Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
November 18, 1876 The entire segment of Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn, New York, was opened to the public about two years after construction on that route had begun. (Brooklyn was still an independent incorporated city at the time and would not become a borough of New York City until 1898.) The new parkway, spanning 5.5... Continue Reading →
April 10, 1951 The Battery Park Underpass, a vehicular tunnel at the southernmost tip of Manhattan in New York City, was officially opened during a noontime ceremony. This underpass is located near the neighborhoods of Battery Park and South Ferry. It serves as a link between Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive (popularly known as... Continue Reading →
December 24, 1915 At 4:00 p.m., a recently finished masonry arch bridge in northwest Washington, D.C., made its ceremony-free debut. This Christmas Eve opening was authorized by U.S. Army Major Charles W. Kutz (1870-1951), the military civil engineer member of the three-person Board of Commissioners that governed the city at that time. The completion of... Continue Reading →
September 11, 1935 Ground was broken on the first section of the Appalachian Scenic Highway, which is now known as the Blue Ridge Parkway. These initial building efforts took place along a 12.5-mile (20.1-kilometer) stretch near the western North Carolina-Virginia border, specifically in the vicinity of North Carolina’s Cumberland Knob mountain peak. The ultimate result of... Continue Reading →
August 31, 2018 A new pedestrian bridge in Boston was formally opened. Construction on the Frances Appleton Bridge, which crosses a major parkway known as Storrow Drive, began in 2016. This bridge was named after Boston-born Frances “Fanny” Appleton (1817-1861). She was married to literary giant Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) from 1843 until her death,... Continue Reading →
As a longtime businessman and civic leader in the city of Portland in Oregon, Bill Naito became a strong champion of public transportation initiatives in that part of the world. He was born in Portland on September 16, 1925, to Hide and Fukiye Naito, who had immigrated to the United States from Japan in 1912.... Continue Reading →
November 15, 1932 A major milestone for a pioneering highway in northern Virginia with took place with the inaugural ceremony for the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway, which had been built by the Bureau of Public Roads of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to commemorate the bicentennial of George Washington’s birth. The new route, stretching from... Continue Reading →
September 30, 1958 The New York State Department of Public Works (now part of the New York State Department of Transportation), in an official notification to the government of Westchester County, confirmed that it would begin construction on a long-planned highway in that county. (Westchester County is located in the southeastern region of the Empire... Continue Reading →
September 26, 1981 On the southern coast of mainland Singapore, a viaduct was officially opened to the public. This bridge, which stands at the western end of the East Coast Parkway, carries motor vehicles as well as pedestrians over the Marina Reservoir in that region of Singapore. The bridge was named after Benjamin Sheares, who... Continue Reading →
December 3, 2012 Starting at 2:00 p.m., a newly completed parkway in southeastern Pennsylvania was formally dedicated. The George A. Penglase Memorial Parkway was created as part of a realignment of U.S. Route 202 (US 202), a highway that encompasses 59 miles (95 kilometers) altogether and courses through the western and northern suburbs of Philadelphia.... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 