page_title: West Side Highway
section_title: Robert Moses proposals
hierarchical_section_title: West Side Highway / West Side Elevated Highway / Robert Moses proposals
caption_attribution_description: English: West Side Highway, New York - collapsed section of Highway at 14th St.
context_page_description: The West Side Highway is a 5.42-mile-long mostly surface section of New York State Route 9A that runs from West 72nd Street along the Hudson River to the southern tip of Manhattan in New York City. It replaced the West Side Elevated Highway, built between 1929 and 1951, which was shut down in 1973 due to neglect and lack of maintenance, and was dismantled by 1989. The term "West Side Highway" is often mistakenly used to include the roadway north of 72nd Street, which is properly known as the Henry Hudson Parkway.
  The current highway was complete by 2001, but required reconstruction after the September 11 attacks that year, when the collapse of the World Trade Center caused debris to fall onto the surrounding areas, damaging the highway. It uses the surface streets that existed before the elevated highway was built: West Street, Eleventh Avenue and Twelfth Avenue. A short section of 12th Avenue still runs between 125th and 138th Streets, under the Riverside Drive Viaduct. Eleventh Avenue is a separate street north of 22nd Street. The portion between West 42nd Street and Canal Street is part of the Lincoln Highway.
context_section_description: The elevated road began before Robert Moses came on the scene.
  However, Moses built massive projects extending from the north and south ends of the West Side Highway.
  Henry Hudson Parkway – The West Side Highway becomes the Henry Hudson Parkway just north of 72nd Street thanks to efforts by Moses called the "West Side Improvement."  The parkway does not permit trucks.  The parkway is partially an elevated highway over the rail tracks (now used by Amtrak).
  Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel – The highway hooks into the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel at its southern end.  Moses had proposed to create the "Brooklyn–Battery Crossing Bridge" but federal intervention obliged Moses to use a tunnel instead.
  Battery Park Underpass connects to FDR Drive.
  In the 1960s, Moses proposed straightening the West Side Highway, widening both the highway and the Henry Hudson Parkway, and constructing both the Lower Manhattan Expressway and the Mid-Manhattan Expressways, connecting routes that would have stretched across Manhattan. None of these projects were ever built. Later, in his 80s, he opposed the Westway project, but by that time his power was gone and his ideas generally weren't taken seriously.  Rather than constructing a below-grade interstate highway, Moses proposed merely straightening and rebuilding the West Side Highway south of 59th Street.  Between 59th and 72nd Streets, the site of the former Penn Central 60th Street rail yard, he proposed bringing the highway to grade and moving it eastward to allow for a waterfront park and some housing at the southeast corner of the rail yard.  This was the nucleus of the idea that led to the plan for Riverside South.
caption: The old elevated highway, collapsed at 14th Street
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