Last Three Miles

by Hart, Steven

• ISBN13: 9781595580986
• ISBN10: 1595580980
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-06-01
• Publisher: New Pr

Summary

In the tradition of Robert Caro'sThe Power Broker, a sweeping, investigative history of the building of the road connecting Manhattan to the rest of the country. At the dawn of America's love affair with the automobile, cars and trucks leaving the nation's largest city were unceremoniously dumped out of the western end of the Holland Tunnel onto local roads wending their way through the New Jersey Meadowlands. Jersey City mayor Frank Hague--dictator of the Hudson County political machine and a national political player--was a prime mover behind the building of the country's first "superhighway," designed to connect the hub of New York City to the United States of America. Hague's nemesis in this undertaking was union boss Teddy Brandle, and construction of the last three miles of Route 25, later dubbed the Pulaski Skyway, marked an epic battle between big labor and big politics, culminating in a murder and the creation of a motorway so flawed it soon became known as "Death Avenue" --now appropriately featured in the opening sequence of the hit HBO seriesThe Sopranos. A book in the tradition of Robert Caro'sThe Power Brokerand Henry Petroski'sEngineers of Dreams, The Last Three Milesbrings to vivid life the riveting and bloodstained back story of a fascinating chapter in the heroic age of public works.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
The Three Barriers	p. 9
The Horseshoe Against the World	p. 31
The Slanted Road	p. 49
Rice Pudding	p. 75
Burned Bridges	p. 97
The War of the Meadows	p. 107
High, Wide, and Handsome	p. 123
The Nightstick Must Prevail	p. 137
Death Avenue	p. 155
Steel and Ghosts	p. 169
Acknowledgments	p. 193
Notes	p. 195
Bibliography	p. 203
Index	p. 207
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.