Originally a boardwalk to cross the sand spit between the Manly pier and ocean beach, it is now an busy pedestrian mall lined with restaurants and shops.
The Kay-ye-my people walked for thousands of years along the track between the cove and the beach at Manly, but the first boardwalk was only built in 1855 when Henry Gilbert Smith began developing Manly as a resort. The Corso had a hotel at each end, and most of Manly's commerce along its length, until the rise of the car and the shopping mall in the twentieth century.
