Downtown Mall

Eight blocks of brick and granite where cars used to run — the only pedestrian-only Main Street left in Virginia. In 1976, landscape architect Lawrence Halprin converted East Main Street into a pedestrian mall. A 2009 renovation updated it; a 2024 listing placed portions on the National Register of Historic Places as the Charlottesville Downtown Mall Historic District. The street runs old ground: this corridor was once Three Notched Road, the colonial trade route connecting Richmond to the Shenandoah Valley.