Westwood Park

SI Expressway, Woodward Ave., Wooley Ave. and Westwood Ave.

Staten Island

Directions via Google Maps

This text is part of Parks’ Historical Signs Project and can be found posted within the park.

Westwood Park would not exist today were it not for the building of the Staten Island Expressway. In 1945, New York City Parks Commissioner and Arterial Coordinator Robert Moses (1888-1981) added the proposal for a Clove Lakes Expressway to the City’s arterial development program. Local officials had identified such a road as a priority in the 1930s. The execution of their master plan, published in 1941, was put on hold during World War II. In April 1957, State and City officials approved the proposed route and designated it Interstate 278. During the five-year construction of the expressway, 400 buildings were razed and approximately 3,500 neighborhood residents displaced.

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