The Long Island Motor Parkway
Following a spectator death during the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup Race, William K. Vanderbilt, Jr. and the race sponsors determined that the huge crowds and risks to the spectators precluded the race on public roads. Two days after the race, the concept for a privately owned speedway on Long Island was developed by Vanderbilt and his associates- the first highway built exclusively for the automobile. Vanderbilt’s dream was to build a safe, smooth, police-free road without speed limits and a place where he could conduct his beloved automobile race, the Vanderbilt Cup Race, without spectators running onto the course. After 20 months of obtaining the road’s right of way, construction of the first section of the Long Island Motor Parkway was begun in June 1908. Nine miles of the Motor Parkway would make up part of the course for the 1908 Vanderbilt Cup Race and five miles for the 1909 and 1910 Vanderbilt Cup Races. By 1928, the Long Island Motor Parkway would eventually connect Fresh Meadows, Queens, to Lake Ronkonkoma in Suffolk County, a total of 44 miles. Reflecting its poor profitability and the availability of new free public parkways, the Long Island Motor Parkway closed for good on Easter Sunday, 1938.
Building the Long Island Motor Parkway-->
Motor Pkwy
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One of the real research treasures of the Long Island Motor Parkway and Vanderbilt Cup Races can be found at The Richard H. Handley Collection of Long Island Americana located in the Long Island Room at the Smithtown Library.The collection includes the historical documents of A.R. Pardington, the general manager of the Motor Parkway, and a Smithtown resident. Here are two orignal nuggets from the Pardington Papers:
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