THE UPGRADED BOULEVARD

VAN WYCK Expressway is a north-south expressway that roars from the Whitestone Expressway at the Flushing River all the way south to John F. Kennedy Airport, where it loops around the terminals and then runs northbound. It opened in sections, southern end first to connect with the then-new Idlewild Airport, from 1951-1963, with the final section in the north finished in time to coincide with the opening of the 1964-1965 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows. It’s usually a traffic-snarled nightmare, as Seinfeld’s Elaine Benes attested. Yet, it has an interesting history, as it has “graduated” from a suburban two-lane local-access road to the behemoth it is today.

In the title card, we see the 1930s IND subway tiled sign scheme for the “Van Wyck Boulevard” stop. It’s now known as Van Wyck-Briarwood and is one of the more curious places to put a subway stop, as the southbound platform is located on a desolate stretch of the Van Wyck Expressway service road at Maple Grove Cemetery. Interestingly, the MTA tried to copy the black and white IND directional tiled sign for Briarwood, but they used Copperplate Bold, which is close but not quite. Here it is in the correct font:

The road shows up on early maps as Van Wyck Avenue and ran only from Jamaica and Metropolitan Avenues south to Lincoln Street at 111th Avenue (see the lower left on this 1909 atlas plate).

By the time this 1922 Hagstrom atlas was published, “Van Wyck Avenue” had been upgraded from Avenue to Boulevard, and extends it south to Jamaica Bay. However, mapmakers are fond of going with the dreams of city planners and developers and the road probably didn’t yet extend that far south.

Here’s pastoral Van Wyck Boulevard looking north from 97th Avenue in 1934 ina. photo by E.E. Rutter…

… and a Street View photo at the same intersection in the 2020s.

Robert Anderson Van Wyck (1849-1918) was the first mayor of the five-borough Greater New York, in office January 1, 1898 – December 31, 1901, and helped direct initial construction of Interborough Rapid Transit, the IRT Subway that opened October 27, 1904.

Though many sources give him the honor of having the avenue, boulevard and expressway named for him, my suspicions are high because the road had already been named by 1908 and his decease would not be for another decade. As a rule street and road honorifics are bestowed after the subject’s death, with a few exceptions.

Indeed, my suspicions are borne out by this 1834 land subdivision map for Abrm. Van Wyck, which shows Van Wyck Avenue extending from Jamaica Avenue to what appears to be Liberty Avenue. Chichester Avenue (for Abner Chichester) is now 95th Avenue. I think we can assume that Abraham Van Wyck named the main north-south road through the property after his family. Image courtesy Edward Fitzgerald.

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8/18/26