| A four-year, million-dollar capital improvement plan announced in 1958 provided for similar projects to remove or bank sharp curves on other segments of the parkway. In 1960, $250,000 was appropriated to remove a double curve and realign the parkway drive between Tuckahoe Road and the Park Avenue Viaduct. The original drive curved from the Tuckahoe Road Bridge towards the east side of the parkway and then went back through the east arch of the Park Avenue Viaduct. This project rechanneled the winding river and realigned the road to run nearly parallel to Parkview Avenue near the western boundary of the parkway and then under the west arch of the Park Avenue Viaduct. The new Bronx River channel flowed from the Tuckahoe Road Bridge towards the east side of the parkway and then under the bridge on the original road alignment. The former parkway drive was obliterated immediately north of Tuckahoe Road. Between Elm Street (in Tuckahoe) and the Park Avenue Viaduct, the old parkway drive was modified for use as an on-ramp from Elm Street onto the northbound parkway drive. A new mercury vapor lighting system with aluminum standards was installed and the original cedar light poles were removed.(298) In 1966, following five years of contentious negotiation, the WCPC announced that a major reconstruction project would take place between Crane Road and Greenacres Avenue. The proposed project was intended to eliminate dangerous curves, dips, and inclines on the drive while minimizing the destruction of trees in Butler Woods. The proposal was controversial because this section largely retained its original appearance. The conflict between preservationists and county officials became known as the "second battle of Butler Woods," in reference to George Washington’s 1776 altercation with the British in the same location. In 1964, engineers had offered several alternatives for revising the parkway’s narrow and twisting single roadbed. The preferred plan would remove a large number of trees to provide room to divide the drive into separate traffic lanes on different grade levels divided by a broad median. An alternate plan would modernize the road and separate it with steel fences. A third alternative would provide two lanes of traffic on the present right-of-way and carry the other two lanes along Pipeline Road on the other side of the railroad tracks. Objections to the proposals reverberated far beyond Westchester County. Concerned parties included the Scarsdale Audubon Society, Friends of Scarsdale Park, the Road Review League of Westchester, the Atlantic Chapter of the Sierra Club, and the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Prominent citizens, including architect Philip Johnson and writer Lewis Mumford also lent their support to the protest. A telegram to Governor Nelson Rockefeller requested his help in preventing the "brutal gutting" that threatened to destroy the parkway’s "historic and future park and recreational values." The governor forwarded the telegram to Westchester County Commissioner of Public Works James C. Harding, who denied accusations that the county was attempting to convert the BRP into an expressway. He announced that the county would "surrender" to citizens’ demands by abandoning its preference for separated roadbeds and a broad median. Instead, the county would rebuild the road along the present right-of-way and separate the opposing traffic lanes with a steel "fence." The new fence, presumably steel box-beam guardrail, was developed with Westchester County’s collaboration. Although it was considered costly, it had been deemed capable of cushioning the impact of vehicle crashes. The reconstruction also proposed adding new access roads and eliminating turns onto the southbound lanes from Butler and Ogden Roads.(299) |
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| (298)"Old
Road to Lose Kinks," New York Times, August 29, 1958; Westchester
County Department of Public Works, Bronx River Parkway Realignment, Mercury
Vapor Lighting Standards, Drawing Number 29-00-G-41, January 5, 1960. |
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