Neighborhoods Split In Two

A look of where Maspeth would have linked together without the LIE.

By Ellen Thompson

Before they knew it, their communities were forever changed. Their neighbors ripped away, a cement stretch slapped in their place.

Congestion was simply becoming too much for a worn and beaten Queens Boulevard to take. The cars began to pile up one after the other and the horns began to blare — a diversion was needed.

Acknowledging the problem, the New York City Planning Commission in 1941 proposed an extension of the “Midtown Highway” east, in hopes of easing the boulevard. And so came the expansion of the Long Island Expressway.

The first section of the LIE, a one-mile-long, six-lane viaduct over Long Island City, opened to traffic in 1940 after one year of construction. By the following year, a proposal was put on the table to stretch the expressway to Rego Park, where Woodhaven, Queens Boulevard and Horace Harding Boulevard would connect.

The Clearview Expressway at 38th Ave. cuts through residential streets in Bayside.

As wonderful as the new plans sounded, residents in Maspeth couldn’t embrace it, especially those living along Clinton, Jay and Hull Avenues. All they could see was that either them, or their neighbors, would be left without a home. Their once-thriving community where specialty shops stood would be razed, and there was no telling how long the memories could hold up in place of a $5 million project.

The community has made due, but for those who exit the LIE at 69th Street, it is up to them now to maneuver the diagonally dissected avenues.

The quiet, homogenous neighborhood of Bayside has also seen its paved roads ripped apart by a massive highway. But its residents didn’t sit quietly in their homes when the mention of bulldozers arose.

According to Robert Caro, a power broker, one evening, Robert Moses was sitting in his limousine with Sid Shapiro and several other aides to discuss possible locations for the Clearview Expressway.

A view from the other side of 38th Ave. of the southbound Clearview Expressway that Robert Moses built.

“Suddenly, there appeared at the end of the street hundreds of citizens bearing torches and a scarecrow effigy labeled, in large letters, ‘ROBERT MOSES.’ The aides realized that they had happened upon an anti-expressway torchlight rally,” explained Caro, according to nycroads.com. “The big black car sat at the end of the street unnoticed in the dusk by anyone in the crowd as the effigy was hoisted to a lamppost and set afire.”

Moses supposedly threw back and roared with laughter, and when someone suggested they drive away, Moses said no. “He wanted to stay for a while.”

Before the residents knew it, their neighborhood was changed.