Duke Ellington Circle is a

traffic circle A roundabout is a type of circular intersection (road), intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junction.''The N ...

located at the northeast corner of

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...

at the intersection of

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...

and

110th Street 110th Street is a street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is commonly known as the boundary between Harlem and Central Park, along which it is known as Central Park North. In the west, between Central Park West/Frederick Dougl ...

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The traffic circle is named for the jazz musician

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based ...

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Plaza

Formerly named "Frawley Circle", the traffic circle was renamed "Duke Ellington Circle" in 1995. In 1997, the

Duke Ellington Memorial The Duke Ellington Memorial by Robert Graham is installed at Duke Ellington Circle in Manhattan, New York City, New York (state), New York. The monument depicts Duke Ellington at a piano, supported by three columns depicting three caryatids each, ...

by sculptor Robert Graham was erected in the middle of the shallow amphitheater composing the circle. Though the circle diverts the flow of 110th Street, Fifth Avenue maintains a direct route through the intersection. A new main location for the

Museum for African Art The Africa Center, formerly known as the Museum for African Art and before that as the Center for African Art, is a museum located at Fifth Avenue and 110th Street in East Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, near the northern end of Fifth Avenue' ...

designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects is scheduled to open at the circle in 2011 and will be the first addition to New York City's Museum Mile in decades.

Neighborhoods

Duke Ellington Circle connects the New York City neighborhoods of

with

East Harlem East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem or and historically known as Italian Harlem, is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City, roughly encompassing the area north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, F ...

. Harlem, which since the 1920s has been as a major African-American residential, cultural, and business center is to the north and west of the intersection, while East Harlem is located to the east. The nearest area of Central Park to the circle is the Harlem Meer.

Transportation

The M1, M2, M3 and M4 New York City Bus routes serve the vicinity of the circle. In addition, the of the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 2 ...

stop nearby at 110th Street and Lenox Avenue, while the stop at 110th Street and Lexington Avenue.

References

{{Harlem Central Park Harlem Roundabouts and traffic circles in the United States Streets in Manhattan