The superhighway wannabee looking
dead south. This is the second of two such attempts by Woodhaven
to cross over, literally, into limited access mode; the first
being in Glendale where it soared over some rail tracks, but
was too chicken to attempt the same over nearby Metropolitan
Avenue or Union Tpke. In actuality, both semi-highway sections
could well have been precursor links in a planned chain that
could have become the Maspeth Expressway. Woodhaven's Cross Bay
alter ego also indulges in this delusion, flying over two bodies
of water in its attempt to escape grade crossings.
This location is a half a block from the long shuttered, sprawling
and haunted-looking St. Anthony's Hospital, in which vandals
are always setting fires. Woodhaven Blvd unfortunately looks
haunted and dead in numerous spots, and it is perhaps fitting
that it is followed closely, a mere four blocks away, by the
infamous Dead Tracks; the long abandoned LIRR spur that lead
to the Rockaways. Everything about Woodhaven appears macabre;
the surrounding architecture, curves, hills. I won't even start
on the lanes that weave in and out between median islands that
appear, disappear and reappear over and over. It can never seem
to make up its mind whether to emulate the Jackie Robinson Parkway,
Queens Blvd, Kings Hwy or even its bemused foil here, Atlantic
Avenue. It ends up succeeding in adopting the worst characteristics
of all of them. |
