In October 1966, the Boston Herald began running stories pointing out that the only commemoration of the Liberty Tree site was a grimy plaque on a building three stories above what is now the intersection of Washington and Boylston Streets. Reporter
Ronald Kessler [1] found that the plaque, a block east of Boston Common, was covered with bird droppings and obscured by a Kemp?s hamburger sign.
No one in the area had even noticed the site ?where America was born.? Local guidebooks did not mention it.
Kessler persuaded then Massachusetts Gov. John A. Volpe to visit the site. A photo of Volpe examining the plaque from a fire engine ladder appeared on page one of the October 6, 1966 edition of the Boston Herald.
Volpe promised to preserve the site, and eventually the Boston Redevelopment Authority created a handsome bronze bas relief replica of the liberty tree and installed it in a small plaza on Boylston Street at Washington Street. The plaque bears the inscription "Sons of Liberty, 1766; Independence of the Country, 1776."