Tuesday, October 27, 2009
AN MERRITTORIUS IDEA
I was at MIT, on the way home for a holiday, before I got clued in about the Merritt Parkway.
My freshman year I hitched a ride with a kid who drove from Boston to New Rochelle where I got a train, then a bus, to my Pocono home.
Over the years, I drove the Merritt and the Wilbur Cross and the Sawmill. Lovely four lane highways that had been built in the 30s as part of the post depression "stimulus". The WPA.
Look at this. The LIFE cover when it was completed.
By the time I got to them, the trees and landscaping had grown to their full flower. And flower they did. Every spring. Summer was exuberant. Fall gorgeously orange and yellow.
They are disappearing. They don't conform to the new federal specs. Well, they are a bit of a crap shoot on the entrance and exit ramps. And at 70mph, where the scenery goes to a blur, they are a bit passé.
And they are endangered and perservations are coming to their rescue. A whole parkway as a landmark. Imagine.
And here it is featured in the LATimes today. Of all places. There has never, ever been a freeway like this in California although they would like to think there is/was.
Preserving the Merritt Parkway's bridges to the past.
