Gilman Square
{{Short description|Neighborhood in Somerville, Massachusetts}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2025}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
File:Somerville 1915 postcard view from High School grounds.jpg
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{{Cite book|last=Sammarco|first=Anthony Mitchell|title=Somerville (Images of America: Massachusetts)|publisher=Arcadia Publishing|year=2003|isbn=0738512907|pages=45}}{{Cite web|date=2012-01-06|title=Report Depicts Possible Future for Gilman Square|url=https://patch.com/massachusetts/somerville/report-depicts-possible-future-for-gilman-square|access-date=2021-05-26|website=Somerville, MA Patch|language=en}} and has been a small commercial center since the mid 19th-century.[https://2xbcbm3dmbsg12akbzq9ef2k-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Gilman-Square-Station-Area-Plan-Final-Web.pdf Gilman Square Station Area Plan, page 24] 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.
Neighborhood lines are fuzzy and Gilman Square is sometimes considered part of the extensive Winter Hill neighborhood{{citation needed|date=May 2021}}. 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.{{Cite web|title=G. M. Hopkins Atlas of the City of Somerville, Massachusetts, 1874, Graphic Index|url=https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/scanned-maps/catalog/44-990057342220203941|access-date=2021-05-26|website=Scanned Maps - CURIOSity Digital Collections|language=en}}{{Cite web|date=1913|title=Walker Lith. & Pub. Co. 1913 Map of Cambridge and Somerville, Mass|url=https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/scanned-maps/catalog/44-990142727990203941|access-date=2021-05-26|website=Scanned Maps - CURIOSity Digital Collections|language=en}}
History
The 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.
Gilman Square was named for Charles E. Gilman. 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.{{Cite book|last1=Samuels|first1=Edward A. (Edward Augustus)|url=http://archive.org/details/somervillepastpr00samu|title=Somerville, past and present : an illustrated historical souvenir commemorative of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the establishment of the city government of Somerville, Massachusetts|last2=Kimball|first2=Henry H. (Henry Hastings)|date=1897|publisher=Boston : Samuels and Kimball|others=Boston Public Library|pages=543}}