Duke Ellington Circle Duke Ellington Circle Duke Ellington Circle is a traffic circle located at the Northeast corner of Central Park at the foot of Fifth Avenue and of 110th Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The traffic circle is named for the jazz musician Duke Ellington. Formerly named "Frawley Circle", the traffic circle was renamed "Duke Ellington Circle" in 1995. In 1997, a tall statue by sculptor Robert Graham, depicting the Muses — nine nude caryatids — supporting a grand piano and Duke Ellington on their heads was erected in the middle of the shallow amphitheater composing the circle.
New York, Westchester and Boston Railway and entrance ramps at Cedar Street in New Rochelle and the adjacent Memorial Highway access roads were built on the trackbed of the NYW&B's North Avenue station. When the New England Thruway [I-95] was first built (1956-1958), the station's concrete foundation on the east side of North Avenue was removed and a long entrance ramp joined North Avenue at a T intersection at grade. In the 1960s, the western foundation which contained the station house was demolished, and the Memorial Highway roadway and North Avenue overpass were completed to a traffic circle just west of the former station. Prior to