Eastern Terminus (Lake Ronkonkoma).
This is yet another new (28 Apr 01) 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.
LONG ISLAND MOTOR PARKWAY
Queens County
WESTERN TERMINUS
of the
LONG ISLAND MOTOR PARKWAY
in the vicinity of
193th-199th Street area, Peck Avenue and Underhill Boulevard,
and
Horace Harding Boulevard (and today's Long island Expressway).
[I have re-revised this to show 193rd-199th Streets - 199th Street still
exists as a landmark;
195th Street, the actual end, is long gone (at HHB/LIE, that is). The entry/exit
ramps paralleled HHB and actually extended to 193rd Street.]
On 26 Apr 01, I took my digital camera in to LaGuardia Airport's
Marine Air Terminal and stopped on the way home at the site of the western end
of the Motor Parkway. Originally starting near the Queens-Nassau border, the
Parkway was extended westward, ending up in 1926 at the
confluence of 199th Street, Peck Avenue and Underhill
Boulevard, and Horace Harding Boulevard. Pretty well obliterated
at that spot by the construction of the Long island Expressway (I-495
#), all four roads still exist, with Horace Harding Boulevard
being the north and south service roads of the LIE.
The left picture (0), looking ENE, show the pedestrian overpass that runs NNW from
the approximate end of the LIMP RoW across HHB and the LIE to the SE end of the
Kissena Corridor, running NW between Peck and Underhill. It must be
reiterated here that the RoW in the Corridor is NOT that of the LIMP!
It was the RoW of the Central RR of LI, running
from Flushing down to Creedmoor and beyond, and there may have been a trolley line
there later and many artifacts which remain which clearly appear to be LIMP artifacts
are, in fact, not but are left from the RR/trolley line. The right picture (1) shows
the Peck Avenue street sign on the south side of HHB, looking E:
(All photos taken 26 Apr 01 by and © 2001 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail images; click on the pictures for larger images.]
The left picture (2), below, was taken half-way to the overpass, standing on a small
island where Peck dead ends at the south side of HHB (it continues again on the
north side, as does Underhill), and then a shot (3) looking NE up at the S end of the
footbbridge from the base of the slope:
[Thumbnail images; click on the pictures for larger images.]
This is a view (4) N over the footbridge and then (5) looking S away from it along what
appears to be (but isn't) LIMP RoW:
[Thumbnail images; click on the pictures for larger images.]
What the right-hand picture, above IS is the Bike Path. Now we move
further down the path to the SE (6) and then swing left to look ESE (7) with HHB in
the left background:
[Thumbnail images; click on the pictures for larger images.]
Walking down the path towards the schoolyard (8), there's an odd jog and children
playing and the path disappears off into the woods, so I stopped there and turned
around to take the last picture (9) facing uphill WNW towards the overpass:
(All photos taken 26 Apr 01 by and © 2001 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail images; click on the pictures for larger images.]
HOWEVER - - - Al Velocci, Motor Parkway Panel member
and LIMP researcher par excellence, advises that the LIMP actually bent
westward at this spot and ended at 195th Street. This was because
there had to be an expensive bridge crossing the railroad down by Hempstead
Turnpike and Vanderbilt did not want another; although there was no actual RR there,
the space between Peck and Underhill was a RR RoW. So, instead, property
was acquired so that the LIMP RoW could swing northwesterly inside the arc of the
Peck/HHB intersection and still have room for the entry/exit ramps. Panel
Member Fred Hadley reminded me that there was no toll booth here; the entry was at
grade and one proceeded inside the guard railings to the Hillside Toll Lodge at Rocky
Hill Road (Springfield Boulevard), some 2½ miles easterly. Interestingly,
the Hillside Toll Lodge was not near Hillside Avenue but Hillside Avenue was the
feeder road from Queens Boulevard that was the closest to the old Toll Lodge before
the 1926 western expansion There was a kiosk in the entry at Nassau
Boulevard (HHB) (at least, in 1938) but the attendant did not take the tolls there, as
noted; see Western Terminus Details on
Queens page 1, for more on the actual entry point.
AERIAL PHOTO
of the Peck/LIMP area and the
NHT@, 73rd Ave., and FLB Bridges!
Panel Member Jeff Saltzman turned up an interesting aerial photo from
the '40s*, showing both the LIMP 73rd Avenue bridge (upper middle right) and
another one (in the upper left) nearly at HHB [now apparently incorrectly
identified as the North Hempstead Turnpike@
(Booth Memorial Avenue+) bridge]. I wasn't happy with
the exact location here, asked for help, and got it in spades! We are
looking E and that's Cunningham Park at the top, Francis Lewis Boulevard just
beyond the LIMP RoW, and the Francis Lewis overpass (NOT the GCP
as I had guessed) in the upper far right. Panelist Mitch Kaften
annotated Jeff's fantastic photo with overlay captions indentifying most
major features; because it is so big (222Kb+), I can not show it here
effectively (the captions are too small to read), but here it is as a thumbnail
anyway, just so you have an idea of on what you will be clicking:
[Thumbnail image; click on the picture for much larger image.]
[The white line was apparently already drawn on the print
and appears to have nothing to do with the LIMP.]
The Fresh Meadows bridge in question, enlarged greatly; notice how it is angled to
the NW, just as Al V. said it was:
(06 May 01 enlargement by S. Berliner, III)
I wondered if the big ditch at the savaged (left) end of the bridge mightn't be the
excavation for the LIE (no - too far south). If we assume that the
light-colored area in the near left is LIE construction (dirt) and that FLB is
concrete, then the trace beyond the bridge and FLB could well be HHB in
blacktop (but it's NOT - it's the NHT@
- maybe). That would put the western end of the LIMP north of HHB,
and it didn't make it that far north, as we shall see.
* - This photo was supposedly from the '50s but Panel Associate Mitch Kaften,
who lived there then, advises it had to have been taken in the late '40s because
"Fresh Meadows was finished in about 1948, and this shot shows it in some state of
construction. I believe you can still see the old Fresh Meadows Country Club
clubhouse just to the right of the more distant of the pair of 13-story apartment
buildings at the bottom of the photo."
Not only did Mitch redate this photo for us, he advised that the photo "does not
show the Horace Harding bridge. Horace Harding is further to the left,
out of view. The bridge on the left is an intermediate one. This
confirms my memory of at least three bridges in line, including the 73rd
Avenue one. This middle bridge looks to me to be just north of where
the LIMP/bike path currently ends, at the "elbow" of Peck Avenue and 199th
Street, which is either 67th Avenue or maybe even 65th Avenue (hard to tell
because there is no longer any 65th Avenue). The third bridge was over
North Hempstead Turnpike@, which is still
south of Horace Harding Boulevard, and would support Al Velocci's contention
that the LIMP ended at HHB (which I agree with). I kept hoping that if I
rammed my mouse to the left enough times, HHB would come into view, but
no luck."
[One can but heartily sympathize with Mitch - oh, for an extension of the
view to the left (W) [ah, but see below!]! As I was reminded by Brad
Cetron, we can always dig into
www.Terraserver.microsoft.com. This site has satellite images and
aerial photographs taken by the US Geological Survey and allows you to zoom
from 64 meters to 1 meter which presents a fairly detailed view." - Thanks for
the reminder, Brad.]
(Photo courtesy J. Saltzman, 06 May 01, labelled by M. Kaften)
[Thumbnail image; click on the picture for much larger image.]
{I did doctor three of the captions for maximum clarity.}
Mere words are inadequate to thank Jeff and Mitch sufficently!
@ - The North Hempstead Turnpike to which Mitch refers is NOT the one most
of us know as Northern Boulevard, Route 25A; rather it is an old name for (in Mitch's
words) "Booth Memorial Avenue - it now ends on the north side of Horace Harding,
but years ago it diagonally crossed Horace Harding at about 188th Street, and ended
at Cross Island Boulevard (now called Francis Lewis Boulevard). You can even
check your Van Nostrand 1930 map of Fresh Meadows ... the tail end of the road is on
the lower mid left of the map ... right under the word 'Horace' you will see the word
'Hempstead'." Actually, Panel Member Steve Anderson has the NHT clear as a
bell (NOT the boulevard of that name) on his
1941 Queens map, running from Flushing Meadows Park ESE to the northern half
of Cunningham Park, as well as Rocky Hill Road, the NWerly continuation of
Springfield Boulevard from World's Fair Boulevard (25B - now Horace Harding) to
Francis Lewis, where it continues as 27th Avenue). Steve's 1941 maps of LI are exceedingly odd in that there is absolutely no trace of the LIMP as such, not even between Commack and Ronkonkoma (Moses maps?)! On the Queens map, you can see where the LIMP had to have been in two spots; there are two faint lines which are the SE boundary of Item 42 (the Deepdale CC) and the SW and S boundaries of Item 66 (the Links CC) {Items 50 and 87 on the Nassau map}.
[Ah, Mitch; you're a gem!]
This is another project the Panel should undertake; a list of LIMP-related road and
place name equivalencies (and pitfalls). I started a short set at
Road Names.
+ - Booth Memorial Avenue bugs
These Panelists , Associates, and other LIMPers are simply fantastic people!
I asked Jeff Saltzman if there was any possible way he could squeeze higher
resolution and more coverage out of that late-'40s aerial view of the 199th
Street/Francis Lewis Boulevard shot and, instead of telling me where to get off,
he rescanned the upper (E) portion at twice the resolution and with further
coverage to the S; unfortunately, there simply isn't any image beyond the left
(N) margin, where 193rd Street and HHB hide. The photo was in the
brochure of the realtor which managed the FM complex (defined by the white
line) and was not very clear to start with; the enhanced image is the one
shown above.
On the extended right margin, you can easily make out Union Turnpike, with parking lots and playing fields of Cunningham Park just beyond.
I had shown a shot Mitch sent, here, taken from the N railing of the LIMP on the 73rd
Avenue bridge in 1941, but there is also a marked-up copy and a shot facing S, so it's
all been moved/posted to
a new
LIMP Queens page 3.
20 May 01 - Well, if Jeff and Mitch are gems, what about Panel Member
Fred Hadley, who cometh before us with a ca. 1938-40 aerial survey
photo of the actual Western Terminus! Ta, ra! Not
content with that, he then redid it with labels:
[This is NOT the noted shot but, until I can identify and restore all of
them, will have to do]
(Photo courtesy of F. Hadley, 24 Feb 04)
[Thumbnail image; click on the picture for much larger image.]
(Photo courtesy of F. Hadley, 19 May 01)
[Thumbnail image; click on the picture for much larger image.]
The terminus is to the upper left (W) of the photogrammetric index "+" mark.
For those who might not be 100% sure of their "ground", here is an index:
HCT - Hollis Court (Boulevard).
FMCC - Fresh Meadow Country Club.
CIP - Cross Island Boulevard (not the
Parkway!); it's a different road, Francis Lewis Boulevard now.
HILLSIDE PARK EXTENSION - precursor of Cunningham Park; the diagonal
road should be Underhill Boulevard#.
NHTPK - that other North Hempstead Turnpike (Booth Memorial
Avenue - @, above).
HHB - Horace Harding Boulevard (no fair - you guessed!).
LIMP - I trust we already know all about this one!
Fred also sent along an enlargement; it's lost, so I made up these
two:
(Enlargements of photo courtesy of F. Hadley, 19 May 01)
Fred identified the diagonal white blob in the "V" between the N side of the
LIMP RoW and the S side of HHB as most likely the sign for the LIMP, with it's
shadow reaching to the upper right almost to HHB.
If anyone knows precisely how to identify the objects on the blow-up,
please advise (no guesses, thank you).
Of course, that doesn't stop me from offering my opinion that this shot shows
the Nassau Boulevard (HHB) Toll Booth, which I have outlined and noted
[TB?] on an even further enlargement (skirting pixellation):
(17 Mar 04 enlargement of photo courtesy of F. Hadley, 19 May 01)
Again, not content with "just" this, Fred also sent along this 1939{?} aerial shot
of the Glen Oaks Country Club golf course, which was Willie K's estate before
1923; the LIMP ran along the SE boundary (bottom in this view):
(Photo courtesy of F. Hadley, 19 May 01)
[Thumbnail image; click on the picture for much larger image.]
I hate to admit it but I was a bit lost here and asked for guidance; the NSP
intersection, which obviously is the one at Little Neck Parkway, just didn't look
quite right (even for 1939), although Marcus Avenue is quite clear under (S)
the NSP and Cullman Avenue is also clear in the upper left (NW). The
ramps don't match my recollection (I first drove up there in 1950) or my 1966
Hagstrom's and LNP sort of vanishes to the SW; just how heavy could the
foliage have been?
The beat goes on! Fred knows me too well (and I deserve this); he asks
if the pictures were taken from a "bLIMP"? Since, strictly and
historically speaking, that would means a British airship, type B, Limp,
I can reasonably assume not! A Goodyear gasbag? Maybe.
(Lotsa gasbags around the LIMP!)
Fred supplied us (24 May 01) with a full set of high-resolution aerial
photographs from the Western Terminus to the Queens-Nassau line!
I told you to abide with patience. They won't fit on this page, so I put
them on a new page 11.
Mitch was out at his father's place and dug up a matte-finished picture of a
Little League game being played at the site:
(Photo courtesy of M. Kaften, 21 May 01/28 Feb 04)
[Thumbnail image; click on the picture for larger image.]
Much more information about the Western Terminus area and the Fresh
Meadows ball fields has been moved to, or
amplified on, Queens Continuation Page 2.
In all of the above convolutions, I have tried to coordinate and update all
the input and welcome corrections (of which there have already been quite a
few); if I may have goofed, please bear with me.
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
- All rights reserved.
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(30 Jul 07)
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The index on this page has been truncated to save page space; see the LIMP Index on the page preceding the main LIMP page.
