Its demolition for the St James Centre in the 1970s marked the biggest change witnessed in Edinburgh's city centre since the construction of Waverley Station more than a century earlier.
But while the number of people able to recall the old St James Square dwindles by the decade, there are many who feel its destruction was an act of civic vandalism on an unforgivable scale.
Initially conceived in the 1770s by New Town architect James Craig, St James Square was originally one of Edinburgh's most sought-after addresses.
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Set around a rectangular private garden, the townhouses of the pleasant Georgian Square marked a new standard of living in Scotland's capital, with the new quadrant attracting prosperous families who had previously resided in the cramped Old Town.
One very notable former St James Square resident was said to have been Robert Burns. The legendary bard spent much of his time there after arriving in Edinburgh in the late 1780s.
St James Square's glory days, however, would prove to be short-lived. The square, along with neighbouring Leith Street and Greenside became synonymous with poverty and squalor over the course of the 19th century and had a reputation as a red light district.
Images of crime, brothels and rat infestations would continue to plague the area into the 20th century, with radical plans drawn up to eradicate what was seen as an unsightly sore in the city centre.
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One proposal in 1933 envisioned the complete destruction and redevelopment of the "sordid anticlimax" to Leith Walk that was Leith Street and the old St James quarter. The advent of the Second World War would halt these plans in their tracks, but only for a short while.
In the late 1950s, clearing the slums of the St James district was once more viewed as a priority, and this time it really would become a reality.
To garner some idea of just how much St James Square had fallen out of favour during this era, we only need to take a cursory glance at contemporary newspaper articles, which reveal that some locals were very much looking forward to its demise.
Writing to the Edinburgh Evening News in 1962, one local said, rather controversially, it would be good to lose the square to accommodate cars.
They wrote: "While we are awaiting the start of the Leith Street and St James Square redevelopment scheme, I suggest that Edinburgh Corporation get rid of that apology for a garden in the middle of the Square immediately and make room for another 50 cars."
Demolition of St James Square was well underway by 1965, with no fewer than eight grand visions put forward for what would be built in its place.
The answer for what would fill the massive gap site left over by the destruction of the square and surrounding streets arrived in the form of the St James shopping centre and New St Andrew House.
Completed in 1973, the sprawling retail and office complex changed the face of Edinburgh's city centre, but ultimately failed to win over the public, many of whom deemed the entire development an eyesore.
There weren't exactly many tears shed when the St James Centre came crashing down in 2016 for the current St James Quarter, let's put it that way.
Today, just one single building from James Craig's 18th century St James Square has survived - a testament to how heavily the axe fell in the 1960s.
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