The 'struggle collection' outlines the efforts by residents to prevent the construction of the expressway and by the Triborough Authority and its allies to get it built. The 'plan collection' gives a picture of the reasons behind the construction. The 'neighborhood collection' gives a picture of the neighborhoods displaced by the construction of the expressway. The four collections in this digital history, accessed by clicking below on 'browse collections', detail four aspects of the construction of the expressway. It also forced the displacement of hundreds of families amid protests and controversey. It connected the Long Island Expressway to the Throgs Neck Bridge, connecting Long Island and Queens to the Bronx, Westchester, and New England. The Clearview Expressway construction was a typical example of the two legacies of Robert Moses. I'll never forget my New York State cultural history professor screaming and gesticulating as he recounted the story of Moses deliberately building the underpasses on the parkways to Joans Beach low enough so that buses would not be able to take poor people (especially poor African-Americans) to his prized beach. Others deplored his racism, abuses of power, and indifference to the poor. Some praised him as a visionary who oversaw a revolution in urban development, bringing crucial highways, parks, and housing to New York. My mother is not usually one to hold grudges, but to this day Robert Moses is reviled by my family, holding a special place in our personal pantheon of antagonists alongside Walter O'Malley and Joe McCarthy.ДЄs I grew up, I encountered information about Robert Moses in documentaries, history classes, and other sources besides my mother. My mother, ten years old at the time, left her friends and old neighborhood behind and entered a new school mid-year where she struggled to adjust. In 1958 my mother's home was demolished to make way for the Clearview Expressway one of Robert Moses's many highway projects. So thatвЂ™s why the Clearview ends rather abruptly at Hillside Avenue, and will likely never be extended south.The Construction of the Clearview Expressway

On March 24, 1971, Governor Nelson Rockefeller officially killed the southern extension of the Clearview Expressway, along with several other Interstate highway projects in New York City. However, by the late 1960вЂ™s, concerns over the lack of available funds and community opposition delayed this segment. The 6.3-mile-long, Clearview Expressway extension was to have alleviated congestion on the Van Wyck Expressway (I-678) and the Belt Parkway by creating another north-south, controlled-access route to Kennedy Airport that was to be open to all traffic. * southeast to the Cross Island Parkway either at EXITS 26 B-C (NY 24 / Hempstead Turnpike) or EXIT 25A (Southern State Parkway) then paralleling the Cross Island-Belt (Laurelton) Parkway south to Brookville Park. * southeast along Francis Lewis Boulevard, then southwest along a general area bounded by Farmers Boulevard and Springfield Boulevard to Kennedy Airport Many different alignments were studied, including: Albans and Springfield Gardens, and terminate at the Nassau Expressway. The Clearview Expressway extension was to form an arc through the southeast Queens communities of Hollis, St.

The information below is paraphrased from. Hillside Avenue was not the ClearviewвЂ™s originally-designed ultimate south terminus.

Clearview expressway