Portsmouth Square Park

Portsmouth Square is a one-block public park in Chinatown, defined by its role as a high-traffic community hub for local residents. Known as the Heart of Chinatown, the plaza is famously where the city began; it originated in eighteen thirty-three as the central square of the Mexican settlement called Yerba Buena. The site took its current name after July ninth, eighteen forty-six, when Captain John Berrien Montgomery of the USS Portsmouth marched ashore and raised the first American flag in the town.