Columbus Circle

Columbus Circle Review

This busy traffic circle at Central Park's southwest corner anchors the Upper West Side and makes a good starting place for exploring the neighborhood if you're coming from south of 59th Street. The central 700-ton granite monument (capped by a marble statue of Christopher Columbus) serves as a popular meeting place.

To the west looms the Time Warner Center (212/823-6300 www.shopsatcolumbuscircle.com), its 80-story twin glass towers designed by skyscraper architect David M. Childs. The concave front of its lower floors envelops Columbus Circle's curve, and the upper towers mirror the angle of Broadway and the lines of the city's street grid. Its first three floors and basement house stores that include Whole Foods (good for a quick bite), Sephora, Williams-Sonoma, and Coach. The third and fourth floors have restaurants, including Masa, an outrageously priced and acclaimed sushi restaurant; plus A Voce; and Thomas Keller's famed (and also costly) Per Se as well as his takeout-friendly Bouchon Bakery. Above are luxury condos, offices, and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, whose restaurant and beautiful lobby bar (on the 35th floor) make a bird's-eye perch for surveying the city below. The performing arts center Jazz at Lincoln Center (www.jalc.org) is also in the complex.

Just north of Columbus Circle, the Trump International Hotel and Tower fills the wedge of land between Central Park West and Broadway; it's home to the self-named Jean Georges restaurant, where the celebrity chef works his culinary magic. On the circle's south side, at 2 Columbus Circle, is the former Huntington Hartford building, built in 1964 from the owner's A&P fortune. In 2008 it reopened as the new home of the Museum of Arts and Design after extensive renovation that clad its exterior in lots of zigzags and narrow slits of glass.