Eastern Terminus (Lake Ronkonkoma).
This is yet another 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
Queens County
Fresh Meadows Ballfields
near the Western Terminus
of the
LONG ISLAND MOTOR PARKWAY
in the vicinity of
199rd Street area, Peck Avenue and Underhill Boulevard,
and
Horace Harding Boulevard (and today's Long island Expressway).
(continued from Queens Continuation Page 1)
[This page has been completely reformatted and revised as of 01 Mar 2004.]
(01 Mar 04)
Motor Parkway Panel member Fred Hadley supplied us with a full set of high-resolution aerial photographs from the
Western Terminus to the Queens-Nassau line. I put them on
page 11. Panel member Mitch Kaften dug up several shots of a Little
League game, taken by his father at the site in 1955:
(Photo courtesy of M. Kaften, 21 May 01/28 Feb 04)
[Thumbnail image; click on the picture for larger image.]
The view is looking northwest, and the LIMP bridge is the North
Hempstead Turnpike*overpass. Mitch and Fred agree that the
picture was taken in early-mid 1955 because PS 179, in the right background, was
under construction (it opened in September 1955).
Not wanting to blur out the background detail, especially those all-important locators,
the apartment houses and school in the background, I cropped this at high-resolution:
(cropped from M. Kaften photo - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail image; click on the picture for a larger image.]
Finally, here is the bridge, itself, up close:
(Enlarged from photo courtesy of M. Kaften, 28 Feb 04)
Note this far-sharper 1955 view of the North Hempstead Turnpike* overpass,
complete with pipe railings and visible bolt-holes (for a sign?), as well as several shots
of the "grassy knoll" (the remnants of the eastern approach ramp):
[Thumbnail image; click on the picture for larger image.]
I made an enlargement of the bridge and buildings on this one, as well:
(Enlarged from photo courtesy of M. Kaften, 28 Feb 04)
Mitch (who lived there then) sent a cropped portion of the annotated 1940s Fred
Hadley aerial photo of the terminus on which he labels the ball fields, PS
179, and St. Francis Prep school (formerly Bishop Reilly H. S.) [Fred had
already noted Horace Harding Boulevard (today's LIE),
Cross Island Boulevard (Francis Lewis), and
Hollis Court Boulevard]:
(Cropped from 1940s photo courtesy of F. Hadley and labeled by M. Kaften, 30 May 01)
[Thumbnail image; click on the picture for larnd er image.]
The LIMP runs from the L center across to the lower R corner, NHT runs almost due
L-R across the lower center and the LIMP bridge over NHT is quite obvious near the
lower R corner. The outlines are very rough approximations of where
St. Francis and PS 179 are sited and the "ballfields" are more those of the Fresh
Meadows Little League of 1958 than those of the 1955 shots of the NHT overpass.
Here are shots of the grassy knoll area taken in 1955 and then in 2001, as close to
the original angle as is possible [not exact due to the presence of some large trees
that grew since]:
(M. Kaften photos - all rights reserved)
[thumbnail images; click on the pictures for larger images.]
The current color shot was taken looking E at the knoll, toward Francis Lewis
Boulevard; it matches exactly the 1955 shots but in reverse slope because they were
taken facing SW, toward the LIMP and Peck Avenue. The 1955 overpass shot
was cropped and scanned from a 2" x 2" negative; here's a crop of that
picture:
(cropped from M. Kaften photo - all rights reserved)
You should keep in mind that NHT still exists N of 188th Street*. Prior to
creation of the Fresh Meadows complex, NHT extended ESE, crossing HHB (today's
LIE) at about 188th Street through what is now the complex and on through Cross
Island Boulevard (today's Francis Lewis Boulevard), coming to an end at Hollis Court
Boulevard. Because the LIMP terminus at HHB was at grade and the NHT
bridge barely a few blocks away, Mitch wonders about the grade of the LIMP in that
area (up from HHB and over NHT, then down, then up over 73rd Avenue, and then
down again, and why there was a small S-curve on the southern side as the LIMP
reached the NHT overpass.
Mitch Kaften marked up that late-1940s aerial from Jeff Saltzman that we showed
earlier. Current streets are in yellow. The LIMP and North Hempstead
Turnpike are in green, showing how and where they crossed around 197th Street or
so, just SW of Peck Avenue. This shows with great clarity (when you click on the
thumbnail, which I strongly recommend) how the old and present-day features
overlap:
(Late 1940s aerial photo courtesy of J. Saltzman, labeled and relabelled by M.
Kaften, 24 Jan 2002 - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail image; click on the picture for much larger image.]
Mitch labelled the "Fresh Meadows Power Station" (as his father called it then;
employees called it the "Boiler House") in the lower right; his father confirms that it
was built then for the complex, not earlier for the FMCC What a fantastic
job Mitch has done, both in supplying rare photos and in editing this text; thanks,
Mitch!
The wooded line across the back, just beyond the white-and-yellow line that is 199th
Street and just in front of Francis Lewis (Cross Island) Boulevard is the LIMP RoW (in
green) and you can see Peck Avenue just in front of that on the left. The whitish area
under the caption for P. S. 179 is all that's left of Underhill Avenue SE of HHB/LIE there.
Here (31 Dec 01) are Mitch's photos (area photo upgraded 09 Jan 02) of the NHT
overpass area today (match it to the 1950's shot above and the photofake below), PS
179 today, and the PS 179 kiosk up close:
(M. Kaften photos - all rights reserved)
[First image is thumbnailed - click on picture for larger image]
Note how the view is obstructed by trees, even with the leaves down, and note also
the steel door leading onto the one-story roof overhang in front of the school, under
construction in that 1955 ball field photo above; this helped established the locations.
Here are "matching" enlargements cropped from Mitch's photos, of the kiosk, the door,
and the extension roof, then and now:
(M. Kaften photos - all rights reserved)
Note also the backstop in the left foreground of the current shot. Our thanks
to super-sleuths Mitch Kaften and Fred Hadley!
* - 
the western end of the North
Hempstead Turnpike, from HHB/LIE W to College Point Boulevard in Flushing,
survives today as Booth Memorial Avenue (at least that's what
Hagstrom's says - Exxon/American Map says it's Booth Memorial Boulevard
and I clearly remember it always being Booth Memorial Parkway!
I'm not alone in this; Transportation Alternatives also
calls it Booth Memorial Parkway. Then, on 25 Dec 2004,
someone who used to live on NHT/BMx across the transition wrote me about this,
telling me it was always Booth Memorial Avenue after renaming
from NHT in the 1950s. So, I turned to our resident NYC streets expert,
Panelist Kevin Walsh (Forgotten NY),
who confirms that it was named Booth Memorial Avenue from the
time of the renaming; so much for my memory!
(26 Dec 04)
Mitch created this fantasy to show what the North Hempstead Turnpike overpass
would look like if it had survived and stood there today:
(M. Kaften "photo", 17/18 Aug 01 - all rights reserved)
He rather strongly objected to my having doctored it further, so I present it above just
as he sent it. However, it wouldn't be me (Mitch might not even recognize me)
if I didn't show you my version, as well:
(Modified from M. Kaften "photo", 02 Mar 04 by SB,III - all rights reserved to someone)
My version pretends that the RoW is still intact (I can dream, can't I?) and I completed
the street lamp to shed some light on the subject!
Back in July 2001, Mitch provided this history of the area:
"By the late 1940s, the LIMP had been closed for ten years, and Queens (as well as
Nassau County) was becoming a post-war residential suburb. As Queens was
penetrated due to its increasingly easy accessibility from Manhattan, its real estate
became very valuable, and much of the land was sold to developers. The LIMP
was turned into a neighborhood bike path. An overpass was built to carry the
bike path northward over Horace Harding toward Kissena Park into what is known as
the Kissena Corridor. FMCC was sold to New York Life Insurance, and they
constructed the Fresh Meadows housing development. Fresh Meadows
opened in 1948, and promptly filled with young families and lots of baby boomer kids.
NHT, which was discontinued in the Fresh Meadows development, was completely
closed south of Horace Harding. The bike path was interrupted between the
NHT overpass and the Horace Harding overpass. The triangle of land to the
east of the LIMP, including the former NHT land, was turned into several makeshift
sandlot baseball fields... the home of the Fresh Meadows Little League. Soon,
P.S. 26, the public school built for Fresh Meadows' children, wasn't big enough, and a
second public school was built. P.S. 179 was constructed in early 1955 at the
intersection of 64th Avenue and Peck Avenue... smack dab on the LIMP right-of-way.
Several of the Little League diamonds were eliminated, but the Little League still had
some room behind the school, and in the southern corner of the triangle. Later,
when the school expanded its play yard, the Little League was finally forced to
relocate to better fields at the northeast corner of Francis Lewis and 73rd Avenue.
When the LIE was built, the Horace Harding overpass was reconstructed to
accommodate the increased width, and the bike path was routed around the school.
A parochial high school was built at the corner of Francis Lewis and Horace Harding,
and Underhill Avenue was rebuilt and used as a parking facility. What was left
of the former Little League ball fields was upgraded and became an extension of
Cunningham Park."
Even earlier, he had sent further info on the Highland School {edited}. They
may have been in existence since 1949, but not at the current location. The
school at Peck and 64th Avenue was built as PS 179 (also known as "The Lewis
Carroll School"). It was opened in September 1955, and at some point during
the late 1970s went out of service as a city public school, due to low population.
In 1980 the building was taken over by a Japanese institute which operated it as a
school for Japanese children all over NY. In 1990, the Japanese {institute's}
10-year lease was up, and he's not sure when the Highland School took it over.
Whoever operates it, Mitch will forever think of it and refer to it as "PS 179".
For just a little more history of the Fresh Meadow(s) area, Mitch Kaften told me about
Fresh Meadows Park, a small area I've always overloked just east of the
southeast intersection of 188th Street and the LIE/HHB and just west of the Meadows
movie theater; it was once the intersection of HHB and NHT. The park was
slightly larger before the LIE came along and some of the northern border was lopped
off; it has a NYC Parks historical marker on the north side which makes the mistake of
adding the "s" to the end of "Fresh Meadow" for the name of the golf course (the "s"
was added for the housing development). The marker reads as follows:
"This park takes its name from the surrounding neighborhood. Fresh Meadows
was previously known as Black Stump, for the rows of blackened stumps that marked
the boundaries of the area's many farms. Black Stump Road, now 73rd Avenue,
was one of two roads that ran through Fresh Meadows during colonial times.
Fresh Meadows Golf Course, created by Benjamin C. Ribman, a Brooklyn resident,
opened in 1923 and hosted the 1932 United States Open. The golf course,
located near the intersection of 188th Street and Horace Harding Boulevard, was sold
to the New York Life Insurance Company on April 1, 1946 for the construction of a
residential community. The development, completed in 1949, was dubbed a
'model urban community' and was praised by the urban historian Lewis Mumford as
'perhaps the most positive and exhilarating example of community planning in the
country.' In addition to both single-family and high-rise buildings, New York Life
built a shopping center, a theater, and schools on the 141-acre property.
The development was sold in 1973 to Harry B. Helmsley for $53 million, after which a
battle began over further development and the use of its open space. A
settlement was reached in 1982 and today, the neighborhood's 6,100 private homes
and 7,750 rental units are home to 35,000 residents.
The City acquired the land for Fresh Meadows Park in three stages. The first
portion of land was acquired by condemnation on May 2, 1947, the second by a local
law passed on July 22, 1948 that freed up land formerly used for North Hempstead
Turnpike. A donation from the New York Life Insurance Company to the City on
January 15, 1948, extended the park to its current dimensions.
In 1995 Mayor Giuliani funded a $60,000 renovation of Fresh Meadows Park, which
repaired paved areas and improved other sites. Today the park's many trees
create shade along Horace Harding Boulevard, and benches provide a pleasant place
for pedestrians to sit and rest."
The marker is almost as big as the remaining park! Mitch notes that Harry
Helmsley bought the golf course for $53 million, which is 53-times the $1 million NY
LIfe paid the country club in 1946; the club bought the property in 1921 and opened
in 1923. After selling to NY Life, the club bought the former Lakeville Country
Club, and that is now the home of the current Fresh Meadow Country Club.
Thanks yet again, Mitch.
1930 Map of Queens End of the LIMP
Now, just to confuse things more than ever, I was sent these images of a 1930
Dolph & Stewart map showing the extended LIMP beginning/ending almost
perpendicular to 73rd Avenue opposite the Fresh Meadows Country Club,
under Busby Avenue (which becomes Underhill Boulevard east of
Hollis Court Boulevard) and above Anaconda (which merges briefly
with Union Turnpike north of Kissena Park and then diverges again,
heading ENE as Highland between Cross Island Boulevard and HCB
and then becoming Kingsbury east of HCB). Then it runs east to cross
the Kissena Corridor just north of Union Turnpike at around today's Bell
Boulevard, ca. 217th to 220th Street.
I could not process them for some reason but now have reproduced them here for you.
To save space on this page, I refer you to the LIMP Index Page.
THUMBS UP!
THUMBS UP! - Support your local police, fire, and emergency personnel!
S. Berliner, III
To contact S. Berliner, III, please click here.
of this series of Long Island Motor Parkway pages.
© Copyright S. Berliner, III - 2001, 2002,
2003,
2004
- All rights reserved.
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