Proposed Lower Manhattan crosstown expressway

Selections from "Proposed Lower Manhattan crosstown expressway", issued by the Office of the Construction Co-ordinator, New York, 1946. The Lower Manhattan Expressway, an extension of I-78 from the Holland Tunnel to the Williamsburg Bridge that would have torn through the neighborhoods of SoHo, Little Italy, and the Lower East Side and displaced countless families and businesses, was originally proposed in 1941 and approved by the City Planning Commission in 1960. It was never built, thanks to opposition by neighborhood activists led by Jane Jacobs. Letter of transmittal signed: Robert Moses, City Construction Co-ordinator [and] Hugo E. Rogers, President Borough of Manhattan. Letter dated Oct. 14, 1946 (p. [1]).