Horace Harding Boulevard was initially developed as a through route from Elmhurst to Nassau County as Nassau Boulevard in the 1930s, and was later named for a financier and friend of NYC traffic czar Robert Moses. It was widened into the Long Island Expressway in the 1950s, with Horace Harding’s name still affixed to the service roads. Today the LIE (as everyone refers to it, despite its being called the Queens Midtown Expressway and Horace Harding Expressway on Queens signage) runs from the Queens Midtown Tunnel to near Riverhead in Suffolk County as Interstate 495. In “rush” hours, it’s been dubbed “the world’s longest parking lot.”
However, a short piece of the original Nassau Boulevard can be found for approximately two blocks in Little Neck as the LIE was dipped south of its original route. This short two-lane piece runs from the north service road of the LIE, runs east past Little Neck Parkway and 260th Street, and into Nassau County — where it changes names to become Horace Harding Boulevard once again in Lake Success, where it angles southeast into the north service road of the LIE once again, with its two-way traffic ending at Lakeville Road.
This is one of two roads in Queens named for Nassau County, though Nassau Road is just over the city line past Glenwood Street in northern Little Neck. Further south, the Nassau Expressway (I-898) parallels the Belt Parkway east of Kennedy Airport.
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1/20/18