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Correction; the Island was largely rural until that GD VNB was built. In some spots along North Shore you could call things "suburban", but south of what is now SIE, and much of west and east shores were vast open land, good amounts were either farm or wet lands.
Even by standards of day Robert Moses was a racist bigot with a bug up his ass against the poor/working classes. And that's saying something given attitudes of post WWII New York.
He busted up working/lower class or ethnic areas of Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, but also saw to it certain areas of Queens and Long Island remained largely white/suburban.
Robert Moses hated trains, so every chance he could the guy screwed the railroads. None of the parkways or highways built by RM can handle trains. He put the VNB at site where city was going to build subway line linking SI to Brooklyn under the Narrows.
RM also kept mass transit out of many areas of Queens and Long Island by building overpasses on parkways and highways with too little clearance for trucks and even some buses. For a guy with total hard on for cars RM never learned to drive in his life. Until day he died the guy was driven around by his black chauffeur.
Keep in mind when I say Robert Moses hated "ethnics" it generally included Italians and Irish. Time and time again when it came time to bust an area with a high way or something, guess who got picked on first?
Gradually city and state have begun reversing some of damage caused by RM; in particular current mayor Sam The Eagle seems intent on dismantling city's car culture. But even before that Westway was defeated and instead we got a Westside highway that restored neighborhood access to waterfront. Same thing is happening in Bronx: https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs...essway-rebuild
This part I was not aware of. What is interesting is how powerful the wealthy were in NYC. They really played a huge rule in shaping the look and feel of the City today (I mean the outer boroughs as well).
Southern State parkway was designed with turns and hills to make the ride to Hamptons less boring.
Sadly the drunk and stoned motorist these days can navigate that road too well.
As you can see, the fires were starting to hit the non slummy parts of The Bronx. The societal rot that allowed this to happen was more than just Robert Moses or white flight.
Who can forget "Bonfire of the Vanities?" Interesting take on the Bronx from 2018 comparison with Tom Wolfe's novel:
"The Bonfire of the Vanities begins with a wrong turn in the Bronx, a turn that terrifies Sherman McCoy, a wealthy bond trader.
“He had to look twice to make sure he was in fact still driving on a New York street,†Tom Wolfe writes, opening his sprawling satire of 1980s New York City. “Block after block – how many? – six? Eight? A dozen? – entire blocks of the city without a building left standing. There were streets and curbing and sidewalks and light poles and nothing else.â€
Seated in a $48,000 Mercedes Benz, McCoy and his extramarital love interest, Maria Ruskin, encounter some people from ethnic minority backgrounds. This leaves Ruskin in need of a vodka and orange, McCoy in need of a Scotch and a black teenage boy – Henry Lamb – in a coma. Sherman also rips his Savile Row jacket.
Racial tensions are stirred. A charismatic black reverend capitalises on the ire of the local community. A cynical district attorney uses the incident to get black votes. A washed up journalist spies a chance at redemption. McCoy goes on trial. He is acquitted but he loses his job, his wife, his child and his home.
More than 30 years later, in the days after Wolfe’s death at the age of 88, the Bronx is far removed from the dystopia he described.
In the 1980s, the South Bronx was still reeling from the construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway, a road designed to ease traffic through Manhattan that essentially cut the most northerly borough in two, causing businesses to leave and residents to flee. Buildings were abandoned or set on fire, so owners could claim insurance. Unemployment and gangs were rife."
Question: Why is the Cross Bronx blamed as the major factor for the decline? For instance, why is the Cross Bronx blamed for the decline of, say Mott Haven or Morrisania that are nowhere near the Cross Bronx??
And how come the BQE did not produce the same effects in Sunnyside, Jackson Heights and Elmhurst??
Also, the Hutchison River Parkway did not make Pelham Bay and Morris Park less desirable, so how come?
Yes, he had a huge impact on destroying the Bronx, primarily with the expressways. They cut off neighborhoods and made them less desirable. No one wants to live next to a loud expressway, not to mention the poor air quality, etc. that comes with that. At the end of the day, the Bronx was built for the middle class, and guys like came along and destroyed it.
I know quite a few people that were born in the Bronx that live in some of the most expensive areas of the City, so those with money usually escaped from the borough.
I live a few blocks from one of downtown Boston entrances into Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90), a massive expressway. It goes right through Back Bay, one of the two best parts of Boston. I cross the overpass over the thundering traffic of the turnpike every time I go grocery shopping, or to drop something at the post office, or to go to the library. I do have noise-insulation windows in my condo. Now, my upper middle class Boston neighborhood has almost no crime of any kind, and particularly no violent crime. The air quality is the worst imaginable, but people trade that for living in an upscale, historic, most desirable part of the city. So, I can assure you with absolute certainty that an expressway does NOT cause crime, and does not make an area undesirable for living :-).
Question: Why is the Cross Bronx blamed as the major factor for the decline? For instance, why is the Cross Bronx blamed for the decline of, say Mott Haven or Morrisania that are nowhere near the Cross Bronx??
And how come the BQE did not produce the same effects in Sunnyside, Jackson Heights and Elmhurst??
Also, the Hutchison River Parkway did not make Pelham Bay and Morris Park less desirable, so how come?
Roberto, I can't give you too many reps, but we are often on the same page about urban issues :-). Please read my previous post (which I happened to be typing while you were typing yours).
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