West Side Improvement, 1937

West Side Improvement: Riverside Park and Henry Hudson Parkway, September 8, 1937. Click image to enlargeSee text below image.

West Side Improvement 1937

Aerial View of Henry Hudson Parkway, Riverside Drive, West Side Improvement, 72nd Street to Spuyten Duyvil, September 8, 1937, McLaughlin Aerial Service, NYC Parks Photo Archive (this is a photo of the photo in the gallery at the Central Park Arsenal). Photo caption:

“The Henry Hudson Parkway and Riverside Park expansion near completion as seen in this aerial view. At bottom are the railyards in the West 60s, and the extension of the elevated Miller Highway (this section was completed between 1930 and 1932). Note the complex interchange at 79th Street, where a rotunda was created as a traffic roundabout and public space adjacent to the boat basin. North of 72nd Street the tracks were decked over and converted to a park promenade, and industrial sites along the riverfront west of the tracks were transformed into a series of athletic fields. The official opening of the park and parkway, known as the West Side Improvement took place at the rotunda one month after this photo was taken.”