One of the most significant boulevards in America for what it no longer contains. Monument Avenue was developed in the 1890s as a grand processional street lined with bronze monuments to Confederate leaders — a deliberate act of civic mythmaking that shaped Southern identity for over a century. The architecture of the surrounding houses is genuine and impressive: an intact streetscape of late-Victorian and Edwardian townhouses in a variety of styles, with the wide tree-lined median running for over a mile.
Today the pedestals stand empty, their contents removed during and after the 2020 protests. Only Arthur Ashe's statue remains — added in 1996 after enormous controversy. The empty pedestals are more interesting than the full ones would be: they make the argument visible, the history legible.