SUFFOLK COUNTY.
This page covers 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.
RoW = Right-of-Way.
- there are many Stewart Avenues
in Nassau County and two of them feature prominently on this page and on page 5;
one is the central E-W road through Garden City, running just N of the LIMP RoW in
the vicinity of Roosevelt Field, and the other (unrelated) runs SE from NW corner of
the Grumman plant in Bethpage to its NE corner, where it turns SSE and 5).then S,
crossing the RoW of the LIMP and of the CRRofLI and Hempstead Turnpike (NY 24),
and finally terminating at Boundary Avenue in Plainedge, just W of the Seaford-Oyster Bay
Expressway (I-135).
More on the Long Island Motor Parkway
.
Tom Walsh asked (13 Feb 99) "a question about the New Hyde Park overpass off Old Court House Road. What road passed over it? Where did it go? Did it intersect with I.U. Willets Road (the fragment north of the Northern State)?" I thought that it went under Old Court House Road, which may have been relocated a bit when the development went in. It's unlikely that I. U. Willets went that far west; it was the driveway into whatever Links Golf Course was before it was a school. However, my 1967 Nassau Hagstrom's still shows OCH Road going north to the NSP from from today's Executive/Knolls (as a dotted line); OCH doesn't actually do so, now. The LIMP went along the southern boundary of Links, so, if OCH actually went that far north once, it had to cross the LIMP.
Well, Tom has done his homework (18 Feb 99) and it is (was) Plattsdale Road, which ran due south, crossing BOTH the NSP and LIMP; Plattsdale was a village roughly where Annie Sez is on Union Tpke/Marcus Avenue (from a 1932 Hagstrom's). More on Plattsdale Road and an associated Westbury Road and the I. U. Willets fragment to follow. Some old maps, however, also show it as Old Court House Road.
In updating my page, I realized that I don't know anything about such a fragment. Could it be Hollow Lane, which runs, on my 1967 map, west from NHP Road between NSP and LIE to the LIE south service road? It also shows on my 1970 Esso map and subsequent Exxon maps, but without a name.
Incidentally, Tom Walsh reminded me (16 Oct 99) that LIMP crossed Grand Central Parkway at Alley Pond Park and the NSP twice, ¼-mile west of Lakeville Road and ¼-mile east of New Hyde Park Road. "East' of NHP? My memory says "west"! I could swear I remember the bridge abutment to my far left crossing NSP on NHP Road northbound during demolition and construction.
Views of the Long Island Motor Parkway Today.
(All photos by and © 1999 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail images; click on pictures for large images.]
There is a remaining segment of the LIMP, mentioned previously, at the north end of Raymond Court in Garden City, north of Stewart Avenue just east of Clinton Street. It is the section just east of the former Garden City Toll House site and just west of the western entrance from Stewart Avenue into the Roosevelt Field Mall. There are still some fence posts standing and a few scraps of twisted iron wire in them. These photographs were taken 16 Feb 99 by S. Berliner, III.
This is the view from the north end of Raymond Court looking west toward Clinton Street;
you are looking at original LIMP pavement:
This is the view from the north end of Raymond Court looking east toward the Mall entry road (you can see the building on the northeast corner of Stewart and the entry road through the trees at right):
One of the original concrete fence posts with a scrap of twisted iron wire remaining in the lower hole (about 100 yards west from Raymond Court, south side of LIMP), and a "better" view of the wire:
MYSTERY - why do these holes (and all those on the remaining posts in this section) face North-South, perpendicular to the LIMP? Along the Half Hollow Hills section in Suffolk County, they faced in the direction of the Parkway. See LIMP Posts.
More fence posts, sunken well below the normal height, about 75 yards west of Raymond Court, south side of the LIMP (you can just make out a bit of original pavement at left center):
A battered fence post (at far left), about 50 yards west of Raymond Court, south side of LIMP, with original pavement (looking west):
You can see how the "jungle" reclaims man's works (and in only 60 years);
In many places where original pavement still exists, grasses have encroached on it
and trees have pushed up (or down?) through it!
Looking east across the north end of Raymond Court (the southwest end of Roosevelt Field Mall is just to the left, out of the picture):
I. U. Willets Road Fragment.
(All photos by and © 1999 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail images; click on pictures for large images.]
There is an odd, disconnected fragment of the old I. U. Willets Road, formerly a continuation of the present section from Searingtown to Old Westbury, running east from New Hyde Park Road between the Northern State Parkway and the Long Island Expressway. While not marked on most maps, it does have a road sign on New Hyde Park Road.
Tom Walsh put me on to it; here is the view from the fragment, through iron gates, across NHP Road, with the westbound NSP entry ramp at the left and the eastern end of Hollow Road at the right.
(all photos by and © 1999 S. Berliner, III - All Rights Reserved)
This is the road sign at the northeast corner, looking northeast:
View northeast past the road sign:
Looking eastward into the fragment:
I(saac). U(nderhill). Willets was a Quaker farmer who lived in Herricks from 1819 until 1899.
(13 Dec 04)
There's another mystery road nearby, also courtesy of Tom Walsh, which I'll get around to (with Tom's help) one of these days!
Incidentally, I do NOT intend to become an historian of L.I. roads but these are germane; they either intersected the LIMP or were associated with it's development and history.
ROSLYN ROAD Fragment.
(All photos by and © 1999 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail images; click on pictures for large images.]
I drove up and down Roslyn Road for years before and after they built the neat little pump house on the east side immediately south of the LIMP RoW and just north of Robbins Drive and always meant to look at that section to the east where it had been elevated to match the bridge abutment on the west side but was later cut back to grade. Well, in mid-August 1999, I stopped and walked in (it's not posted). It's only perhaps 100 yards long or so, at which point it's blocked by a sewage treatment plant (unmistakeably so, both perambulatorily and olfactorily!). There is no trace of the curbs, margins, or any other structure on the south side, but there are the posts, with a few scraps of twisted ribbon wire, all along the north side.
Looking northwest toward Roslyn Road Looking west from sewage treatment
from half way in on segment. plant toward Roslyn Road
Note posts on right (north) and the severe spalling of concrete from the rebar (steel reinforcing rod) on the post at far right in the left-hand view.
Post half way in segment. "Newer" post at Roslyn Road.
Note ribbon wire scrap.
Note also that holes line up with RoW in this segment; there is the stump of an original post just out of the cropped picture to the west (left) of, and at the base of, the "newer" post in the left-hand view.
The pavement is NOT original LIMP paving.
And no wonder! This is NOT the parkway (25 Sep 00)! It may well be the access ramp to the WB lanes; the RoW itself, now private property, still exists under a coating of dirt and foliage above it to the south, running E from the "pump" house (apparently a private home now). More on this and the Roslyn Toll Lodge (still standing!) to follow.
Bridge at Old Bethpage Village Restoration
On 24 Sep 99, I did the grand tour of LIMP crossings of major roads from Hillside Avenue in Nassau County to the Maxess Road bridge in western Suffolk County, skipping the bridge in the Old Bethpage Village Restoration. I made up for this omission on 01 Oct 99, when I went back to the Old Bethpage Village Restoration (con permeso) and braved a severe tick infestation and encephalitis-carrying mosquitoes and rose thorns to get to the LIMP bridge at the south end of the preserve. This segment is presented here to conserve page space. The preserve's garbage dump was just north of the bridge the last time I was in there and the bridge was heavily overgrown with foliage. Now it is still accessible at the south end of the dump but - oh, WOW!
First, I went to where I remembered the bridge to be; just N of the maintenance gate off Bethpage-Spagnoli Road (also known as Bethpage-Sweet Hollow Road at that end), due S of the farm {once owned by a Richard Colyer} - no dump, no RoW, no nuthin'! While there, I took two shots of where I believed the RoW entered the preserve just W of the farmhouse (off Round Swamp Road - perhaps at the end of Swan Court? - wrong!), showing a pile of rubble (view SE - proving nothing) and the view back E toward the farm from the fence:
Wrong! It crosses from the Battle Row Campground, to the S, a few hundred yards E of the gate.
Then, putting my pride aside, I asked. Me; ask? I asked. Well, I misremembered; the dump is at the southeast end of the preserve. "Go {east} past the north end of the farm, turn right at the fork, then left at the next fork, then right, and then right again"; oh, yeah! Don't knock it; it worked. There it was, just where it was supposed to be, at the far end of the dump, but - - - !
It helps to be insane to have gone beyond the end of the hardpack in the dump. They have been dumping in this spot for some twenty years or so, now, and the ground just isn't; it's spongy waste, instead. There is no way of knowing on what you might be stepping, or what's under what you can see on which you are stepping! The first shot of the bridge (view SSE) only entailed pushing into weeds a few feet; not too bad. The Director had warned me this would be at my own risk but I didn't expect to be at quite so much risk; you vill enchoy dese pikturs! You'd better! Risking life and limb (ticks, mosquitoes, mud, falling through, brambles, etc.), I took the next two close-ups from deep in the brush - the NE abutment wing and the E abutment (both views ESE). Now came the interesting part; this was not like the good, old days when I wandered around in weeds. To climb up on the bridge meant bushwhacking without a bushwhacker! I wore heavy boots and pants and an old windbreaker; I should have had on chapaderos, leather pants and jacket and gauntlets and a full-face mask! The next shot was taken after being punctured with more thorn holes than there are holes in a tea strainer! We are now up on the RoW to the west of the bridge, standing in shoulder high weeds and grasses and rose bushes looking west along the RoW; the patch of brilliant sunlight is NOT the roadway - it is the top of the foliage at 5' above the RoW (view E)!
It's sort of odd under the bridge; there is almost no junk and a concrete wall (for flood control) across the south of the RoW of the road@ that the LIMP went over there, perhaps 10' south of the bridge, and it is below grade about 6' and the LIMP above on an embankment. Up topside, turning 180° and crossing the bridge eastward (more shredded skin), this is the prospect facing east; more lianas, high grasses, and rose thorns. Turning back and shooting over the north side of the bridge (view N), one sees clearing beyond (the dump) but remember that I'm shooting at shoulder height and there's just no way I'm going to get any closer than that to the edge - I can't even see it! Now, fighting free of the brush and descending back to the "ground", I went back out two forks and further east and south and came out in an even newer dump, with the Route 110 sand pits to the left (east) and the bridge to the right (west). Yet again climbing foolhardily over junk got me up on an east-west ridge (a small one) at the south end of the dump, beyond which (south) I couldn't make out any features of note, just a jumble. More punctures took me to the top of the ridge and, behold!, there was the western beginning of that big ridge along the south side of Bethpage-Spagnoli Road (pictured in that section of this travelogue) to the southwest and the ridge itself in all its glory to the southeast. What you can't make out through the shrubbery at the left center (that tiny bright spot) is the sand mining equipment just west of Route 110 on the north side of Bethpage-Spagnoli Road. So, we know exactly where we are and only have to get shredded and punctured again to get back down in the dumps (elated but in the dumps, eh?) {but it's the WRONG area - see updates on Page 7 (moved from Page 6)!}
@ - Ron Ridolph says that the bridge took the LIMP over Claremont Road, but it looks (to me) more as if it was a NE extension of what is now Winding Way, which used to extend to BSR. I should note here that there is more about Bethpage-Spagnoli Road/Bethpage-Sweet Hollow Road on LIMP page 7.
The Restoration has limited funds, certainly not for digging out and restoring an old bridge lost in heavy brush. Those of us who care (several groups are interested) have asked for permission to clear a path under and over the bridge but it would take a front end loader and several dump trucks to clear the debris from both sides of the bridge and under it. Great news, however! As of May 01, the area is fenced off and the staff will clear it all out and have a County Engineer evaluate the structure!
HORACE HARDING
OK, so this guy e-mails me (21 Mar 99) and asks, "Who was Horace Harding?" Don'cha just hate people like that? I've only ridden on the boulevard named for him for 60+ years and driven it since 1950! He hadda ask! Maybe it was Warren Gamaliel's father? Son? Cousin twelve times removed?
Well, Vince Fitzgerald came through instantly (23 Mar 99)! Thanks, Vince!
Horace Harding (the man, not the Boulevard) was born in Philadelphia on 31 Jul 1863 and died in NYC on 04 Jan 1929. He was a banker and was a Director of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Company and the Bronx Gas and Electric Co.
Harding supported the plan of the L. I. State Park Commission in the 1920's to build a scenic parkway from Queens to Lake Ronkonkoma (Northern State Parkway) and he urged the construction of a highway from Shelter Rock Road to Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst (to improve access to his country club!). The road was named Horace Harding Boulevard after his death {the earlier road was called Nassau Boulevard - SB,III}.
(source: Alana J. Erickson, Encyclopedia of NYC, page 522.)
Open LIMP Questions and Speculations. - HELP! - moved to
LIMP Open page - Help! on 19 Nov 03.
of this series of Long Island Motor Parkway pages.
THUMBS UP!
THUMBS UP! - Support your local police, fire, and emergency personnel!
S. Berliner, III
To contact S. Berliner, III, please click here.
© Copyright S. Berliner, III - 2000, 2001, 2002,
2003,
2004
- All rights reserved.
Return to Top of Page
[If my discs weren't floppy, my photos wouldn't be LIMP!]
times since the counter was installed.
