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Research dossier · Places & Architecture

John Harvard Mall

park in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States of America

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ49508188 ↗
Source-derived summary

John Harvard Mall is a brick plaza in Boston's Charlestown neighborhood, in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It opened in 1943.

Editorial summary

“John Harvard Mall” enters the record as park in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States of America. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what John, Harvard and Mall can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA valuable geographic starting point for tracing changing names, boundaries, uses and administrative responsibility. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1943—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around John, Harvard and Mall.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“John Harvard Mall” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, John, Harvard and Mall provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q49508188. Authority coordinates are 42.373, -71.063. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943.

Critical limits

A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “John Harvard Mall”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow John Harvard Mall primary sources, John Harvard Mall archive and John research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “John Harvard Mall”?
  2. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
  3. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “John Harvard Mall” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.