The world's first freeway is barely recognizable anymore. The only parts that can be driven are a few dead-end roads, driveways, and parking lots, and then the eastern 15 or so miles have been converted to a county route. The rest of the road, at best, is in fragmented pieces in people's backyards and underneath power lines. At worst, it has been completely obliterated by development, including a hospital in one case. Very few of the original overpasses exist, and not one interchange has been maintained in its entirety, although there are two in Queens that have a good amount preserved.

The Parkway in Queens
The Parkway in Nassau County
The Parkway in Suffolk County
Suffolk CR 67, Vanderbilt Pkwy./Motor Pkwy.

Attempting to trace the Long Island Motor Parkway is a time-consuming process involving detailed maps, a detailed description (such as my site provides), and above all, a willingness to explore some areas of questionable openness. (Please note that I did not directly ignore any signs telling me to keep out. You may see a few on these pages - they were encountered well after I had entered the particular area, and were all of ambiguous nature such that it was never clear I was on private or restricted property. Just because I was not stopped does not mean you will not be stopped - please be prepared, and above all, be mindful that if someone says you're trespassing, they're probably right and you/I were mistaken.)
I have provided a few links at the bottom of the page that should, along with my detailed photo log and location guide, help you trace as much of the Parkway as possible. (Note that I have not recorded any of the locations that are essentially gone or completely inaccessible, or such that while they are aerially significant, they are inconsequential when photographed from the ground.) Arthur's website includes several map scans and is undeniably, by far, the most accurate log of the Parkway on the Internet. Sam's website is the most thorough and detailed, although he makes a couple of errors that I in fact duplicated until I found Arthur's website. Steve's website is a compendium of information, more a history of the route than a guide to tracing it. My suggestion for those who wish to follow in my footsteps is to mark off all of the points I have photographed on my site, then verify it against Arthur's site and connect the points with lines based on his maps. Finally, go to Sam's site and get a feel for what the ground conditions are at each location and what it will take for you to follow the Parkway as thoroughly as possible.

Now for a short history of the Parkway, gleaned largely from a sign erected in Cunningham Park, Queens. As I said above, the other sites linked below will likely go into more detail on history. The Long Island Motor Parkway was conceived by railroad magnate William K. Vanderbilt, Jr. as an elongated racetrack for the pleasure of himself and his rich cohorts. Vanderbilt had raced before in Europe, and attempted to bring those races to the United States on the local roads of Nassau County. When that led to a fatality, he conceived the idea of a long road with no cross-traffic and the most modern design features imaginable to serve as his racetrack. Many years ahead of its time, the Parkway was constructed out of concrete and employed superelevation as high as 12% around its many banked curves to make high-speed travel safer. Remember that cars of that era basically rode on bicycle tires and the suspensions were not much better than those of horse-drawn carriages and even covered wagons.
The first segment opened in 1908 and the 1908 Vanderbilt Cup Race was held on it. Because of the ideal driving conditions along the road, including a forested landscape for a pleasurable atmosphere, the Parkway was opened as a toll road whenever it was not used as a racetrack. The $2 tolls (remember, in 1908 money) collected at 12 different tollhouses ensured that only well-to-do travelers would use the Vanderbilt Parkway to quickly speed from New York City to the quiet exurbia of Long Island. Two of the tollhouses still survive, one along the route and one removed to Garden City (see photos below), and the site of the original grandstands in Levittown is still marked (see the Nassau County page, linked above).


This original tollhouse, still with the canopy under which cars would pass and pay the toll, is now the Garden City Chamber of Commerce. It's located near the path of the old Parkway at 230 7th St. just off of the western end of Stewart Ave.

In 1910, the last race was held on the road when 23 spectators suffered casualties during the race and New York banned racing outside of racetracks. By 1912, the Parkway was fully open for 45 miles and open to anyone willing to pay the tolls. During Prohibition, the roadway was used by bootleggers to speed the alcohol from origin to destination and avoid the police (the Parkway was a private highway, so the police were not contracted to patrol it). However, the Parkway would not survive much past that era, as Robert Moses came into power in the late 1920's and began planning the parallel, better-designed, and most importantly, free Northern State Parkway. Moses refused to buy the Motor Parkway due to its outdated design and potential inability to widen it sufficiently for present and future traffic while maintaining parkway design features. By 1938, with the Northern State open and siphoning almost all of the traffic away, Vanderbilt was forced to close his Parkway and sell the land back to the counties. Therefore, any remaining section of paved Parkway is more than 70 years old.
Once the land was given back to the counties, the fates of each section of Parkway diverged. Some were reacquired by Robert Moses as parks to be preserved, including the bicycle path through Queens featured on this site. Some sections were overbuilt by other parkways, expressways, and interchanges. Some, as I mentioned, were sold to developers and never seen again. Luckily, many communities were already growing by 1938 so that the path can still be traced through the property lines when it's not still in its own right of way. Enough exposition - start your journey.

The Parkway in Queens
The Parkway in Nassau County
The Parkway in Suffolk County
Suffolk CR 67, Vanderbilt Pkwy./Motor Pkwy.

Arthur John Huneke's Long Island Motor Parkway
Art K's Long Island Motor Parkway site
Sam Berliner III's Long Island Motor Parkway page
Long Island Motor Parkway on Steve Anderson's nycroads.com
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