On Tuesday, November 24, the Copley Square Farmers Market holds its last date of 2026. It is the final entry on a schedule that has run twice a week since May 15. Six days later, on Monday, November 30, Boston Parks and Recreation uses the same stretch of square for the annual tree lighting, with Santa, the Boston Children's Chorus and a guided tour of the renovated park. A month after that, Copley Square has First Night performers at noon. In January, Meet Boston's Frostival puts a furnished lodge with firepits on the square.
Every one of those events depends on the open, paved ground on the Dartmouth Street side of the square. That ground drew the strongest objections when the redesign was unveiled. This season is the first holiday calendar it carries with the whole park finished.
The Plaza Was Designed as a Stage
Copley Square closed for renovation in July 2023 and reopened in phases. The northeast triangle opened on New Year's Day 2025. The Plaza and Raised Grove followed on April 10, 2025, in time for the Marathon. The final pieces came last. The City of Boston's completion announcement on May 28, 2026, said the restored fountain had been turned on and the perimeter sidewalks finished, and that the park was fully open.
The project cost $18.9 million, funded through the city's five-year Capital Plan. Sasaki led the design team. Its project page describes the central move on the 2.4-acre site. The lawn and the plaza traded places, so the green now sits as a gateway to Trinity Church and the paved event space faces Dartmouth Street and the Boston Public Library. A raised planting grove protects the older trees and gives the square seating along its edge. The city counts 46 new trees, a doubled canopy, and nine tree species where there had been four.
That swap is what people argued about. In its review of the finished square, the Boston Globe recalled that the old lawn had stretched from Dartmouth Street across two-thirds of the square. It also recalled the paper's own editorial when the plaza first appeared in 2025:
"Two years and $18.9 million for this?"
The Globe's reviewer found much to admire in the leafy path from the corner of Boylston and Clarendon. Past the fountain, though, the reviewer described "a hard expanse of concrete pavers."
The city gave the reason for the pavers when it cut the ribbon. Interim Parks Commissioner Cathy Baker-Eclipse said the improvements provide "flexible space for community staples like the Copley Square Farmers Market to major cultural events such as First Night and the Boston Marathon." The pavers are pervious, which the city says lets stormwater soak in rather than run off. The next ten weeks put that design to work.
The Calendar, Late October Through January
| Date | Where | What |
|---|---|---|
| Fri., Oct. 30 through Tues., Nov. 24 | Copley Square | Farmers market, Tuesdays and Fridays, with Nov. 24 as the final date |
| Mon., Nov. 30, 5 to 6 p.m. | Copley Square, 560 Boylston St. | Tree lighting and celebration of the renovated park, free |
| Through Wed., Dec. 2 | Central Library, Gallery J | Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness |
| Sun., Dec. 6, 2 to 4 p.m. | Trinity Church | Handel's Messiah concert |
| Sat., Dec. 12 and Sun., Dec. 13 | Trinity Church | Candlelight Carols |
| Thurs., Dec. 31 | Copley Square, Rabb Hall, Trinity Church | First Night Boston 2027 performances |
| January 2027 | Copley Square | Frostival Lodge furnished by Wayfair |
The Market's Last Weeks Back on the Square
The farmers market is the most regular user of the new plaza. In the summer of 2024, during construction, it ran on McKim Plaza at 227–230 Dartmouth Street, across from the library. It returned to the square for its 2026 season. The Globe photographed vendors setting up on the redone square in May. Mass Farmers Markets calls it Boston's largest and busiest market, with more than 30 Massachusetts farmers and food producers selling produce, meats, baked goods and ready-to-eat meals.
From publication day, eight dates are left: October 30, then November 3, 6, 10, 13, 17, 20 and 24. The last one falls on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The market sends schedule alerts by text if you message "COPLEY" to 833-409-0774.
November 30, With a Tour Built In
The city's event listing calls this year's tree lighting a celebration of the "grand reopening of Copley Square Park." The park has been fully open since May, so this is its first tree lighting since completion, not a reopening of a closed park. The program shows the difference. Along with arts and crafts and Santa and Rudolph, the evening includes a guided tour of the renovated square.
The event runs from 5 to 6 p.m. and is free. Boston Parks and Recreation presents it with the Friends of Copley Square, BXP, Sasaki and Fairmont Copley Plaza, and H.P. Hood LLC sponsors it with support from Drake's Cakes. The performers are vocalist Joelle James, the Boston Children's Chorus and the Symphonic of Emerson College. At 6 p.m. the gathering moves across the street to Fairmont Copley Plaza for cookies and pictures with Santa.
The rest of the city's holiday calendar sits close by. Boston's official tree, a 45-foot white spruce donated from Nova Scotia, arrives on Boston Common around 11 a.m. on November 17. The Boston Common tree lighting on December 3 is followed by the lighting of the trees on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall.
Two Back Bay restaurants opened this fall, close enough for dinner after the lighting:
- LPM Restaurant & Bar, on the second floor of the Four Seasons Hotel One Dalton at 1 Dalton Street, serves French Mediterranean food with a focus on French wines. It is the London-founded group's second U.S. location, after Miami, according to NBC Boston.
- Zhu Restaurant, at 903 Boylston Street, serves Chinese seafood and dim sum with a full bar. Boston Restaurant Talk reported in late September that it had begun a soft opening.
December Happens Around the Square
After the market closes and the tree is lit, most December events move into the two landmarks the redesign was meant to frame. Sasaki says the paths were rearranged to connect more clearly to Trinity Church and the library. This month those connections carry the foot traffic.
Trinity Church lists these December events:
- Sunday, December 6, 11:15 a.m.: a talk titled "More than O Little Town of Bethlehem: Exploring the Life and Work of Phillips Brooks"
- Sunday, December 6, 2 to 4 p.m.: Handel's Messiah concert
- Saturday, December 12, 4 to 6 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m.: Candlelight Carols
- Sunday, December 13, 11:15 a.m.: "Trinity Church and H.H. Richardson: From Sketches to the Skylines"
- Sunday, December 13, 2 to 4 p.m.: a third Candlelight Carols performance
- Thursday, December 24: Children's Christmas Pageant at 2 p.m., followed by Christmas Eve services at 4:30, 8 and 11 p.m.
The Richardson talk takes place in the building that the new lawn now faces.
Across the plaza, the Boston Public Library's Central Library at 700 Boylston Street has two exhibitions running. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness in Gallery J ties into the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution and closes December 2. Becoming Boston: Eight Moments in the Geography of a Changing City at the Leventhal Map Center runs through February 1, 2027. The library also offers free weekly guided tours of the Central Library. Registration is required, and dates open up to a month ahead.
New Year's Eve, Then a Lodge on the Square
On December 31 the square returns as a stage. Meet Boston's First Night Boston 2027 schedule lists the Greater Boston Chinese Cultural Association performing on Copley Square at noon and A Trike Called Funk at 1 p.m. Nearby venues fill out the afternoon:
- Rabb Hall in the library, with Chester Brezniak and Yelena Beriyeva at 1 p.m. and the Alex Minasian Trio at 2:30
- Trinity Church, with the Emancipation Proclamation Concert at 1 p.m.
- Copley Place, with Chu Ling Dance Academy at noon and Puppet Showplace Theater at 1:30
- First Church of Christ, Scientist, with an organ concert at 4 p.m.
January is the plaza's biggest test. Meet Boston's Frostival program places the Frostival Lodge furnished by Wayfair in Copley Square in January 2027. It describes six fully furnished living rooms, glass-enclosed firepits next to Adirondack chairs, and a bar. The city also posted a request for proposals for a "2027 Copley Square Winter Activation" this spring. Proposals were due June 4, 2026, and the posting gives no details about what was chosen.
When we work with clients in Back Bay, we pay attention to how the squares and streets around a home are used through the year, Copley included. If you would like to talk through how the renovated square fits into the blocks around it, please reach out to Levy RE Group. We are glad to help.
