Overview
The road that split the Bronx
How one highway became a lesson in power, planning and who gets heard.
A highway through a borough
The Cross Bronx Expressway runs about six miles across the borough, linking the George Washington Bridge to highways heading east toward Long Island and New England. Construction began in 1948, and the last section opened in 1972. For drivers it's a shortcut. For the neighborhoods it cuts through, it is a trench of traffic, noise and exhaust that has shaped daily life for more than seventy years.
The man behind it
The road was Robert Moses's work. He never ran for office, but he controlled New York's public works for decades through a web of appointed positions. Moses built bridges, parks and beaches that millions still use today, but he also pushed highways through dense working-class neighborhoods without much thought for the people who lived there. Growing up in the Bronx, I knew the Cross Bronx as a traffic jam. I did not know it as a political decision.