One can build a concrete highway anywhere. . . . But the Merritt parkway is different. More than any 'futurama' at the World's Fair, . . . it shows what the highway of the future really should look like--a highway where the eye is filled with beauty and the mind with peace.-- Bridgeport Post , 1938 The Merritt Parkway, which connects Connecticut's Fairfield County with New York State, was built in the 1930s, one of the earliest attempts to cope with America's new obsession with the automobile. This book traces the history ...
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One can build a concrete highway anywhere. . . . But the Merritt parkway is different. More than any 'futurama' at the World's Fair, . . . it shows what the highway of the future really should look like--a highway where the eye is filled with beauty and the mind with peace.-- Bridgeport Post , 1938 The Merritt Parkway, which connects Connecticut's Fairfield County with New York State, was built in the 1930s, one of the earliest attempts to cope with America's new obsession with the automobile. This book traces the history of the Merritt Parkway from the proposals for its construction and design in the early 1920s to its triumphant completion in 1940. Filled with vintage and recent photographs, historic documents, and maps, it is not only a picturesque tour of a renowned Connecticut landmark, but is also an appraisal of a major contribution to the built environment--one recently placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In word and image Bruce Radde explores what is special about this parkway--from the sensitive routing that hugs the rolling rural landscape to its sixty-eight masterful bridges, designed by a single architect mainly in the Art Deco style, making this the largest Art Deco design in the world. Radde also provides fascinating details about the scandal-filled process by which land was acquired, the people--politicians, planners, engineers, and landscape architects--involved in the construction of the road, the introduction of tolls and gas stations, the decision to ban commercial vehicles, and the reasons why the adjoining Wilbur Cross Parkway is not as inspiring as the older Merritt road. Radde discusses the various preservation efforts that have taken place since World War II. Comparing the Merritt to other acclaimed roads around the country, such as the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the Blue Ridge Parkway, he argues that the Merritt Parkway is a paradigm of what a superhighway can be, a national treasure to be enjoyed, cherished, and protected.
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Seller's Description:
Good-Bumped and creased book with tears to the extremities, but not affecting the text block, may have remainder mark or previous owner's name-GOOD PAPERBACK Standard-sized.
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Seller's Description:
Very good. Dust jacket in good condition. Minor shelf and handling wear, overall a clean solid copy with minimal signs of use. Secure packaging for safe delivery.
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Seller's Description:
Very Good. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Illustrated history and tour of Connecticut's Merrit Parkway, constructed in the 1930s to connect Fairfield County with New York, and included on the National Register of Historic Places in the 1990s. Well Illustrated throughout in both color and in black and white. Softcover in very good condition, very light corner rubbing, firm binding, clean pages, name and 1997 date at upper corner of front free endpaper, no other markings. Hard Cover. Very Good. 4to-over 9¾"-12" tall.
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Seller's Description:
Fine in fine jacket. Black & white and color illustrations throughout. 135 pages. Square 4to, yellow cloth, pictorial d.w. New Haven: Yale University Press, (1993). A fine copy in a fine dust wrapper.
Having ridden on the highway as a boy, I didn't really have much of an opinion of it, except that something seemed different from other highways on which my family drove. This book gave me a better appreciation of the Merritt Parkway's uniqueness and steps taken to keep it from being the same sterile plain concrete bands of superhighways we have today. The photos reinforce and enlarge upon the issues of design described in the book. A very pleasant read that took me back to my childhood.
