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 (West 59th Street), and Central Park West, at the southwest corner of Central Park. The circle is the point from which official highway distances from New York City are measured, as well as the center of the restricted-travel area for C-2 visa holders. The circle is named after the monument of Christopher Columbus in the center, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The name is also used for the neighborhood that surrounds the circle for a few blocks in each direction. Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, is located to the southwest, and the Theater District is to the southeast and the Lincoln Square section of the Upper West Side is to the northwest. Circle In 1857 the traffic circle, located at Eighth Avenue/Central Park West, Broadway, and 59th Street/Central Park South, was designed as part of Frederick Law Olmsted's vision for Central Park, which included a rotary on the southwest corner of the park. It abuts the Merchant's Gate, one of the park's eighteen major gates. Similar plazas were planned at the southeast corner of the park (now Grand Army Plaza), the northeast corner (Duke Ellington Circle), and the northwest corner (Frederick Douglass Circle). In 1868 the clearing of the land area for the circle was started. In 1869 the Columbus Circle was, originally, known generically as "The Circle". In 1870 the actual circle was approved. An 1871 account of the park referred to the roundabout as a "grand circle". In 1892 the Columbus Monument was placed at the center of the circle. After the 1892 installation of the Columbus Column in the circle's center, the circle became known as "Columbus Circle", although its other names were also used through the 1900s. Subway construction By 1901, construction on the first subway line of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (now the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line, used by the ) required the excavation of the circle, and the column and streetcar tracks through the area were put on temporary wooden stilts. As part of the subway line's construction, the 59th Street–Columbus Circle station was built underneath the circle. During construction, traffic in the circle was so dangerous that the Municipal Art Society proposed redesigning the roundabout. By February