The placard, which appears on Park's wonderful parks signage pages at:

http://nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=12916 ,

is dated "December, 2001".  Parks Commissioner Benepe has been notified.   (05 Jun 04)

To begin with, of course, the road was NEVER the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway, it was NOT built in 1908 as a racecourse, Willie K. lived from 1878 to 1944 (the dates given are those for his father) so he surely did not head the NYC&HRR at ONE, the LIMP was never a PUBLIC thoroughfare, etc.  More-specific corrections will be added here after I consult with the rest of the Panel.

Just as I "discovered" the VANDERBILT MOTOR PARKWAY/Cunningham Park placard, above, I now know of another one titled "MOTOR PARKWAY - 14.049 acres" (thanks to Panel Associate Howard Kroplick):   (05 Jun 04)

This park is named for the Long Island Motor 
Parkway; a private toll road built in 1908 by the young 
auto enthusiast William K. Vanderbilt Jr. (1849-1920).  
One of the first concrete roads in the nation, the parkway 
originally stretched 48 miles from Queens to Lake 
Ronkonkoma.  While only portions remain, the section 
that begins here and ends at Cunningham Park has been 
restored as part of the NYC Greenway program, a planned 
network of over 350 miles of landscaped bicycle and 
pedestrian paths throughout the city.

The history of Motor Parkway begins with young 
“Willie” Vanderbilt’s fascination with fast driving.  
As the great-grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt 
(1794-1877), the shipping and railroad giant of the 
19th century, William took over the family business 
and was the last in his line to head the New York 
Central Railroad.  In an era when automobiles were 
still rare, Vanderbilt had a passion for racing and to 
that end, he established the Vanderbilt cup races in 
1904 to spur enthusiasm for the sport in America.

Over the next three years Vanderbilt held his races 
on 30 miles of local roads in Nassau County.  After a 
1906 car crash in which two race spectators were killed, 
Vanderbilt imagined a landscaped parkway where banked 
curves and overpasses would allow for speeds up to 60 
miles per hour without creating a danger to pedestrians. 

On June 6, 1908 construction began on what was to 
become the nation’s first long road featuring 
reinforced concrete and overpasses to eliminate crowded 
intersections.  To cover construction costs, two-dollar 
tolls were collected at 12 “toll lodges” designed by 
John Russell Pope (1874-1937), the New York architect 
who planned the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan 
and the National Gallery in Washington D.C.  The first 
ten-mile section of the road was opened in time for the 
1908 Vanderbilt Cup Race, which a quarter-million fans 
attended.  The races continued there until 1910, when 
four spectators were killed and twenty others were 
injured as a result of a car crash.  The State 
Legislature banned racing outside of racetracks, 
effectively ending the Vanderbilt cup races. 

Throughout the 1920s, the Motor Parkway remained 
popular among socialites who used it to travel to their 
Long Island estates or to take leisurely weekend drives.  
During Prohibition, the parkway gained a reputation as 
the “rumrunners” road because it was privately owned 
and operated and thus outside of official police 
jurisdiction.  With cars becoming more affordable, use 
of the road increased and Vanderbilt lowered the toll 
to just one dollar. 

In 1929, New York State Parks Commissioner Robert 
Moses (1888-1981) began planning for the construction 
of the Northern State Parkway through Nassau County.  
Vanderbilt offered to sell the parkway to Moses, but 
the Commissioner refused to include the antiquated road 
in the modern network of parkways he had designed to 
link the five boroughs and relieve ever-increasing 
traffic.  Vanderbilt reduced the toll to forty cents, 
but by 1937 he was no longer able to compete with the 
new, toll-free Northern State Parkway.  In April 1938, 
the Motor Parkway was officially closed.  Three months 
later, Robert Moses opened the Queens section of the 
road as the “Queens Bicycle Path” before an audience of 
hundreds. 

Parks rehabilitated this section of the path 
through Alley Pond and Cunningham Parks in 1986.  It 
was then incorporated into the NYC Greenway program in 
1993 as part of the Brooklyn-Queens Greenway.  The 
Greenway Program, a collaborative effort of the 
Department of Transportation, the City Planning Office, 
and Parks, is one of the most ambitious networks of 
landscaped paths in the nation. 

In 1998, Mayor Giuliani approved $1,072,000 for the 
reconstruction of the overpasses at 73rd street, Hollis 
Hills Terrace, Frances Lewis Boulevard, and Bell and 
Springfield Boulevards. 

December, 2001

http://nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=12626

Stay tuned!

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THUMBS UP!

S. Berliner, III

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of this series of Long Island Motor Parkway pages.

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