Everything about Columbus Circle totally explained
Columbus Circle, named for
Christopher Columbus, is a major landmark and point of attraction in the
New York City borough of
Manhattan. Completed in
1905 and renovated a century later, it's located at the intersection of
Broadway,
Central Park West,
Central Park South (59th Street), and
Eighth Avenue, at the southwest corner of
Central Park, with coordinates . The
traffic circle was designed by
William P. Eno, a businessman who pioneered many early innovations in
road safety and traffic control, as part of
Frederick Law Olmsted's vision for the park, which included a "Grand Circle" at Merchants' Gate, its most important
Eighth Avenue entrance.
Monument
The monument at the center, created by Italian sculptor Gaetano Russo, is the point at which distances to and from New York City are officially measured. It was erected as part of New York's 1892 commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus' first voyage to
the Americas. Constructed with funds raised by
Il Progresso, a New York City-based
Italian-language
newspaper, the monument consists of a
marble statue of Columbus atop a 70-foot
granite rostral column decorated with
bronze reliefs representing Columbus' ships: the
Niña, the
Pinta, and the
Santa María. Its pedestal features an
angel holding a
globe.
Renovations to the circle completed in 2005 included new water fountains by
WET, of
Fountains of Bellagio fame; wooden benches; and plantings encircling the monument. The inner circle measures approximately, and the outer circle is approximately . The redesign, by the
Olin Partnership of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was the recipient of the 2006
American Society of Landscape Architects’ General Design Award Of Honor.
Transportation hub
From its inception, Columbus Circle has been a major transportation hub.
The
M5,
M7,
M10,
M20, and
M104 bus lines and the
A,
B,
C,
D, and
#1 New York City Subway lines all connect at the
59th Street-Columbus Circle station.
Neighborhood
Time Warner Center, the world headquarters of the
Time Warner corporation, is located on the west side of Columbus Circle on the site of the old
New York Coliseum. The complex also hosts the
Shops at Columbus Circle,
Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the New York City studio headquarters of
CNN. On the north side of Columbus Circle is the
Trump International Hotel and Tower, with its famous steel globe. Immediately prior, the edifice had been an office tower, the
Gulf + Western Building, housing the New York City headquarters of
Paramount Pictures. Other notable institutions around Columbus Circle are the
John Jay College of Criminal Justice,
Fordham University,
New York Institute of Technology, the
Professional Children's School, The Beacon School, and the
Ethical Culture Fieldston School.
On the northeast lies the Merchant's Gate to Central Park, dominated by the
Maine Monument designed by
Harold Van Buren Magonigle. An imposing
Beaux-Arts edifice of marble and gilded bronze, it was built in
1913 as a memorial to sailors killed aboard the
battleship USS Maine, whose mysterious 1898 explosion in
Havana harbor precipitated the
Spanish-American War.
The neighborhood around Columbus Circle is vibrant and eclectic. Within one mile (1.6 km) are
Lincoln Center, the
American Museum of Natural History, the
Plaza Hotel near Grand Army Plaza,
Hearst Tower, and
Times Square. The
Hell's Kitchen and
Midtown neighborhoods lie to the south and the
Upper West Side to the north.
One of the buildings adjoining Columbus Circle,
2 Columbus Circle, was designed by architect
Edward Durrell Stone, originally to house the
Huntington Hartford Gallery of Modern Art. Vacant since 1998, it's listed as one of the
World Monuments Fund's "100 most endangered sites".
In the media
Columbus Circle also appeared in the movie
Ghostbusters as the site where the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man begins his trip towards
55 Central Park West, and is used as the somewhat serendipitous dominant location in the movie
August Rush.
Footnotes
Further Information
Get more info on 'Columbus Circle'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://columbus_circle.totallyexplained.com">Columbus Circle Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
