Flushing Avenue at 60th & 59th Street: Maspeth Photo Gallery: Flushing Avenue

Two views north, above at 60th Street, below at 59th. The architecture of blocks are fairly typical for the neighborhood at large. This section of Maspeth still carries a strong, old New York Italian neighborhood flavor, although today it has a large Latino and Polish presence.

At 59th, Flushing is already widening and splitting for its strange run between here and 54th Street as a dual carriage, 4-lane highway. One of those lanes, on the southbound side, has been marked off limits for safety reasons, but the designers, in less safety conscious times, obviously felt the original alignment would suffice. Looking south below, one can see how precarious the coming curve might be for anyone trying to pass the city bus, had the right lane been open for business, especially if it was a truck in that lane, or the white SUV seen above. I'm assuming that this mini-expressway was put through in the mid to late 1950's, replacing what must have been grade crossings of the two railroads just south of here. All shot July 14th, 2001.

© 2001, Jeff Saltzman. All rights reserved.