Broadway, New York (must see)

Trying to follow Broadway back to its beginnings, you’d find yourself tracing a much older path: the Wickquasgeck Trail, a route carved into Manhattan in the times of New Amsterdam, long before New York dreamed of skyscrapers or neon marquees... That trail stretched up the island like a wandering spine, and when the Dutch arrived, they simply widened it and gave it a new name: Heeren (or “Gentlemen’s”) Way. The British, who arrived later, noticing how wide the street really was, promptly declared it Broadway—a name that clearly stuck.

Today’s Broadway runs a lot farther than its original ancestor. It launches from Bowling Green at Manhattan’s southern tip, slips through the boroughs, wanders into Westchester County, and keeps going until it reaches Sleepy Hollow. If you’re searching for New York’s oldest continuous street, this is the one.

Jump to 1907, when part of Broadway—stretching from Times Square to Sherman Square—earned a new identity as Automobile Row. Car dealerships, repair shops, and glittering showrooms lined both sides, turning the street into a motor-age catwalk. Over time, the traffic patterns tightened, and Broadway became mainly a one-way river of cars.

In recent decades, though, the city has rewritten Broadway’s script. Cars have gradually ceded space to people, and sections of the street have transformed into pedestrian plazas, pocket parks, and bike lanes. Times Square, Duffy Square, and Herald Square traded honking horns for café tables and performers in painted outfits. Even Madison and Union Square saw Broadway narrow to make room for walkers instead of windshields.

At the southern end, near Bowling Green and City Hall Park, Lower Broadway still plays host to the city’s legendary ticker-tape parades—snowstorms of paper drifting from office towers as heroes of every kind roll past. These days, it’s more shredded confetti and fewer actual tickers, but the “Canyon of Heroes” effect remains.

And then there’s the stretch that needs no introduction: The Great White Way, a phrase coined in 1901 to describe Broadway’s theater district. Between 42nd and 53rd Streets, the lights burn bright, the marquees compete for your attention, and the plays and musicals rewrite themselves nightly through applause.

From colonial trail to cultural artery, Broadway carries centuries of stories—and somehow still finds room for more...