the first installment of the ghost town dilapidation series I am working on.
built starting in the late 1940's and completed in 1963, the cross bronx is a major thoroughfare for commerce, but is also described as having a major negative impact on several communities that were torn apart in order to make the space for the highway. critics say that in most cases the highway could have been routed around these communities instead of through them, with little or no additional cost involved.
often cited as the most congested highway in the united states, the reason there is so little traffic during this movie is that the entire city is essentially closed because hurricane sandy had hit only a couple days prior and downtown is still flooded. indeed that is the main reason why I took this highway instead of one closer to the downtown. i don't live anywhere near NYC so this was a one-shot attempt.
00:05 - the idea for creating this video came to me literally one second before I turn the camera on. thats why some of the early footage you will see is a little bit shaky: because I am still experimenting with different ways of holding the camera. but the shakiness goes away before very long.
00:50 - entering the bronx by crossing the east river on the throgs neck bridge
01:00 - a view of lower manhattan
01:07 - a view of the whitestone bridge
01:29 - this is where the i95, the i295, the i278 and the i678 all join. from here we are on the i95 which is the designation for the main highway up and down the east coast of the united states.
03:30 - you can see how parts of the highway are actually built in a trench that was blasted out of solid rock. this rock is the same type of ground which much of new york city is built upon.
03:55 - from here the the cross bronx also picks up the designation of US route 1. the origin of US 1 can be traced back to the old boston post road, which was first used by colonists in 1673 for delivering mail between new york city and boston, and even farther back to the pequot path, which was in use by native americans centuries before the first europeans arrived on the continent.
04:45 - here we pass under a major road called the grand concourse, which was first opened to traffic in 1909.
05:15 - this is where part 1 ends. part 2, a separately uploaded video showing the rest of the journey, begins at this point.
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