‘TEAR DOWN
NYC construction big urges expressway’s
BY KEVIN DUGGAN &
BEN BRACHFELD
Government leaders must
use new federal infrastructure
dollars to demolish the
Brooklyn-Queens Expressway
and rebuild it to meet 21st century
needs, according to an infl
uential construction industry
honcho.
“I have one mission in life
on infrastructure and that
is to work with communities
and create, I believe, the largest
infrastructure investment
in America,” said Carlo Scissura,
president of the New York
Building Congress at a morning
panel discussion Wednesday,
Nov. 10. “It’s called knocking
down, redesigning, and
rebuilding a Brooklyn-Queens
Expressway for people, for communities,
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and for all of us in our
city.”
The head of the building
trade advocacy group said
money from President Joe
Biden’s recently-passed $1.2
trillion infrastructure bill,
along with a new governor and
a soon-to-be new mayor will
make for the perfect time to redesign
the highway.
“I get out of the subway at
Fourth Avenue and I love Sunset
Park… But then what happens,
I walk down the block and
the worst monstrosity in the
United States, I have to look at,”
Scissura said. “It is the most ridiculous,
disgusting eyesore.
It’s dangerous, it’s polluted,
it’s rusted, let’s all chant, ‘tear
the BQE down, tear the BQE
down.’”
The BQE was built under
the reign of power broker
Robert Moses in the 1950s,
destroying several workingclass
neighborhoods in its
path, including along Third
Avenue in Sunset Park near
where Scissura spoke at an infrastructure
breakfast hosted
The BQE in Brooklyn Heights, while Carlo Scissura, president of the New York Building Congress speaks at the
Chamber of Commerce’s infrastructure breakfast in Industry City. Photos by Todd Maisel/Ben Brachfeld
by the Brooklyn Chamber of
Commerce in Industry City.
Scissura is no stranger to
the years-long discussions
about what to do with the BQE,
having chaired a so-called expert
panel convened by Mayor
Bill de Blasio to study fi xes for
the roadway’s decaying triplecantilever
section wrapping
around Brooklyn Heights after
locals rebelled against the
city’s proposal to run a temporary
six-lane highway on the
beloved local promenade dur-
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