Cross Island / Southern State Interchange
Photo Gallery: Belt Pkwy
|
Among the premier products of my protege
photographer and wife to be, these shots were taken from the passenger seat
as I drove. Digital is so amazing, I doubt I'll ever shoot for my site in
film again, and I'm only using a low end 2 megapixel Olympus from the stone
ages of early 2001, and even with that I only shoot at about 1 megapixel.
Who needs Kodak and Fuji? Who needs the Southern State or Cross Island?
Watch the little greenish grey compact, because I don't think its driver
knows. The neighborhood to the left is Cambria Heights in Queens, while to the right of the trees is Elmont, in Nassau County. The Cross Island directional hawks the Whitestone Bridge, but that is a stinging slap to the Throggs Neck Bridge, which the northbound Cross Island will intersect with first. The Belt Parkway's exit number system continues with the Cross Island, which is considered part of the Belt Parkway system, but NOT, in name anyway, as the Belt Parkway itself. The part of the Belt ending here once had similar status to that of the Cross Island, as a quasi independently named parkway, the Laurelton, so named for the neighborhood just south of this point. By the 1980's, all pretensions to official subnames such as Shore or Laurelton Parkways, were abandoned, except in the memory and habit of folks like me, who will always refer to the Sunrise-to-Southern State section of the Belt as the Laurelton. |
| This little guy appears a bit confused as to which way to go. The rule of thumb in such cases - go right, young man. At least if you have to get out and turn around on the Cross Island, you can easily trace back your steps. You don't want to get lost off the Southern State, especially when doing so might leave you smack in the middle of a dangerous area, like Roosevelt. Taken in mid May 2003. |