Pearl Street Mall

Pearl Street Mall is the four-block pedestrian centre of Boulder and one of the most pleasant urban spaces in Colorado. The mall runs along Pearl Street from 11th to 15th Avenue, lined with a mixture of Victorian commercial buildings, independent shops, restaurants, and cafes, all of it overshadowed by the Flatirons visible at the west end of the street.

The street performance tradition here is genuinely lively — jugglers, musicians, living statues, and the famous "Zip Code Man" (who will identify your home ZIP code from a short description of your neighbourhood) work the mall year-round. In summer the outdoor cafes fill up and the whole street becomes a parade. In winter, when the crowds thin, it's easier to appreciate the 19th-century storefront architecture and the mountains at the end of the street. The east side of the mall, past 15th, becomes a more local neighbourhood area with some of Boulder's best independent restaurants.

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A story
The pedestrianisation of Pearl Street was controversial when it was completed in 1977 — businesses feared the loss of car traffic would kill the retail. The opposite happened. Pearl Street became the model for pedestrian malls across the American West, and Boulder's downtown rebounded faster and more completely than almost any comparable city in the region. The "Zip Code Man," who has reportedly guessed hundreds of thousands of zip codes correctly, has been performing on the mall since the 1980s.