Vanderbilt Cup Races

This two-minute video posted by A Fork in a World of Soup Productions in 2012 provides a nice introduction to our favorite historic parkway.

Enjoy,

Howard Kroplick

Published on Apr 2, 2012 
 
The first highway in the world took the elite of New York City to their mansions on Long Island, zipping past the traffic on the poorly maintained local streets. A Great Gatsby era story led by William K. Vanderbilt Jr. and his associates from the Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Astor families, these men built what we could only today imagine, a private highway, free from traffic and police. 
 
This is a promotional video for a possible documentary for PBS/WLIW. 
 
The documentary encompasses the start of auto racing in the US and Henry Ford testing his first cars, in addition to being a popular prohibition route for circumventing the local police and smuggle alcohol in to NYC.
 
In the end, the highway died a slow, painful death as newer building technology came about and the great depression took hold. The playboy millionaires were no longer able to support their private highway and eventually they were forced to turn it over to the State of New York for payment of back taxes.