The "Cross Bronx" again--people kicked out of their homes by subway

On May 15, 10:11 pm, t...@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) wrote:
> In article <1179154887.176491.120...@h2g2000hsg.. com>,
>
> <hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>
> >Memories of Robert Moses and the infamous Cross Bronx evictions have
> >resurfaced in the MTA's construction of the Second Avenue subway. The
> >NYT reports on people being thrown out of the homes.
>
> For whom exactly have they resurfaced, for you?
>
> Are you old enough to actually have memories of the infamous Cross Bronx
> evictions?
>
> It's astonishing -- you go to one museum show and a lecture, and suddenly
> you're sucked so far into the orbit of the "resuscitate Moses to puff up
> our academic reputations (publish or perish)" crowd that you can -- in, it
> seems, all seriousness -- compare the demolition of ten or so buildings to
> build the new subway with the demolition of hundreds of buildings to build
> the Cross Bronx.

I'm not old enough to remembr the evictions themselves (though my
great-aunt had to move, a few blocks to Walton Ave.), but I remember
the changes in topography. I remember Featherbed Lane (because of the
funny name), which twisted up a hill, and Edward L. Grant Highway
(which was a four-lane cobblestone street considerably different from
the broad, pointless, underused plaza-like structure it is today).

And on the other side of the river, we would occasionally go for walks
on the Harlem River Speedway, which was a straight four-lane divided
"highway" that my parents said had been the scene of horse-drawn-
carriage races in the olden days. (Now it's just a curved northern end
of the Harlem River Drive, replete with Jersey Barriers.)

And as long as this is coming up, I would suggest looking at the various
maps and birds eye views of an expressway across the Bronx put out by the
Regional Plan, the Port of Authority and other planning agencies back in the
1920s, which would have been even more destructive than Moses actually did
25 years later.

Caro seems to ignore than the neighborhoods had 25 years advance notice as
to what might be coming.

I also think one has to compare the Cross Bronx to the swath that the
approach to the Verrazzano Bridge through Bay Ridge, which was larger and
highly disruptive as well. And wherever one goes around the country, one can
find negative effects of highways slashed through neighborhoods -- there's
nothing "special" about the Bronx experience other than it's a convenient
way to bash Robert Moses.

I'm not a fan of the way he destroyed private investment in transportation
with tax dollars, but he often gets a bad rap for the wrong reasons.

Jim Guthrie

On May 16, 12:06 am, era...@panix.com (Ed Ravin) wrote:
> From somewhere in cyberspace, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@> said:
>
> >And on the other side of the river, we would occasionally go for walks
> >on the Harlem River Speedway, which was a straight four-lane divided
> >"highway" that my parents said had been the scene of horse-drawn-
> >carriage races in the olden days.
>
> For once, they weren't lying to you.

Excuse me?

On May 16, 7:52 am, "J.R.Guthrie" <jguthr...@nyc.> wrote:
> And as long as this is coming up, I would suggest looking at the various
> maps and birds eye views of an expressway across the Bronx put out by the
> Regional Plan, the Port of Authority and other planning agencies back in the
> 1920s, which would have been even more destructive than Moses actually did
> 25 years later.

In the 1920s those neighborhoods barely existed.

"Steven M. O'Neill" <steveo@panix.com> wrote in message
news:f2hqt0$8nt$1@reader2.panix.com...
> >We have room for but one language here,
>>and that is the English language...
>> Theodore Roosevelt
>
> Teddy, Teddy -- you're obviously wrong here. Take
> a good listen -- there are hundreds of languages
> around you, and they take up no room at all.

They do on the ballot and other official pronouncements.