Columbus Circle

Columbus Circle is a traffic circle and heavily trafficked intersection in the New York City borough of Manhattan, located at the intersection of Eighth Avenue, Broadway, Central Park South (West 59th Street), and Central Park West, at the southwest corner of Central Park. The circle is the point from which official highway distances from New York City are measured, as well as the center of the restricted-travel area for C-2 visa holders. The circle is named after the monument of Christopher Columbus in the center, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The name is also used for the neighborhood that surrounds the circle for a few blocks in each direction. Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, is located to the southwest, and the Theater District is to the southeast and the Lincoln Square section of the Upper West Side is to the northwest. Circle The traffic circle, located at Eighth Avenue/Central Park West, Broadway, and 59th Street/Central Park South, was designed as part of Frederick Law Olmsted's 1857 vision for Central Park, which included a rotary on the southwest corner of the park. It abuts the Merchant's Gate, one of the park's eighteen major gates. Similar plazas were planned at the southeast corner of the park (now Grand Army Plaza), the northeast corner (Duke Ellington Circle), and the northwest corner (Frederick Douglass Circle). Clearing of the land area for the circle started in 1868. The actual circle was approved two years later. The Columbus Monument was placed at the center of the circle in 1892. Columbus Circle was originally known generically as "The Circle". An 1871 account of the park referred to the roundabout as a "grand circle". After the 1892 installation of the Columbus Column in the circle's center, it became known as "Columbus Circle", although its other names were also used through the 1900s.