 The
blood of Rego Park pumps from this intersection, its heart, 63rd
Drive/63rd Road, the Drive on Death Boulevard's southwest and
the Road on its northeast side. The Transit Authority and most
locals simplify the directions as north and south, as I also
tend to do, but in actuality, both the boulevard and the Avenue
series roads travel on a slant as the crow flies. It is the street
series roads that do the north-south thing, but from the perspective
of the boulevard east of Grand Avenue, all the Avenues on the
south side are hitting the boulevard head on, and since most
people don't think in slanted terms, things have to be either
north, south, east or west; not confusing combinations thereof.
The irony is that "north" of the boulevard, all the
intersectors are hitting it at a visible slant and the "northside"
Avenue-Road-Drives are actually going eastward, as does the Long
Island Expressway, with a mild slant towards the north. As the
boulevard veers more purely westward past Grand Avenue, the angle
at which the Avenues strike it becomes downright obscene, and
unlike this section, where 63rd Drive comes up at a more or less
90 degree angle from the "south", 51st Avenue on the
Elmhurst/Woodside border scissors across the boulevard at such
a sick, crazy angle that makes crossing it the equivalent of
a three block walk. |
