A few miles east of Sea Cliff, just past Locust Valley and hard up against Bayville to the north and Oyster Bay to the southeast, lies beautiful Mill Neck. Mill Neck has many magnificent structures but one of the most fascinating for me has always been this fancy on the east side of Brookville Road opposite the Francis Ponds:
Great Paths - Indian Trails to Highways
On page A30 of Monday's (04 Nov 2002) NEWSDAY, Cynthia Blair refers to Cedar
Swamp Road (NY State Route 107) as "one of the nation's oldest roads". I
had always thought that Broadway in Manhattan and beyond (Bowery to Albany) had
that premier distinction and the that Indian (Native American) "Great Paths" on Long
Island were right in there with it.
They include the North Hempstead Turnpike/Northern Boulevard (Route 25A),
Jericho Turnpike (Route 25), Old Country Road, Hempstead Turnpike (Route 24),
Sunrise Highway (Route 27), and Merrick Road/Montauk Highway (Route 27A).
Realizing to my dismay that I could no longer remember the full list, I went first to
NEWSDAY's book, "Long Island - Our Story", and found "Great Paths" not
indexed. Global searching on the Net was fruitless. I can always
resort to my Public Library, but feel that we've missed the boat here.
I don't even know if Cedar Swamp Road, or any north-south road, was on the list.
If Route 107, for example, which runs south-southeast from Glen Cove down to
Jericho at Jericho Turnpike and beyond down to Massapequa, how about Route 106,
which runs south-southwest from Oyster Bay to intersect with 107 in Jericho and then
on down to Merrick Road in Merrick?
Those turnpikes were known as "The North Hempstead Turnpike",
"The Jericho Turnpike", etc., into this just-past century. Similarly, we
have "The Sunrise Highway" and "The Montauk Highway".
Just in case you didn't know, a turnpike is so called because they were originally toll
roads and were blocked by a pike (a variant on a spear) which was
placed across the road on posts and turned to allow passage on
payment of the toll.
So, here's my initial list (north-to-south):
North Hempstead Turnpike/Northern Boulevard (Route 25A), from Queens
Plaza in Long Island City, just east of the 59th Street (Queensborogh) Bridge, to the
merge with Route 25 in Smithtown.
Jericho Turnpike/Middle Country Road (Route 25), from its initiation as
Queens Boulevard, also at Queens Plaza, then Jamaica Avenue, all the way out to
the far end of the North Fork at Orient Point.
Old Country Road, running from Herricks Road in Garden City to Jericho
Turnpike in the Dix Hills.
Hempstead Turnpike (Route 24), from the merge with Jamaica Avenue in
Queens Village, 212th Place) to Broad Hollow Road (Route 110) in Farmingdale, where
it came to a screeching halt at Republic Aviation; now that the road continues across
the field, I have no idea what's being done about the number. In my opinion,
the great path continued as today's Long Island Avenue/Brentwood Road/Third
Avenue/Suffolk Avenue (Suffolk County Route 100), etc., all the way out to Medford at
Horseblock Road (County Route 16).
Sunrise Highway (Route 27) starts as Conduit Boulevard at Atlantic Avenue
in East New York, Brooklyn, and runs all the way to the merger with the Montauk
Highway (as County Route 85) between Southampton and Water Mill, where it
finally cedes it's identity to the Montauk Highway.
Merrick Road/Montauk Highway (Route 27A) starts at Hillside Avenue (at
168th Street) in Jamaica, Queens, and runs just north ot Sunrise Highway (27) until it
crosses Sunrise in Rockville Center and runs just south of Sunrise until they merge in
Oakdale and then diverges and continues in various guises (County Routes 80 and
85) until the two roads finally merge for the last time between Southampton and
Water Mill, and run all the way out to Montauk Point, the easternmost point of the
South Fork (and Long Island) as Route 27.
If the N-S and diagonal roads were also great paths, then I'd bet that Horseblock
Road, running east-southeast from Middle County Road (Route 25) in Centereach to
the Sunrise Highway (27) in Shirley, was one.
A bit of research should add to (and, perhaps, correct) this list.
Long Island Automotive Manufacturing
Great paths only became highways because of the introduction of the automobile.
Long Island was right in there with the best of them when it came to early pioneering
efforts to produce automobiles and motor trucks. I have moved this coverage
to
The LI Motor Parkway had not yet been built when the 1897 USGS survey was done
and the 1918 reprint oddly enough did not include it, even though it was a valuable
artery out to the flying fields overprinted on the map and a great landmark for flyers.
Please note that a similar map, overprinted for aviation in World War I, but covering
the whole island, is shown on my Long Island
Motor Parkway maps page and that there are many other old Long Island maps
scattered all over my Motor Parkway pages, the main LIMP
page, et seq.
I also have scans of 1942-43 Topographic Quad maps of much of Long Island, which I
will eventually doctor to show the LI Motor Parkway and post (with notice here).
times since the counter was installed.
- The price of liberty may be eternal
vigilance; unfortunately, here on Long Island, it is also the price of preservation.
Here is all that's left of the beautiful old (ca. 1800) Ketcham-Underhill farmhouse
(above) on the south side of the Jericho Turnpike (Jericho Run Farm, 555 Jericho
Turnpike) at the crest of the hill between Routes 106/107 and Robbins Lane in Jericho
after vandals torched it:
