Mineola - Carle Place.
This is yet another new (28 Mar 00) 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 situ and 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.
LI MOTOR PARKWAY
at WlLLISTON/ALBERTSON/SEARINGTOWN
[Croyden Court (off Roslyn Road) to LIRR Oyster Bay Branch
and to Willis Avenue and on West]
(moved from Page 5 on 28 Mar 00 and greatly expanded)
After documenting Dead Man's Curve, I went back to the Williston/Albertson/Searingtown area, about which more will follow.
Here is what I found at the top of a dirt path leading up the embankment from the SW corner of Croyden Court, immediately ESE of the Albertson LIRR station, accessible from Roslyn Road on the north side of the RoW, and also what I found at the east end of the LIMP RoW atop the embankment:
(Both photos taken 25 Mar 00 by and © 2000 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail images; click on pictures for large images.]
What you're looking at is the north edge of original pavement and the heavily-graffiti'd western abutment (all that remains) of the former crossing of the LIMP over the Oyster Bay Branch of the Long Island Rail Road; somehow, I'd never realized it was there until Bob Miller showed a slide of the original bridge and it occurred to me that I had no idea where it was! Next, looking back, here's the trail from where I climbed up to the remains of the eastern embankment fill (all traces of the eastern abutment itself are gone) and then walking back to the east to where the trail becomes LIMP paving (above the west end of Croyden Court):
(Both photos taken 25 Mar 00 by and © 2000 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail images; click on pictures for large images.]
Finally, looking down from the RoW where the previous picture was taken, there is that same northern edge of the widened paving from above (you can just see my ubiquitous Neon in the far right, parked at the bend in Croyden Court) and then a few yards further east, another exposed edge:
(Both photos taken 25 Mar 00 by and © 2000 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail images; click on pictures for large images.]
What I failed to do then was to continue EAST from the top of the Croyden Court access, all the way to the west side of Roslyn Road, where the original Toll Lodge still stands (this is PRIVATE PROPERTY) up on the south side of the embankment; more on this to follow later (and elsewhere?).
I had realized, looking at my 1994 Hagstrom's Nassau County Atlas, pages 3 and 11, that the boundaries between Manhasset Hills (page 3, H18) and Williston Park and East Williston (page 11, J18), on the south, and Searingtown (H/J17) on the north ARE, in fact, the old RoW of the LIMP! [Some people are just slow!]
So, following my Nassau Hagstrom's, I discovered that Bengeyfield Drive in East Williston, which I had used often when I lived in nearby Mineola in the mid '60s, is the southeast corner of the intersection of the LIRR's Oyster Bay Branch and the LIMP! Being too far around to get to Bengeyfield from Croydon, I went north to I. U. Willets Road and crossed the tracks going west, turned south, and woozled my way down to the northwest corner of the crossing, finding the RoW quite inaccessible there until I turned west on Dorset Avenue and got to In Place (really!) and south to Foxcroft Road, which T's off it; there is a southward jog off the western end of Foxcroft which dead ends at the LIMP and has a gate in a fence leading right onto a pristine section of original pavement. The first picture is taken from the center of the RoW facing back east towards the LIRR crossing, with a fenced municipal area in the way, while the second is taken facing west to the firemanic arch just short of Willis Avenue, which runs north-south (right-left) just past the parked cars.# There is a another street running south from Dorset Avenue between In Place (don'cha just love it?) and Willis, Devon Place, which dead ends at the LIMP immediately east of Willis but the spot is of no particular visual merit. Then I headed over to Willis Avenue itself and took a shot from the west side looking east under that arch (I didn't note the name on the street sign at the driveway and can't read it on the photo but it turns out to be "Highway Drive")# and turning around, a shot of a driveway into a Nassau County storm water storage facility. That driveway, the RoW, runs WSW just north of William Street into the east end of what Roger Cooper had reminded me (06 Nov 99) of, Senator John D. Caemmerer Park, which did not exist when I lived down that way, although I did not find any Highway Drive there, in Searingtown (as Cooper had indicated, but that's because I didn't remember, or connect it with, that street sign noted {where?} earlier on the west side of Willis Avenue)
# - Incidentally, the white-and-brick building, which is an outstanding landmark on the SE corner of Willis Avenue and the RoW is Williston Post No. 144 of the American Legion and the RoW alongside (N) of their building is, as noted, the RoW and some of the original paving.
I drove around in that familiar area. The park was closing so I took a shot of it from across Wentworth Avenue [the 1994 Nassau Hagstrom's doesn't match reality (or my memory) here, showing the south end of Wentworth Avenue in Searingtown and the north end of Collins Avenue in Williston Park as being skew and dead-ending at the RoW, whereas now Wentworth goes seamlessly right on through to the south, becoming Collins Avenue at William Street]. On the opposite side of Wentworth, someone had built a house across the RoW while I lived in Mineola, perhaps ca. 1965, and the RoW is quite inaccessible from there westward until you come to the NE corner of the Searingtown Public Library parking lot off Searingtown Road. There, I climbed the bank and took a picture of what I believe to be the line of trees on the north side of the RoW; the south side has been encroached on by the houses backing on it. Backing away to the west, I took a shot of the RoW beyond the fence, with the embankment and line of trees to the left and my Neon parked directly on the RoW:
DUBIOUS ARTIFACT on NSP
[This belongs with the "Confluence of Marcus/Lakeville/NSParkway" material but there's just no room on that page.]
Stuck in eastbound Friday (14 Apr 00) evening traffic on the Northern State Parkway in the Lakeville Road area, I came to a complete stop just west of the New Hyde Park Road southbound ramp, directly opposite where the LIMP RoW ends on the north side at the SE end of the Great Neck South school grounds. Something off to my right rear caught my peripheral vision (quite wide) and I was able, for the first time ever, to actually look back over my right shoulder and there it (the LIMP) was! Or, there it sure seemed to be! The Lakeville overpass was just out of sight behind me and the NHP Road overpass had just become visible in front of me. Running vaguely SSE and starting perhaps 50' from the southern verge was a light grey strip of paving about 100' feet long. Naturally, traffic started up again at that epiphanic {???} moment. Undaunted by heavy rain on Sunday, 16 Apr 00, and going to an afternoon concert within a mile or so, I took along my trusty digital SLR, had a sunny moment at the right time, and risked a traffic ticket by pulling off on the southbound ramp and parking on the southern verge just shy of the roadbed. The LIMP it ain't! It turns westerly at what had appeared to be the end and runs to a small pond which appears on my 1994 Hagstrom's Nassau County Atlas (page 3, F10) about ¼-mile NE of the dead end of Dakota Drive (off Delaware drive off Nevada Drive, opening off Marcus Avenue). It looks so uncannily like an abandoned LIMP RoW that I thought, as I did with the "lost" segment of I. U. Willets Road, that I would show it here anyway:
What you are looking at is (top left) a locator shot facing ENE over the top of my Neon, showing the NHP Road exit sign and bridge ahead and the merger of the ramp and this mystery road. Next, looking east, with the right rear of the car roof for reference, the northernmost part of the paving, then, standing at that spot, the view SSW, and (top right), walking SW into the curve, the paving with buildings on the north side of Marcus showing through the trees:
Now, you see those same buildings from further in along the curve (left picture), then the last part of the curving stretch, and the end of the road at a locked Cyclone fence (with an illegible sign on the left gate), and the view of the end of the road throuh the gate (edge of sign on the right) with the pond beyond:
These last two show the view facing east away from the fence and then back to the NSP with my car to the left on the southern verge of the southbound ramp, traffic on the NSP, and the site of the LIMP RoW invisible across the NSP:
(Photos 16 Apr 00 by and © S. Berliner, III 2000 - all rights reserved)
This odd spot is probably only an access/service road for the pond; there was no Toll Lodge and entrance to the LIMP here, although the LIMP crossing of the NSP may have been at this very spot and veered off to the east where this road veers off to the west. Oh, well, nothing ventured, nothing gained, but it IS a pretty spot and well worth the trouble (and risk).
Much more on the area west of Searingtown Road to the Queens-Nassau county line should follow soon (promise) but will require that I wander afoot with the trusty digital to document the area. The section between Searingtown Road and Shelter Rock Road is where the LIMP took one of its wild swings northward, around Cedar Heights, the property of one N. C. Perkins, and the only sure thing that I remember well in that section is that the south boundary of the Harkness Boy Scout Camp that stood on the southeast corner of I. U. Willets and Shelter Rock Roads was, in fact, the LIMP. Looking at an old property map, the property between the Links Golf Course and Perkins (on both sides of the RoW) is shown as belonging to the LIMP, so one may well assume that Perkins was one of the major hold-outs. 01 Apr 00 (no foolin') found me driving past on Shelter Rock and suddenly realizing that the path in the woods across from the (former) Harkness site is, in fact, the LIMP! I'm heading back shortly - stay tuned!
Speaking of dubious artifacts, how about a dubious map? I referred to this on page 1A in the Confluence of Marcus/Lakeville/NSParkway section. Kevin Walsh, of Forgotten NY fame, sent me a copy of this 1930 Van Nostrand map, showing a rather strange configuration of the LIMP in far western Nassau County from Lakeville Road to New Hyde Park Road:
(Left map courtesy of Kevin Walsh - Jul 2000;
right map as revised by SB,III - 20 Apr 2002)
I am REALLY unhappy with the old map! It shows the LIMP veering off BELOW NSP, which just ain't so! It runs south of Marcus until it crosses it NNW at almost right angles at the 400-410-420 Lakeville Road parking lot entrance and goes N over NSP, then E over Lakeville, through the Great Neck South schools playing fields parallel NSP, and then ESE over NSP and NHP Road, and so to the Old Courthouse Road bridge. The RoW shows quite accurately on the map but is not labelled as such and one wonders what is that stretch between Lakeville and the zig-zag just before NHP Road? See the aerial photo and details on my North Hills section and the 1929 TNH map on my "1929 LIMP Map" section, which shows the continuation stretch as Marcus itself {???}. The unmarked stretch above "STATE PKY" is, in fact, the LIMP RoW, while
that below, marked "MOTOR PARKWAY" is Marcus (more or less). Marcus W of Lakeville is parallel and immediately S of NSP and doesn't exist on this map. Strange map, indeed!
If that weren't enough, the road abutting the NW side of the LIMP (left on the map) is, if you look hard enough, good ol' Underhill Avenue! Apparently, it came (or was intended to come) down SE from Flushing through Fresh Meadows and then swooped E and then NE, across Commonwealth Boulevard and Little Neck Parkway, and under the Links, to end at the County Line at Hewlett Avenue (at Vanderbilt's Lake Success property?).
So, I finagled and re-labelled those parts of the map, showing "~ {approx.} Marcus Ave{enue}" and extending Union Turnpike, as shown above on the right. This is NOT to say that Marcus Avenue or Union Turnpike were there in 1930 and i have no idea wen Marcus was run along the S side of NSP from Little Neck Parkawy to; my "corrections", other than the LIMP, are only for reference.
- there are many old maps which show all sorts of oddities that never were or never came to pass; one common one shows the Western Terminus of the LIMP at 73rd Avenue, immediately west of Cross Island (Francis Lewis) Boulevard; the holding company may have bought the land for such, and the property maps may show same, but just 'tweren't so!
OLD BETHPAGE AREA Update.
(moved to Page 7 - 18 Apr 00).
ROUTE 110 SAND PITS AREA Update.
(moved to Page 7 - 18 Apr 00).
Queens Vignettes
Stealing away from my specialty of Nassau and its environs, I ran in to Queens for a shot of one of the triangular posts near Cunningham Park at Union Turnpike and Clearview Expressway but stopped along Union Turnpike just east of the Grand Central Parkway and west of Winchester Boulevard (west of Cross Island Parkway) to photograph a beautifully-refurbished footway underpass with a bronze plaque (only on the south side, facing Union Turnpike) reading:
MOTOR
PARKWAY
above the maple leaf seal of the NYC Parks Department (thanks, Parks). So, never having been on the RoW there, I (in my Sunday best) climbed up a gentle path to the east of the walkway and took this shot of the RoW looking due west, wandered over to just short of the GCP (have to get back there) and took a shot of the RoW curving NW with the GCP e/b in the background:
Then I headed east and found original posts* (the kind with the hole facing the RoW on both sides), mostly painted a bilious version of NYC Parks green. Here are two from the north side, one showing an original bolt still in place and the other showing the nut and washer on the back side (first ones I've ever seen). I was about to photograph the east end of that segment where it ends above Winchester Boulevard (which, to my surprise, turns out to be the southern extension of Douglaston Parkway) when my batteries died and the spare set refused to cooperate (yet another reason to return):
* - More on the LIMP posts on page 0.
(Photos 16 Apr 00 by and © S. Berliner, III 2000 - all rights reserved)
Kevin Walsh, of Forgotten NY fame, who sent me a copy of the 1930 Van Nostrand map showing a rather strange configuration of the LIMP in from Lakeville Road to New Hyde Park Road, hown above, also sent me this segment of the far western end of the extended LIMP:
(Map courtesy of Kevin Walsh - Jul 2000)
It rather clearly shows the LIMP ending at 199th Street where it ran into conjoined Underhill and Peck Avenues. Since this jibes with what Bob Miller and others assure me is so (unlike the other section of the Van Nostrand map), I'll go with it!
Because the Main Page overloaded, please visit the many Continuation Pages noted on the LIMP Index page.
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S. Berliner, III
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of this series of Long Island Motor Parkway pages.
© Copyright S. Berliner, III - 2000, 2001, 2002 - All rights reserved.
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[If my discs weren't floppy, my photos wouldn't be LIMP!]
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