11 Facts About 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, and Central Park West, at the southwest corner of Central Park.

At Columbus Circle, workers had to be careful to not disrupt the existing IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line or Columbus Circle overhead.

The Columbus Circle monument was shored up during construction, and obstructions to traffic were minimized.

Traffic going straight through Columbus Circle was forced to go around the left side of the monument, while any traffic making turns from the circle had to go counterclockwise around the rotary using the right side.

The trolley routes that ran through Columbus Circle were discontinued in 1946, but the bus routes that replaced the trolley lines took the same convoluted paths through the circle.

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In 2007 Columbus Circle was awarded the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence silver medal.

North side of Columbus Circle is bounded by Broadway, Central Park West, and 61st Street.

Columbus Circle is the traditional municipal zero-mile point from which all official city distances are measured, although Google Maps uses New York City Hall for this purpose.

Columbus Circle became known as a center for soapbox orators in the early-mid 20th century, comparable to Speakers Corner in London.

The area sometimes had a poor reputation for cranks and street preachers, the "lunatic fringe whose tub-thumping make a nightmare of Columbus Circle" condemned by a New York Court of Appeals ruling in a case related to elsewhere in the city, that prompted mid-20th century configurations, but was sometimes showcased by the national government as a rambunctious symbol of American freedom of speech.

Columbus Circle was featured in the 1954 romantic comedy film It Should Happen to You.