Kleiner’s Korner: “Good Roads Magazine” - Motor Parkway Construction Details
"Good Roads Magazine" began publishing in the 1890s and advocated for better roads and highways, initially for bicyclists and then for automobilists. Early on it was the official organ of the League of American Wheelmen. Issues in 1908 described the construction details of the Motor Parkway including banked roads, the clearing of trees with dynamite and reinforcement of the roadbed. Future posts will describe additional construction details. Feel free to suggest where some of these photos were taken. Courtesy of The HaithiTrust Digital Collection.
If you would like a copy of the articles from which this post was based please indicate such in the comment section.
Art Kleiner
First Edition of Good Roads - 1892
Associated with the Good Roads Movement.
Ground- Breaking Ceremony , Central Park (Bethpage)- July 6, 1908
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Construction (Sub-grading) - October, 1908
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d - I wonder who is the person walking on the road.
Side Ditching & Grouting
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h - I would love to identify the man in the bow tie!
Curved Banks
A straight-away
A banked curve
Reinforcing the Roadbed
i - 2" trap rock was used over and under a steel mesh - Then . . .
Engineer Barnes measuring the depth of the rock to be covered by wire netting (The Motor World, August 6, 1908)
And now; notice the mesh holding the trap rock together. Want to guess where this piece of original roadway now resides? Hint - it was borrowed from the excavation on Crocus Lane in Levittown!
The United States Steel Products Export Co. provided the reinforcing mesh.
Sand, Cement and Mortar
j - Any guesses who these gentlemen may be (none were identified)?
The ATLAS Portland Cement Company supplied the sand and cement.
The Finished Product
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Comments
Additional construction detail and photos. From a publication named “Pavements and Roadways” published by the American Steel and Wire Company, date unknown.