Columbus Circle

Listen first. Taxis circle around you, horns rise and fall, and somewhere close by, water falls steadily from a fountain. Under your feet is pale stone, worn smooth by millions of shoes. Above you, a slim granite column rises against the sky, and at its very top a small marble figure looks out over the traffic. You are standing at Columbus Circle, one of the few true roundabouts in Manhattan, a city built almost entirely on straight lines and right angles.

That is the first surprise of this place. Most of Manhattan follows a strict grid, laid out in the early nineteenth century. Streets run east to west, avenues run north to south, and almost everything meets at a corner. Broadway is the great exception. It cuts across the grid on a diagonal, following an old route that is older than the plan itself. Here, Broadway crosses Eighth Avenue and Central Park South, and the city's planners answered this awkward meeting with a circle.

Now look up at the monument in the centre. It was put up in 1892, for the four hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus's first voyage across the Atlantic in 1492. The sculptor was Gaetano Russo, an artist from Sicily. The money did not come from the city government. It came largely from Italian Americans, many of them recent immigrants, through a public campaign organised by an Italian-language newspaper in New York. For that community, the column was a statement of belonging in a new country.

The design follows an old Roman idea called a rostral column. In ancient Rome, victorious admirals sometimes received a column decorated with the bronze prows of ships, the pointed front ends of their vessels. Look closely at the shaft, and you will see bronze ship prows set into the granite. They are meant to recall the three ships of Columbus's voyage: the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María. Columbus himself stands at the top, carved in white marble.

Walk slowly around the base, and you will find more figures. One side shows a winged figure, often described as a genius or guardian spirit, leaning over a globe. It is a nineteenth-century way of showing discovery and the shape of the world. Other panels carry inscriptions and bronze reliefs connected to the voyage. These details are easy to miss when traffic is moving, but they reward a few patient minutes of attention at street level.

Here is a second surprise. This circle is the official point from which distances to New York City are measured. When a road sign far upstate tells you how many kilometres remain to the city, the number is traditionally counted to this spot. So in a quiet, practical sense, you are standing at the centre of New York. Not at Times Square, not at Wall Street, but here, beside a fountain and a column most commuters hurry past.

The monument has not always been seen the same way. In recent years, statues of Columbus across the Americas have become the subject of serious debate. Many people, including Indigenous communities, point to the violence and enslavement that followed his arrival in the Caribbean. Many Italian Americans see the statue as a symbol of their own history in this city. New York chose to keep this column standing, but the arguments around it are now part of what this place means.

The plaza around you is newer than it looks. In the 2000s, the circle was redesigned so that people could actually use it. Before that, it was mostly a space for cars, hard to reach and unpleasant to cross. Today you will find curved benches, planted beds, and fountains that throw water in low arcs around the edge. The fountains help with something practical, too. Their steady sound softens the noise of the traffic, so the centre of the circle feels calmer than the streets around it.

Turn toward the trees. That corner of green is the southwest edge of Central Park, and the entrance in front of you is known as Merchants' Gate. Near it stands a large monument with a gilded group of figures on top. This is the memorial to the battleship USS Maine, which exploded in Havana harbour in 1898, an event that helped push the United States into war with Spain. Two monuments, two very different stories, face each other across a few lanes of traffic.

Now look to the west side of the circle. Two tall glass towers rise there, joined at their base by a long, curving front that follows the shape of the circle. This complex opened in the early 2000s and holds shops, restaurants, offices, a hotel, and apartments. Inside, the upper floors look straight back at the column and the park. The building's curved front is a quiet act of respect. It bends to fit the circle, instead of forcing the circle to fit it.

On the south side stands a narrower building with a very particular story. It was designed in the 1960s by the architect Edward Durell Stone, with a white facade and rows of small rounded openings at the base. New Yorkers nicknamed it the lollipop building. Later, it became the home of the Museum of Arts and Design, and its exterior was heavily reworked. The change caused a loud public argument among architects and preservationists. Few buildings in the city have caused so much debate about one facade.

If you visit often enough, you notice that this circle is always changing its mood. In the morning, joggers and dog walkers move toward the park. At midday, office workers eat lunch on the benches. In the evening, the towers light up and the fountains catch the glow of the streetlights. Underneath it all, trains rumble through one of the busiest subway stations in Manhattan. The circle works as a doorway between several parts of the city: Midtown, the Upper West Side, and the park.

Before you leave, stand for a moment near the fountains and look up the column one more time. Notice how small Columbus appears from down here, almost lost against the clouds and glass. Then look around at the ring of buildings, the trees of the park, and the endless flow of yellow cabs. This is a place built to hold movement. As you walk away, listen for the moment the fountain sound fades, and the ordinary noise of New York returns.