Broadway Malls

The Broadway Malls are a series of landscaped median strips running along Broadway from Columbus Circle (59th Street) through the Upper West Side and into Washington Heights, covering roughly eight acres of green space along one of Manhattan's most famous thoroughfares.

Broadway's unusual diagonal path across the Manhattan grid creates the wide intersections and triangular plazas that are among the city's most distinctive urban spaces. The malls, planted in the medians created by this geometry, provide a continuous green ribbon through some of Manhattan's most densely populated neighborhoods.

The plantings include a diverse collection of trees, shrubs, and seasonal flowers, maintained in part by the Broadway Mall Association, a nonprofit conservancy that has tended these spaces since 1981. The organization coordinates volunteer planting days, horticultural planning, and advocacy for the malls' continued improvement.

The malls vary in character from block to block: some are simple tree-lined medians, while others feature ornamental gardens, benches, and small gathering areas. Collectively, they soften the experience of walking along Broadway and provide much-needed urban canopy in the concrete landscape.

The Broadway Malls represent an often-overlooked category of New York City parkland: the linear green space embedded within the street infrastructure. Though no single segment is large, their cumulative effect on the livability of the Upper West Side and beyond is substantial.