[Bob]

I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised to find that an American university has its own “Red Square”. Is that its formal name or a local nickname?

[VanShuyten]

It’s officially “Central Square” but because it’s made of red brick and there are lots of Soviet admirerers among the students and faculty, it’s been called “Red Square” since it was built almost 50 years ago.

[Leaning Right]

> I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised to find that an American university has its own “Red Square”. Is that its formal name or a local nickname? <

Wikipedia has an article about that. From the article:

In 1969, the field was excavated, an underground parking garage was built, and the engineers who designed the garage thought that the rain on the grass would leak into the garage, leading to the choice of a distinctive red brick surface.

Cassandra Amesely, then an editor of the student paper The Daily, convinced the student population to refer to the area as Red Square, presumably in reference to the color of the brick. Whether it was also meant to refer to Moscow’s Red Square in an era known for student activism is unclear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Square_(University_of_Washington)

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Anyway you look at it, “Red Square” is an inappropriate name. It would be like naming a square “SS Square” because some guy with the initials S.S. designed it. Bad karma.