and Westbound Nassau Expressway - South Ozone Park
Photo Gallery: Belt Pkwy
| The eastbound Belt Parkway heading for the 150th Street overpass. First it has to pass inspection by the erstwhile westbound lanes of the ridiculous Nassau Expressway, which for all intent and purpose, comes to an end as soon as the lanes on this green steel and concrete overpass merge with the westbound Belt service road, North Conduit Avenue. Given that its westbound commuters barely enjoy any lengthy stretch of blacktop sans the interruption of traffic signals, perhaps the Nassau would be better designated an Expeditedway rather than the grossly misleading Expressway. What do you call a road that's halfway between a primary and secondary road - A primandahalfarary? Primary lite? Secondary Plus? Secondary Premium? Super Sec? |
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150th Street passes over the Belt on a
traditional Southern Parkway section style hard cornered elliptical arch
stone faced overpass. It broke tradition in the late 1960s in one respect;
in the general realignment of eastbound South Conduit that came with the
Nassau Expressway project, a third archway was built to carry the old 150th
over the revised Conduit as well. I remember the temporary overpass created
out of Lincoln-log style wooden slats that served 150th Street while this
new archway was being carved out. This section of the Belt was far more bucolic until the late 1960s construction, and all pretense to looking like a parkway evaporated in the 1980's when the yonder JFK Expressway came swinging out from the airport it's named for. |
| Appearances can be deceiving, and ruinous if you drive a fairly tall vehicle, or even have bicycles standing on the roof of your car or van. Many overpasses, especially on the parkways where such height differences are critical, are lower on the shoulder side than by the center median. Unlike its sister overpasses in this section, which retain old style vertical slat guardrails, 150th had its replaced with more modern horizontally slatted rails when the third arch was built. New or old, all such rails were rendered impotent by the cyclone fencing erected in the early 1980's to deter lunatics from casting heavy object onto the traffic below. All the above were taken in motion, mid May 2003, by my partner in crime and life, Rosaura Murillo. |