever since — for four hundred and fifty years. It is, by good reckoning, the oldest public square in the United States.
Look around the green. On one side stands the old market building, an open pavilion that served for generations as the town's public marketplace — and, in the cruelest chapter of this city's long story, a place where enslaved human beings were bought and sold. It's important we don't walk past that. This beautiful old square holds sorrow as well as grandeur.
Take it in — then look to the north side of the square, to the tall doors and bell tower of the Cathedral Basilica. Head over there; that's next.
Photo: Kiran891 · CC BY-SA 4.0
