This was the jump-off point for the Forgotten NY walk of 7/18/99
(Pardon me. Make that 1999 for all you Y2K sensitive souls).
The Grand Concourse, looking south, is lined here as it is for
most of its long length, with 1920's-1930's era apartment houses.
While the Grand Concourse was not exactly a limited access highway,
it was sort of a forerunner of them, laid out as it was in the
late 1800's as a broad carriageway evokative I suppose of some
Parisian boulevard. Most major cross streets, such as Bedford
Park Blvd, offer crosstown motorists the choice of going through
the Concourse intersection, or bypassing it by passing beneath
the Concourse. Since few travelers would elect to go through
an intersection when offered a better alternative, most of these
crossroads only have to cope with motorists intending to turn
from the sidestreet onto the Concourse and vise versa. If these
intersections can thus be seen in the light of on/off ramps,
then the Concourse is very close to being a limited access arterial
highway. |