The Kew Gardens Interchange is a complex junction in Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens, Queens

Kew Gardens is a triangular-shaped neighborhood in central Queens bounded to the north by the Jackie Robinson Parkway , to the east by Van Wyck Expressway and 131st Street, to the south by Hillside Avenue, and to the west by Park Lane, Abingdon Road and 118th Street...

, in the center of the New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 borough

Borough (New York City)

New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, is composed of five boroughs. Each borough now has the same boundaries as the county it is in. County governments were dissolved when the city consolidated in 1898, along with all city, town, and village governments within each county...

 of Queens

Queens

Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....

.

Description

The Kew Gardens Interchange is located roughly midway between LaGuardia Airport

LaGuardia Airport

LaGuardia Airport is an airport located in the northern part of Queens County on Long Island in the City of New York. The airport is located on the waterfront of Flushing Bay and Bowery Bay, and borders the neighborhoods of Astoria, Jackson Heights and East Elmhurst. The airport was originally...

 and John F. Kennedy International Airport

John F. Kennedy International Airport

John F. Kennedy International Airport is an international airport located in the borough of Queens in New York City, about southeast of Lower Manhattan. It is the busiest international air passenger gateway to the United States, handling more international traffic than any other airport in North...

. Highways feeding into the Kew Gardens Interchange include the Grand Central Parkway

Grand Central Parkway

The Grand Central Parkway is a parkway that stretches from the RFK-Triborough Bridge in New York City to Nassau County on Long Island. At the Queens-Nassau border, it becomes the Northern State Parkway, which runs across the northern part of Long Island through Nassau County and into Suffolk...

, Interstate 678 (the Van Wyck Expressway), the Jackie Robinson Parkway

Jackie Robinson Parkway

The Jackie Robinson Parkway is a parkway in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. The western terminus of the parkway is at Jamaica Avenue in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East New York. It runs through Highland Park, along the north side of Ridgewood Reservoir, and through Forest Park...

, Queens Boulevard

Queens Boulevard

Queens Boulevard is a major thoroughfare in the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Queens connecting communities from Midtown Manhattan to Jamaica...

 (New York State Route 25), and Union Turnpike

Union Turnpike (New York)

Union Turnpike is a thoroughfare stretching across central and eastern Queens in New York City. It runs from Myrtle Avenue in Glendale to Marcus Avenue in North New Hyde Park, about a mile into Nassau County, New York. Initially designed as a toll road, it takes a straight-arrow path from Kew...

.

The Kew Gardens Interchange is an incomplete junction: some highways are not connected; some are indirectly connected by Main Street and Union Turnpike.

History

Construction from the 1930s includes a distorted trumpet between Grand Central Parkway and Interboro Parkway, with Union Turnpike appearing somewhat as a service road. Connections to the Van Wyck Expressway were added later.

On August 18, 2010, the New York State Department of Transportation

New York State Department of Transportation

The New York State Department of Transportation is responsible for the development and operation of highways, railroads, mass transit systems, ports, waterways and aviation facilities in the U.S...

broke ground on the first phase of reconstruction of the Kew Gardens interchange.

External links

• Empire State Roads Interchange of the Week, Monday, May 7, 2001 (with images)