32 TIMES • AUGUST 6, 2015 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.timesnewsweekly.com old timer PRESENTED BY THE WOODHAVEN CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY An early 20th century photo of Woodhaven Avenue, which is now Woodhaven Boulevard. If you have any memories and photos that you’d like to share about “Our Neighborhood: e Way it Was,” write to e Old Timer, c/o Ridgewood Times, 62-70 Fresh Pond Rd., Ridgewood, NY 11385, or send an email to editorial@ridgewoodtimes.com. All mailed pictures will be carefully returned upon request. Woodhaven Boulevard, currently the subject of much controversy over bus-only lane proposals, was once the subject of a much larger controversy: a brouhaha that lasted over two decades. This road dates back to the Colonial era, when parts of it was known as Flushing Avenue and other parts referred to on maps as “the road to the landing” or “the road to the bay.” Around the start of the 20th century, Woodhaven Avenue (as it was known) was a sleepy, tree-lined dirt road that catered to horses and carriages. But with automobiles becoming a more common method of transport, people began to travel more and Woodhaven Avenue began to see a lot of traffi c, particularly in the summer months when people began to fl ock to the Rockaways. With no other main arteries to the beach nearby, traffi c jams began to become unbearable, particularly on the north side of Atlantic Avenue. The railroad ran along ground level on Atlantic and drivers had to sit in long lines waiting for trains to pass. On several occasions, traffi c was backed up all the way past Myrtle Avenue. Early on, there were discussions on how to resolve this issue but it isn’t until the early 1920s that the city makes a strong push to widen Woodhaven Avenue. The Homestead Civic Association protested, citing the number of new constructions that would need to be torn down. More important to the residents was the matter of who was going to pay for all of this. At that time, the cost for major projects was directly assessed on property owners and depending on the project, it could be quite costly. Newspaper editorials of that era scolded the city for what was termed “confi scatory assessments,” projects where the cost was assessed locally, and the burden put on the local homeowner. In many cases, people lost their homes because they could not pay for the local streets and sewers that the city built. The city was proposing that the bulk of the project to widen Woodhaven Avenue be assessed locally, paid for by the homeowners in Woodhaven. And so, the initial push to widen Woodhaven Avenue failed, but the battle lines were drawn and the fi ght would resurface on and off again for most of the next two decades. In 1925, there was a second push to widen Woodhaven Avenue. The Board of Estimate and Apportionment suggested dividing the assessment between the City of New York, the Borough of Queens and the property owners of Woodhaven. The locals were still being asked to pick up some 30 to 50 percent of the cost, and so that plan also failed. The residents came up with a counter proposal. Their idea was to keep Woodhaven Avenue as is, but make it a one-way street heading toward the Rockaways. And the traffi c coming back would be detoured at Rockaway and would head north, back to the city, via Diamond Avenue (today known at 98th Street). That plan was rejected by the city and the stalemate, with a yearly skirmish, continued for another decade. It was in 1935 that the city forced the hand of the residents of Woodhaven by drafting their own alternate proposal. By this time, they had already secured agreements to widen the road north of Park Lane South and south of Rockaway Boulevard — but without Woodhaven’s cooperation they would be left with an hourglass-shaped road and a massive bottleneck, defeating the purpose of the entire project. And so the city drafted a new proposal, the Woodhaven Expressway, an elevated highway which would travel high over the homes of Woodhaven. The planned highway would elevate at Woodhaven, right before Myrtle Avenue, and return to ground level where Woodhaven runs into Cross Bay Boulevard, just past Liberty Avenue. The elevated highway would not have followed Woodhaven Avenue; instead it would have immediately veered east at Myrtle, sailed over Victory Field, and turned south at the Rockaway Beach Line of the Long Island Railroad. It would follow the tracks, and cruise high over 98th Street, until it hit Cross Bay Boulevard. Residents were aghast at the prospects of a giant bridge hanging over the community and suddenly the plan to widen Woodhaven Boulevard, as it was now commonly referred to, looked pretty good. A few more years of controversy ensued, and several lawsuits were threatened, but by 1938 the city announced plans to widen the boulevard. Eventually, the assessment for the project (the cost of which had ballooned in the two decades since it was fi rst proposed) was distributed widely, with the City of New York picking up 75 percent of the cost, and the Borough of Queens picking up the remaining 25 percent. The fi nal cost for widening the boulevard through Woodhaven was around $3 million, with most of that budget covering the cost of acquiring the properties marked for destruction. Many houses needed to be torn down to make way for the new lanes and several well-known structures, including Emanuel Evangelical and Reformed Church and the American Legion, were torn down and rebuilt elsewhere. The Woodhaven expressway THAT WASN’T It was in 1935 that the city forced the hand of the residents of Woodhaven by drafting their own alternate proposal... the Woodhaven Expressway, an elevated highway which would travel high over the homes of Woodhaven.
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