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Community Corner

Highway Bound

A brief history of the Long Island Expressway

Perhaps no other landmark in Little Neck had a bigger impact on shaping northeast Queens than the Long Island Expressway.

However, few people stop to reflect on the influence this historic structure had on the development of Queens — especially during rush-hour traffic.

"Before the L.I.E., there was very little out in this area, particularly in the east which was known as the Horse Brook," said Jason Antos, Queens historian and author of the book, "Flushing: Then & Now."

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A section of land where lakes and rivers branched off from the southern part of Flushing Creek, Horse Brook was made up mostly of farmland and swamps.

That was until the highway — the first major expressway to connect the outer reaches of Queens with the rest of the city — pushed its way out to the Nassau border, forever changing the landscape of what was once a rural outpost.

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Breaking ground in 1939, the first section of the L.I.E. — a one-mile-long, six-lane viaduct beginning at the Queens Midtown Tunnel and ending in Long Island City — was completed within a year. In 1940, the first batch of cars rolled down the freshly poured patch of pavement. 

"Almost immediately, the expressway became flooded with motorists," Antos said, noting that early photos of the highway paint a portrait of a motorway resembling more of a parking lot than an expressway.  

“These pictures captured a shift taking place at that time throughout the United States ... cars were becoming consumer products that were more affordable and reliable,” he said. 

It wasn't long before city planners began mapping out an extension to the newly constructed roadway. In 1941, the City Planning Commission proposed expanding the roadway further into Queens to the eastern city limits, marking the slow evolution from urban to suburban with every milepost.

"This highway expansion meant there was no turning back," Antos said. "More people started moving east to escape the city and began commuting into work by car."

In just over 10 years, construction crews made their way through most of Queens and in 1954, workers began laying the foundation for the proposed Horace Harding Expressway, the original name for a portion of the L.I.E. between exits 19 to 32, which had been named after Horace J. Harding (1863–1929), a finance magnate who used his influence to promote the development of area roadways. 

This final city section of the expressway took four years to finish. Then in 1958, cars streamed off the L.I.E. onto Little Neck Parkway for the first time. 

"Things changed dramatically after that," said Judy Cohen, president of North Hills Estates Civic Association. "The most noticeable difference was probably the noise coming from all that highway traffic, though I suppose there was no avoiding it."

Today the Long Island Expressway stretches 71.02 miles. It runs from the Queens-Midtown Tunnel to Riverhead, Long Island, with official reports from the city Department of Transportation estimating approximately 158,000 commuters passing through Little Neck on the expressway daily. 

“Suffice to say, the impact this road has on the area continues to be enormous," Antos said.

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