VOL · ISUMMER 2026
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← FROM THE FIELD · VOL. I, N° 78PLATE B · ELEVATION · SUN ALT 67°MIDDAY · LAS OLAS
PLATE · ELEVATION · WEST SIDESOUTH CONGRESS · EAST-FACING AWNINGS · 7–9 AM
FORT LAUDERDALE · FIELD NOTES · 5 MIN

Las Olas, on the right side of the median.

The banyans on Las Olas Boulevard are five blocks long and four lanes wide. Three picks that know which side of the road they belong on.

By

Las Olas is a one-mile commercial strip with banyans on both medians and awnings down both sides. Which side is the cool side depends on the hour: north sidewalk before noon, south after. The medians cover the crosswalks the whole time. The picks below take this seriously — we re-route from one side to the other at the SE 8th Avenue crossing automatically.

We also avoid the Riverwalk in the afternoon. It’s open to the south and the Tarpon River reflects it back; the temperature gauge on our app reads 6°F hotter there than in the banyan corridor two blocks north.

The picks · 3.Graded JUN 12, 2026
  1. 01
    Riverside to Bo’s on Las Olas

    North sidewalk, banyan canopy, the cocktail-bar set has done this walk for 60 years.

    Shade
    82%
    Walk
    5 min
    Best at
    11:30 am
  2. 02
    Stranahan House to Lobby Bar

    Skirt the Tarpon River’s south side via the banyan path. South sidewalk after 2.

    Shade
    76%
    Walk
    7 min
    Best at
    2:30 pm
  3. 03
    NSU Art Museum to Coconuts

    East under the banyans. The median planters are dense enough to take the crossing too.

    Shade
    70%
    Walk
    11 min
    Best at
    1 pm

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About the author
Amar Braithwaite is the founder of Stay Cool. He builds shade-aware navigation tools and writes the Field Notes corpus on urban shade infrastructure. Read the why →

Walk in the shade.

Stay Cool computes a shadow-aware route for any city we map.

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