1941 Queens Aerial Photos.
This is yet another new (12 May 01) page to cover additional information and photographs of this interesting old highway; see also my Automotive, Chrysler, Dudgeon (really!), Mercedes, and SS and JAGUAR car pages and other related pages.
A Motor Parkway Panel has been convened to keep the LIMP alive in minds and museums.
There is also a lot of automotive material on my ORDNANCE and HISTORY pages.
Also, if you like automotive history, see the links on the Automotive page.
RoW = Right-of-Way.
LONG ISLAND MOTOR PARKWAY - continued
Additional WILLISTON-
NEW HYDE PARK ROAD Documentation
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continuing coverage of the peregrinations of the Long Island Moror Parkway across the Long Island landscape, returning to the Albertson/Williston/North Hills area.
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On 10 May 01, I got an e-message "wondering if the road between Albertson & Williston Park off Willis Ave. known as 'Motor Parkway' has any relationship to the overall Vanderbilt Motor Parkway". Bad start; I, of course, bristled at the VMP appelation but had a vague memory of such a street sign on the west side at the Nassau County recharge basin sump. An errand to my health service (the one at Lakeville and Marcus) had me going out anyway, so I took my trusty digital SLR and detoured down Willis with these unexpected results:
First off, NO, there is no such sign at the RoW at Willis Avenue or on any of the blocks N or S of the RoW, at least not any longer. However, there very much IS the sign on the E side for "Highway Drive", as noted on LIMP page 6 in my original
(All photos taken 10 May 01 by and © 2001 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
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What we learn is quite simple; the LIMP RoW is, as we know, the boundary between Williston Park to the S (see the "Welcome" sign) and Albertson (see the white sign) to the N. The Albertson sign reads, "Town of North Hempstead - Highway Department - Albertson Yard". The driveway, which is on the RoW leading west, noted as leading to the "Nassau County storm water storage facility" on page 6, turns out to be also an access road to the yard, AND the gate was OPEN this time and there was no "No Trespassing" sign! There's that inviting open gate and the view beyond (unfortunately for us, that is NOT original paving nor are the concrete extender margins visible). We are looking at the yard building from the middle of the curve, looking WSW:
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Wandering further along the RoW, we come to the reverse curve and, now looking WNW, we can barely make out, just to the right of the front end loader, the back side of the Cammerer Park recreation building! Passing the loader and trying again, we see the Cammerer building in the middle, barely visible over the fence (my interest is in the RoW, not the backside of the buildings):
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Walking right up to the yard gate, itself, looking W, we see the back of the Cammerer Park service building smack across the RoW. Retracing my steps and pondering about the Willis Avenue crossing, it dawned on me that the ridge to the S was almost certainly the ramp up to the bridge; the blazing sun gave me little choice of exposure so I've processed this photo, facing E, to bring out the ridge under the dense foliage (this is one of those cases where intuition may lead us astray, but it sure "looks" right):
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Up on the ridge (embankment) itself, looking E at the gate and Willis Avenue and the American Legion lot it becomes evident (to me) that the lot differs from the original paving E of it because (obviously, to me, now) the lot was the eastern embankment! Back down at grade and outside the gate, this is the embankment looking WSW (processed):
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Instead of sensibly driving straight to 410 Lakeville Road, I woozled along the RoW to I. U. Willets Road to show you where the RoW and IUW abut briefly. You may recall that an N. C. Perkins refused to sell and Willie K. had to detour wildly around that property, known then as "Cedar Heights", between Shelter Rock Road and Searingtown Road, in a northward bulge visible on road maps as the gap between Carriage Road and Shrub Hollow Road on the W and between Sugar Maple Drive and Capri Drive on the E. The curve is centered roughly around the Herricks High School. Obvious as it is, and as many times as I've passed it since ca. 1960, it took Panel Associate Chris Lindsley to show me this spot last year (thank'ee , Chris); this is standing on the S side of IUW (no cars) looking E. Walking a few yards E along IUW, you can better see the RoW up on a low embankment (banked for the sharp curve) and the curvature SE away from IUW (processed):
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Walking a half-block south on Reed Drive, we come to Helen Court, which appears to be on the RoW and dead ends on the Herricks H.S. driveway running S from IUW; looking W across the driveway from the E end of Helen Court (surrounded by puzzled, pierced teens), thats the W (dead) end of Shrub Hollow Road beyond the barricade. Crossing over, this is SHR curving way to the SW from the circle at the E end:
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Turning 180°, here is the barricade from the SHR circle, looking E, but wait! What's that debris to the left of the Dead End sign, just below the red tail light? Behold, to the right of a chunk of undifferentiated concrete, which may well be the underside of LIMP aggregate, I give you an unmistakeable small remnant of LIMP paving!
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Retracing my steps to the car, here is Helen Court from the E side of Reed Drive, pierced teens and all, looking WSW. This next picture, from the S side of Sugar Maple Drive at Reed looks E at the actual RoW, not really visible, but between the two houses opposite:
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Once more in the car and following the RoW along SHR around the bend to the SW to numbers 67 and 71 SHR (N side), we've come full circle, for there, peeking through the dense foliage to the NW, is the LIPA transformer station at SRR! Crossing SRR and following the RoW along Old Court House Drive in Manhasset Hills and turning N into Royal Way, which bends L (W), one can see what sure appears to be the LIMP embankment (the fence) up high between numbers 67 and 63:
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BUT, therein lies a tale of misguided exploration and some half-dozen shots of very nice traces that turn out to be two blocks S of the actual RoW! The dénouement is that Crest Road, roughly midway between SRR and NHPR and between OCHR and the RoW, only marks a natural E-W ridge and the dead giveaway is that the actual RoW is between Robby Lane to the S and Links Drive (private) to the N of the RoW! Finally, giving in to common sense, I abandoned the wandering and set off for the health center by getting on the Northern State Parkway W/B from New Hyde Park Road N/B, giving me one last crack at the RoW by pulling off on the entry ramp and popping this shot of the RoW up on the exit ramp from NSP E/B for NHPR S/B:
(All photos taken 10 May 01 by and © 2001 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
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Gotta get me up on that exit ramp on foot, with a camera, one of these days. I deed, I deed!
On 07 Jun 01, determined to correct my omission of the abutment at New Hyde Park Road and Northern State Parkway, I drove W/B on the NSP to the N/B Lakeville Road exit and pulled off just before the LR stop sign. I took these photos of that gap in the trees in the cloverleaf loop from the N, looking S at the NSP, and then, turning around 180°, of the opposite side of the cloverleaf loop, loooking N across the exit ramp at the s end of the Lakeville Jewish Center, barely visible through the lush foliage:
(06 Jun 01 photos by and © 2001 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
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Then, crossing the NSP on LR S/B and swinging L onto Marcus Avenue and entering NSP E/B and getting off at the very next exit for New Hyde Park Road S/B but stopping about half way up the ramp on the N side just past the guard rail (you can easily see where; there isn't much choice where to pull off), I did what I could to document the remanent abutment (it really is more like a wing wall than an abutment); the first two photos show it under all the trees and poison ivy (lots of that!), and where it peters out into the ground at the far right center, just beyond the last branch:
(06 Jun 01 photos by and © 2001 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
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Here's a close-up of the last bit under that branch and another view of the top of the wall:
(06 Jun 01 photos by and © 2001 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
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Next, I took two shots looking over the wall at the NSP for perspective; I took these shots many times over, trying to frame speeding cars in heavy afternoon traffic, and finally gave up in disgust as not one single vehicle appeared (try and avoid 'em when you don't want 'em!); the first is looking NNW and the second WNW:
(06 Jun 01 photos by and © 2001 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
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Not happy with the above, I went back to the NSP ramp on my way home from a physical on 28 Jan 2002 and shot these corresponding pictures with no foliage to speak of; the first shows the actual cut stone abutment itself, the second the left (W) end of the ramp, the third the middle, and the fourth the right (E) end:
(28 Jan 02 photos by and © 2002 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
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There is very clearly an alignment problem here; the stone and concrete work is aligned E-W but the LIMP bridge went WNW-ESE, so we are probably looking at work from the original Moses NSP/LIMP bridge, not earlier Vanderbilt work.
Then, moving the car across NHP Road, and wandering back and forth afoot (dodging traffic at an exceedingly slow traffic light), I documented the crossing of NHP Road; the first shot is a view E from the N side of the off-ramp, the second from the same spot looking W, with the abutment behind the trees on the right, the third is up on the E embankment looking ESE into the LIPA RoW (which continues from here E to the Old Courthouse Road bridge), and the fourth is back down on NHPR looking E up at the RoW (that's "The Gates" complex to the left):
(28 Jan 02 photos by and © 2002 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
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Finally, two shots looking across NHPR, E at the RoW and ESE at the retaining wall on the S sie of the embankment; I would guess that the latter is actually the remains of the E/B LIMP entry ramp.
(28 Jan 02 photos by and © 2002 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
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Funny, I had always thought the RoW ran along the ridge just S of NSP on BOTH sides of NHPR; wrong again! Gotta watch that erratic intuition!
The Bronx River Parkway
The Bronx River Parkway was designed and begun in 1907 and, as noted on the main LIMP page, was built about the same time as the LIMP (but was still under construction in 1917). It was certainly one of the very first limited access highways built of reinforced concrete but actually initially opened three years after the Long Island Motor Parkway did.
According to the official Westchester County history of the BRP, which claims the BRP as "AMERICA’S FIRST AUTOMOBILE PARKWAY", "The 1907 Parkway Act which created the Bronx Parkway Commission had a dual purpose: 'to reclaim the Bronx River from its intolerable condition as an open sewer…' and 'to provide a parked driveway outlet for New York City’s hundreds of thousands of pleasure cars'." That same history states that "The formal dedication of the BRONX RIVER PARKWAY took place on November 5, 1925 at Valhalla, New York" and further that "The BRONX RIVER PARKWAY was the world’s first motorized public parkway and served as a model for other Westchester County roads, the Northern and Southern State Parkways on Long Island and many parkways throughout all sections of the country"!
In fairness to Westchester, though, the site noted has a great history of the BRP.
My grandparents and their friends and aquaintances were in the habit, post-WWI, of hiring a car and driver of a sunny weekend (you couldn't rent in those days) and driving up and back on the BRP just for the pure pleasure of the scenery and the ride.
However, the BRP's claim to being a limited access road is in itself limited! On 18 May 01, I was driving down (S) on the old BRP, not on the fast Sprain Brook Parkway bypass, through White Plains and spotted an historical marker on the S/B side indicating BRP as the oldest parkway (which just isn't so!) and also noted that it still has many level crossings at grade and some half-dozen or so traffic lights! Some limited access!
The Bronx River Reservation is celebrating its 75th Anniversary year (thus the sign). Hurray for them, it's a notable achievement, but big whoop; the LIMP is coming up fast on its 100th year!
There is more on the BRP on Panel Member Steve Anderson's The Roads of Metro New York Website at his Bronx River Parkway page.
Because the Main Page overloaded, please visit the many Continuation Pages noted on the LIMP Index page.
THUMBS UP!
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S. Berliner, III
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of this series of Long Island Motor Parkway pages.
© Copyright S. Berliner, III - 2002 - All rights reserved.
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[If my discs weren't floppy, my photos wouldn't be LIMP!]
times since the counter was installed.
The index on this page has been truncated to save page space; see the LIMP Index on the page preceding the main LIMP page.
