Well, I had a very nice lunch at the Bonwit on 06 Nov 99, after all these years, and Charlie Tsunis (co-owner with his cousin, Jimmie Tsunis) told me that it was NOT the Toll Lodge, that old-timers told him the lodge was out front on the site of their "well" on the southwest corner of the building (at the northeast corner of Vanderbilt Parkway and Commack Road). The Tsunis's bought the Inn, which was known as The Old Tavern long ago and then as the Deer Head Tavern and then as Heinie's (or Heine's), a German restaurant, until the Tsunis's bought it (and the surrounding property - now a strip mall) in 1971, naming it after a luncheonette named the Bonwit they had previously run in the Garment District in Manhattan. Charlie thought there might be some old photos and documents around; he'll look for them. I also drove the length of Harned Road from just east of the Bonwit all the way up to Jericho Turnpike without seeing (from a slow-moving car) any trace of the LIMP spur.
[Jimmy Tsunis passed away on 24 November 2001 and Charlie on 04 August 2001.]
Here is the "well", looking first NNE and then SE:
(Both photos taken 06 Nov 99 by and © 1999 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail images; click on pictures for large images.]
PERSONAL LI MOTOR PARKWAY APOCRYPHA
{Moved from first page 07 Oct 99 and from Page 4 on 07 Mar 00 and to new Apocrypha page 21 Jul 00)
(Dead Man's Curve location revised 20 Mar 00)
I have walked, bicycled, or driven virtually every inch of the LIMP, especially the Nassau and Suffolk sections. I lived within easy bike distance in Mineola for 9 years, worked within a few blocks of the Maxess Road scrap for 15 years, and drove my 1954 Ford Anglia between the barricades (ooh, what I did!) and took the Dead Man's Curve (at today's Sophia Street and North Hermannn Avenue, right on the Bethpage/Plainedge line, just southwest of Bethpage State Park) at speed and at a crawl. I stopped dead in the middle (worst banking) of the curve and the car almost tipped over when I deliberately, and VERY carefully, opened the downhill door.
This latter caper had been misremembered by me all these years as having been inside BSP, but I definitely was going E/B (curving from eastward to northward, there) and it was definitely a LH curve and it was my (driver's) door I foolhardily opened! It therefore had to be Dead Man's Curve at the location noted, as verified by several authorities and old timers.
The New Hyde Park Road to Old Country Road segments were responsible for more bike tire punctures than I care to think about!
The late L. I. aviation pioneer, George Dade (see my AVIATION page) related an early Motor Parkway-Clinton Street reminiscence. When his father brought the family to New York to his new job at the Garden City Curtiss plant at Stewart Avenue and Clinton Street (a.k.a. Guinea Woods Road/Glen Cove Road), they came east from Blackduck, Minnesota, where the senior Dade had been a skilled woodworker in spruce (from which airplanes were made in the early days), by train to New York City and then by the Long Island Rail Road to the Clinton Street Station@ on the Meadowbrook/Salisbury line, hard by the Curtiss factory (later Servomechanisms, where I worked ca. 1956, and now Esselte-Pendaflex). From there, they walked a few blocks north to the LIMP bridge over Clinton Street, to the top of which the whole family climbed, and from whence they had their first view of Curtiss (originally Hazelhurst, now Roosevelt) Field and the former barracks in which they would then live. Later, they moved to the former base hospital and finally to the Moisant Hanger, Number 60, all at the northwest corner of the Field.
@ - actually that was a LIRR trolley station at that time - they must have transferred at the main Stewart Avenue LIRR station in the center of Garden City to the Meadowbrook trolley.
Not only did I work in the places near the LIMP noted above and elsewhere on this site, I actually worked in a basement office in George Dade's building at the west side of the LIRR crossing on the north side of Old Country Road (without realizing the significance of it at the time, ca. 1956)!
Additional apocrypha, both the author's and others's, will appear on the LIMP Apocrypha Page.
LIMP Grandstand Area (Levittown)
Motor Parkway Panel member Vince Fitzgerald went over to Levittown, between Newbridge Road and Jerusalem Avenue, and documented the old grandstand area, a concrete pad approximately ⅛ mile north of the old LIRR Central Branch RoW. LIPA now uses the RoW. To see his meticulous photography, click on this link; the grandstand was used to view the Vanderbilt Cup Races.
Panelist Al Velocci advised (01 Feb 2002) that "The grandstand and the officials' stand were taken down in 1912 by Thomas Burton, a Long Island City wholesale lumber dealer. He paid the Parkway $1000.00 dollars as he salvaged most of the boards. He was also responsible for leaving the site clean and level." Al believes "Burton also filled in the race car pits at the same time". "Any one with a metal detector?"
{see also LIMP Page A, "The Grandstand Marker(s) in Levittown".)
DEAD MAN'S CURVE REDIVIVUS
On 25 Mar 00, I went back to Dead Man's Curve, now knowing definitively where it is SW of Bethpage State Park and between Stewart Avenue and the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway (SOB/Rte. 135) in Bethpage (then called Central Park), more specifically between North Hermann Avenue and the SOB immediately south of Sophia Street. It was more badly deteriorated and overgrown than even only last year (Sep 99). I took a lot of photos but first I sat waiting for a friend at Albergo Court facing Stewart Avenue and the clear parkland that I assumed was the RoW; NOT SO!. I'd never noticed but instantly north of the open land across (east of) Stewart is a mound and suddenly it dawned through the murk I call consciousness - A MOUND in dead-flat Central Park? DING! An abutment! I took a long-range shot showing the street sign and, sure enough, when I ran across Stewart (waiting endlessly 'til it cleared), there was a smitch of paving edge showing at the top; scrambling up to the top gave me a view of badly deteriorated LIMP paving with a beer bottle neatly centered on it:
(Both photos taken 25 Mar 00 by and © 2000 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail images; click on pictures for large images.]
Then there is a view of an undercut cave-in on the south side not far from the west end of the pavement and a shot of the broken edge of the pavement for which I risked life and limb by clambering down into the cave-in, and the edge of the cave-in from above (after scrambing back again):
(Photos taken 25 Mar 00 by and © 2000 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail images; click on pictures for large images.]
Then, I drove the four blocks east to North Hermann Avenue and parked at the SE end, walked across (south) to the eastern end of the greensward, and took two photos, similar to ones shown elsewhere, looking back to the west along the parkland and then to the northeast, purportedly of the area of Dead Man's Curve, followed by a stroll along the supposed RoW; it WAS the RoW, all right, but of the LILCO/LIPA power lines, NOT the LIMP! I walked NW to the base of the tower and, turning north, took a locator picture showing the sewage treatment plant dome and vertical tank at the east end of Sophia Street, then further north to what I had thought was the middle of the Curve and then to the end of the Curve and, finally, up the green path to where you can see the lines swing to the east where they cross the SOB, again as presented elsewhere:
(All photos taken 25 Mar 00 by and © 2000 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail images; click on pictures for large images.]
However, turning around and walking back southerly and turning slightly to the west, it became quite evident that I was NOT following the RoW of the LIMP through the entire Curve! As I came back southwesterly off the green grass, there was a bit of the actual banked Curve paving staring me right in the face; I had missed this last time! Then I took a shot further along, with the eastern guard rail of North Hermann in the distance through the shrubbery and next one at the western end of the banking, with my Neon vaguely visible to the right:
Turning back again and tearing through brambles, I took a picture of the SE edge at the center of the banking; the inner or NW edge is buried under many inches of dirt and vegetation. Just past that, there is a really bad washout and I shot back SW at the broken edge [these two show the incredible super-elevation (banking) of the Curve]:
The next shot, of an intact edge at the outer center of the curve, shows the nearly impenetrable brambles, sticker bushes, rose thorns, or what-have-you that have grown up over the RoW. Looking NE from the Curve to the convergence of the LIPA and LIMP RoWs, we see the end of pavement and the dome. Then, walking NE a bit more brings us in view of the tank and dome and the end of continuous pavement and some scraps of paving to the north:
The northern end of the banked pavement gives way to the dirt and grass in two more detailed shots and then there is that east bend again, with the SOB out of sight, but not sound, immediately to the right (east):
These artifically-enhanced shots show the fierce prickers and rose thorns that impede both your progress and your view in Dead Man's Curve:
Wondering how far off the RoWs are at the western end, I walked back and here is the LIMP RoW lost in a welter behind the house at the southwest end of North Hermann Avenue (the north side of the greensward), then a view back to the east, showing how the north edge of the paving is dropping into the ground and disappearing, with the greensward to the right (S), and a scrap of the north concrete edging and a scrap of paving, both at the immediate SE end of North Hermann. Thus, you see the sad state of Dead Man's Curve today:
(All photos taken 25 Mar 00 by and © 2000 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail images; click on pictures for large images.]
Speaking of reinforced concrete, I learned from Bob Miller that that incredibly durable roadbed itself was NOT poured concrete but rather a dual layer of compacted gravel aggregate, coarse on the bottom and finer on top (just like the ancient Roman roads), with a thin cement slurry poured over it, which wicked down through the aggregate and, quite literally, cemented it! When the slurry filled to the top surface, it was brushed laterally by hand to give a good traction surface. After a short while in use, it was discovered that temperature-induced expansion and contraction was cracking the pavement, so expansion joints were cut* at intervals and tar poured in to seal the joint. Later, macadam (blacktop) surfacing was applied over the entire route.
* - and just how did they cut those joints without the powered diamond saws now in use?
On my expedition to Dead Man's Curve on 25 Mar 00, I found (and salvaged) this chunk of pavement lying about 25' NW of the center of the curve. The first picture is of how I found it, upside-down, the second of the top surface after I turned it back, and the third looking straight down on the upended edge (the broken brick holding it up was old but unmarked - no, I did NOT throw away a L. I. Brick or Nassau Brick brick - my, that sounds silly!). I'll measure the thing soon, but notice how coarse the lower course of aggregate is, how incredibly fine (and thin) the upper course, how well the slurry penetrated, and the thick layer of macadam over all. In addition, there was a cracked edge on the south side of the LIMP just east of Stewart Avenue in Bethpage:
(Dead Man's Curve photos 25 Mar 00 by and © 2000 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail images; click on pictures for large images.]
After documenting the Curve in Mar 2000, I went back to the Williston/Albertson/Searingtown area; see Page 6.
Now, here's a surprise! Showing a friend the Curve on 18 Aug 02, ca. 14:00, having run down near the SE end of N. Herrmann, I glanced left (E) prior to backing up to turn around (it dead ends at the RoW) and glimpsed a slanted patch of light through the trees and brush; it was the banked pavement catching the sun just right:
(cropped from Dead Man's Curve telephoto 18 Aug 02 by and © 2002 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
Look at that wild super-elevation (banking)!
Because the Main Page overloaded, please visit the many Continuation Pages noted on the LIMP Index page.
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S. Berliner, III
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