The Belt Parkway |
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Robert Moses has an incredible track record as builder of parks, bridges and roads in New York City. One of these roads, the Belt Parkway, goes through Sheepshead Bay. One cannot really dissociate Sheepshead Bay from the Belt Parkway. If you want to get somewhere fast (and there’s no traffic) you’ll choose the Belt. You may pass your written driving test, and get a learner's permit, and then finally pass the road test and get a license. But you don’t really become a driver until you drive the Belt. If you want to get to Sheepshead Bay, and you land at JFK, the Belt Parkway’s the best way. The Belt Parkway is part of a highway system that wraps around Brooklyn and Queens "like a belt." (Originally it was to be called Circumferential Parkway, but that was dropped for the easier term "Belt.") This system includes bridges, elevated roadways, and tunnels. Some historians claim the "Belt" became necessary in the 1930s to build a highway that could transport military goods quickly around New York City in case those military woes of the 1930s escalated to war. When the years of conception finally went into implementation, Franklin D. Roosevelt was President, Fiorello LaGuardia Mayor, and his Park Commissioner was Robert Moses. This is the same Robert Moses who served New York Governor and future Presidential Candidate Al Smith in the 1920s. While working at the state level, Mr. Moses built Jones Beach and the Northern and Southern State Parkways. Later on would come more, including the Central Park Zoo, Riis Park, Triborough Bridge, and on May 30, 1941 the completion of the Sheepshead Bay portion of the Belt Parkway. Anyone who has driven the Belt, its bridges, curves, and access ramps, knows this would have been a major construction project. And the "system" part of it grew to include the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, and an elevated highway called the Gowanus (original Indian name) from that tunnel. The projected amount of funds needed to start the project came to Mayor LaGuardia at $105,000,000. New York City did not have that money. These proposals were drawn up at a time still close to the depression of 1929. There was federal money such as grants from the Public Works Administration, but Mayor LaGuardia was turned down on the grounds New York had already received a disproportionate share. At one point Robert Moses proposed making the Tunnel into the Brooklyn Battery Bridge, knowing that building a bridge would be cheaper. How the money was obtained is the subject of great history books, and too long a story for coverage here. Much of today’s New York City’s topography was sculptured through the efforts of Robert Moses and Fiorello LaGuardia. The Belt Parkway and its magnificent associated engineering projects had some help through the military necessities of the age, and therefore at least indirectly from its former Governor and then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt. And Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1922 built his own parkway — the Taconic in upstate. In regard to the parkways, the young Franklin D. Roosevelt was faced with the same necessity as Robert Moses back in 1922: Build a beautiful parkway that would open up his own Duchess County through green rolling hills of the Hudson Valley and neighboring counties, eventually hook up with the Bronx River Parkway and therefore New York City, while extending north to the capital at Albany. If any reader has driven the Taconic State Parkway from New York City to Poughkeepsie and Hyde Park, you no doubt would have experienced the natural beauty, the exquisite bridges of stone, and its calming effect of forest and green fields. While building his resume for the Presidency, Franklin Roosevelt in 1924 was appointed Chairman of the Taconic State Park Commission by Governor Al Smith. The beauty of the Taconic, its parkway, parks and still-protected wildlife treasures are thanks to a young Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In 1924, FDR was a peer to Robert Moses, another Governor Al Smith appointee as President of the Long Island State Park Commission. Robert Moses had much parkway experience when taking on building the Belt. In the Sheepshead Bay section, huge amounts of earth were piled up very slightly north of Emmons Avenue for the elevated portions of the Belt Parkway, as it gained height to cross by bridge over Sheepshead Bay Road and Ocean, Bedford, and Nostrand Avenues. The 1941 Belt Parkway had two lanes. Third lanes were added after World War II. In 1997 a huge portion of this highway was named the POW-MIA Memorial Highway. next: Chapter 9: |
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New York Around 1600 and Brooklyn Names |
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Copyright © 2003 Ira Leitner