Shore Front Parkway

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Shore Front Parkway is a two-lane beachfront road paralleling the boardwalk in Rockaway Beach in the New York City borough of Queens, running between Beach 73rd Street and Beach 108th Street.

The parkway was opened in 1939 under the direction of Robert Moses, who was the Commissioner of Parks of New York City at the time. Often called the "road to nowhere" by Rockaway residents because its termini do not access any well-traveled locations, Shore Front Parkway was intended by Moses as a link in a never-completed grand shorefront drive extending from Brooklyn to the Hamptons.[1] This project of Moses' was permanently thwarted in the 1960s when the National Park Service gained control of the bulk of Fire Island in Suffolk County, an essential link in the proposed highway, and decreed that it remain a permanently roadless National Seashore. [2]

Construction of the parkway entailed total or partial demolition of many private residences and thriving beachfront businesses and attractions, particularly the "mechanical gadgetlands" that Moses was known to despise. The Rockaways' Playland amusement park suffered permanent truncation to make way for the road. Even today, despite its width, the parkway yields relatively little vehicular use.

Shore Front Parkway has been changed to a two lane road as a result of a cyclist mortality, in an attempt to slow traffic down to a safer speed.

In July 2007, the New York City Department of Transportation announced that it will extend Shore Front Parkway through Beach 67th Street, where it will intersect with Rockaway Beach Boulevard This extension will be called "Beach Front Road." Ultimately, Beach Front Road will continue through Beach 60th Street.[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Shore Front parkway at NYCRoads.com, accessed December 27, 2006
  2. ^ It Happened on Long Island - 1964: Fire Island National Seashore Established, Newsday, accessed December 27, 2006
  3. ^ Schwach, Howard. "Arverne By The Sea Eyeing Retail Space As Next Step Transit Plaza, Shops, Mid-Rise Houses Due", The Wave (newspaper), September 7, 2007. Accessed September 29, 2007.
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