| The county’s "surrender" to citizens’ protests turned out to be merely a cease-fire. Less than four months after the so-called surrender, preservationists learned that the new road alignment would destroy most of the formal gardens the BPC had inherited at Hartsdale, which had come to be known as Fountain Terrace Park. A petition endorsed with 347 signatures protested the destruction of the park along with its 100'-wide concrete fountain, mature trees and plantings, and playground. County officials claimed that straightening the drive in the area was necessary because three motorists had been killed on its curves in recent months. Critics countered that the road could be realigned near the Bronx River to avoid the park. Harding insisted that aligning the road along the river was not practical, since it would replace the old curves with a new reverse curve, which was also considered dangerous.(300) The protesters lost this part of the battle. In July 1967 Westchester County awarded nearly $3 million to the Yonkers Contracting Company to reconstruct the parkway near Butler Woods. Work began immediately and was expected to be completed in a year. The contract called for straightening 1.65 miles of serpentine road, which would involve felling a number of trees and rebuilding the drive through the center of Fountain Terrace Park. When finished in early 1969, the new roadway would be "moderately" straight, have wider lanes with shoulders, a center island, and a median divider. The humps in the road that provided motorists with a sensation of riding a roller coaster were to be removed. As a concession to the county’s critics, the county engineer pointed out that grass shoulders were being added rather than the concrete ones found on regular high-speed roads. A progress report several months later noted that hundreds of trees had been destroyed, scenic vistas were bulldozed, and stone bridges razed. The rustic rigid-frame bridges at Fenimore Road and Greenacres Road were replaced with modern girder bridges faced with stone. Numerous citizens expressed their discontent. "I couldn’t believe it, I was so shocked," exclaimed Joan Lamon of New York City, "It used to be my favorite road out of the city, it was so beautiful!" Mr. and Mrs. Alan Mark of Scarsdale claimed that their "hearts sank" as they drove along the parkway. They scolded Westchester County and asked that county officials be censured for converting the quaint parkway into a four-lane speedway. A newspaper editorial wondered whether the parkway’s scenic beauty and historic values had to be compromised in the interests of speed and safety. The answer in Westchester County seemed to be "yes." The paper editorialized that Butler Woods was "ruthlessly sacrificed" to straighten the picturesque parkway drive. Observing that a high-ranking Department of Transportation official had recently asserted that environmental values should be given priority over purely utilitarian considerations, the writer expressed hope that such sentiments would take root in Westchester County and prevent future catastrophes such as the decimation of the historic parkway landscape at Scarsdale.(301) |
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| (300)"Bronx
River Road Will be Realigned," New York Times, July 22,
1967; "Scarsdale Fights Plan to Modernize Bronx River Road,"
New York Times, April 30, 1967. |
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