New York State Route 9A

New York State Route9A (NY9A) is a state highway in the vicinity of New York City in the United States. Its southern terminus is at Battery Place near the northern end of the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel in New York City, where it intersects with both the unsigned Interstate 478 (I-478) and FDR Drive. The northern terminus of NY9A is at U.S. Route9 (US9) in Peekskill. It is predominantly an alternate route of US9 between New York City and Peekskill; however, in New York City, it is a major route of its own as it runs along the West Side Highway and Henry Hudson Parkway. It is also one of only two signed New York State routes in Manhattan (the other is NY25). In northern Westchester County, NY9A follows the Briarcliff–Peekskill Parkway.

The origins of NY9A date back to the 1920s when an alternate route of then-NY6 from Yonkers to Tarrytown was designated as NY6A. NY6 was redesignated as US9 in 1927; however, NY6A was not renumbered to NY9A until the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York. NY9A was extended south into New York City in 1934 and north to Ossining in the late 1930s. In 1933, the Briarcliff–Peekskill Parkway opened as NY404. All of NY404 was incorporated into an extended NY9A on January 1, 1949. NY9A was extended northward to Peekskill in 1967 following the completion of the Croton Expressway and southward to the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel in the mid-1990s.

Route description

NY9A begins in Lower Manhattan at Battery Place near the north end of the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel (unsigned I-478) and heads north on the West Side Highway and Henry Hudson Parkway, crossing US9 for the first time at the east end of the George Washington Bridge. After crossing into the Bronx via the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority-owned Henry Hudson Bridge, NY9A proceeds to leave the parkway at exit23, joining US9 on Broadway. The portions of NY9A between Lower Manhattan and 72nd Street, and from 125th Street to the New York City line (with the exception of the Henry Hudson Bridge) are owned by the New York State Department of Transportation, the portion between 72nd and 125th Streets is owned by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation and the entire highway within city limits is maintained on a daily basis by the New York City Department of Transportation. The concurrency between US9 and NY9A runs for 2.87 miles (4.62km) within the city of Yonkers. All of NY9A within Yonkers is maintained by the city.

NY9A separates from US9 along Ashburton Avenue and heads north as Saw Mill River Road. It parallels the Saw Mill River Parkway through Ardsley and Elmsford, to the west side of Hawthorne. The route meets the southbound New York State Thruway (I-87) at a partial interchange and later meets I-287 (the Cross Westchester Expressway) at a full interchange that provides a route to the northbound Thruway (I-87). NY100 merges with NY9A to form a 3.11-mile (5.01km) concurrency carrying the names Saw Mill River Road and Briarcliff–Peekskill Parkway, parallel to the Taconic State Parkway. NY9A exits off this highway along the Briarcliff–Peekskill Parkway, while NY100 continues straight as Saw Mill River Road. NY9A merges to form a brief concurrency with US9 as the Croton Expressway in Ossining just south of the Croton River.

The second concurrency between US9 and NY9A runs for 1.10 miles, with NY9A leaving the Croton Expressway at NY 129 in Croton-on-Hudson. The highway heads north along Riverside Avenue and eventually joins old Albany Post Road. After crossing US9 once more in Cortlandt, NY9A ends at the Welcher Avenue interchange in southern Peekskill.

History

Prior to the establishment of the U.S. Highway System, US9 was designated as NY6. An alternate route from Yonkers to Tarrytown was assigned the NY6A designation by 1926. This ran along the present alignment of NY9A from Yonkers to north of Elmsford, where it turned west on Old Saw Mill River Road, Neperan Road, County House Road and Bedford Road to end at NY6 in Tarrytown. NY6 was redesignated as US9 when U.S. Highways were first posted in New York in 1927; however, NY6A was not renumbered at this time. It was finally renumbered to NY9A as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York.

In Westchester County, Saw Mill River Road originally followed the Saw Mill River Parkway corridor from Eastview to Hawthorne. This section of Saw Mill River Road gained a number c.1931, becoming part of NY142, a route that began at NY100 on the Greenburgh–Mount Pleasant town line and followed Grasslands Road, NY9A, and Saw Mill River Road north to Hawthorne, where it rejoined NY100. The route went unchanged until it was removed c.1938. Its former routing was split into two routes—an extended NY141 north of NY9A and the new NY100C along Grasslands Road—by 1940.

As the Henry Hudson Parkway replaced Riverside Drive in the mid-1930s, NY9A was moved onto it, eventually using the new parkway to where it crossed US9 (Broadway) in the Bronx. Here, NY9A exited the parkway and ran concurrent with US9 to the split in Yonkers. The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel connecting Manhattan's Battery Park to Brooklyn was completed in 1950.

NY9A was extended northward c.1939 from Tarrytown to Archville, a small hamlet midway between Tarrytown and Ossining, by way of Sleepy Hollow Road, in 1938.

Farther north, a new limited-access parkway was built around Ossining from Saw Mill River Road (NY100) in Briarcliff Manor to US9 north of Ossining. The parkway, known as the Briarcliff–Peekskill Parkway, was completed c.1933 and initially designated as NY404. On January 1, 1949, NY9A was altered to continue north along a slightly realigned Saw Mill River Road from NY100C near Elmsford to the south end of the Briarcliff–Peekskill Parkway in Briarcliff Manor. At this point, NY9A left Saw Mill River Road and followed the parkway to its end at US9, supplanting NY404. The realignment created a 3-mile (5km) overlap between NY9A and NY100 from Hawthorne to Briarcliff Manor and resulted in the truncation of NY141 back to its previous terminus in Hawthorne.

Construction on the Croton Expressway, the only piece of the failed Hudson River Expressway project that was ever built, began in the mid-1960s. It became part of a realigned US9 when it was completed by 1967. The former surface routing of US9 along Albany Post Road between Croton-on-Hudson and Buchanan became a northward extension of NY9A, which reached the old alignment by way of an overlap with US9 from the north end of the Briarcliff–Peekskill Parkway to Croton-on-Hudson.

New York City initially did not mark numbered routes within its limits. In 1932, the New York Automobile Club drafted a plan establishing alignments for several routes through the city. In this plan, NY9A went south through the Bronx and into Manhattan on Broadway while US9 used Riverdale Avenue north of 230th Street. As a result, the two routes would have had a short concurrency across Spuyten Duyvil Creek. NY9A would have split to the south on Tenth Avenue at 218th Street in order to join the Harlem River Drive via Nagle Avenue and Dyckman Street. From there it would head west on 155th Street to Amsterdam Avenue, where it would head south to 79th Street, heading west there to rejoin US9 at Riverside Drive. US9 would have continued south through lower Manhattan to Staten Island via the Staten Island Ferry; however, it is unclear whether NY9A would have continued south with US9 to lower Manhattan. The New York Automobile Club released another plan in 1933. This plan made no changes to NY9A; however, US9 was changed to use Broadway all the way through the Bronx and to travel to New Jersey by way of the Holland Tunnel. In the final plan implemented in mid-December 1934, no route was assigned to the Harlem River Drive–Amsterdam Avenue corridor. Instead, NY9A used what had been planned as US9, splitting at Broadway and Dyckman Street. NY9A ran south along the west side of Manhattan on Riverside Drive and the West Side Elevated Highway (detouring around an unfinished section via 57th Street, Eleventh Avenue and 48th Street) to end at the entrance and exit plazas of the Holland Tunnel. US9 was shifted northward to enter New Jersey via the George Washington Bridge.

By 1960, an extension of the West Side Elevated Highway south to the Manhattan tunnel portal became part of NY27A, which had ended in Brooklyn prior to the construction of the tunnel.

On January1, 1970, NY27A was truncated on its western end to eastern Nassau County while NY27 was extended northward over NY27A's former routing through the Battery Tunnel and the West Side Elevated Highway.

The extension of I-478 into Manhattan was eliminated following the collapse of part of the Elevated Highway in 1973, an event which led to the demolition of the highway south of 59th Street. Demolition was completed in 1989. NY9A was shifted onto 12th Avenue, one of the surface streets that the Elevated Highway had run atop of, but was otherwise unaffected as the route's south end was initially kept at the Lincoln Tunnel. However, by 1973, NY27 had been cut back to its interchange with the Gowanus Expressway in Brooklyn while unsigned I-478 was assigned to both the Battery Tunnel and all of the West Side Elevated Highway south of the Lincoln Tunnel. NY9A was cut back to the Lincoln Tunnel as a result.

Construction began in early 1996 on a project to convert the section of NY9A south of 59th Street into the West Side Highway, a six-lane urban boulevard with a parkway-style median and decorative lightposts. The first of the project's seven segments—between Clarkson and Horatio streets in the Greenwich Village neighborhood—was completed in 1998. As part of this, NY9A was extended south to the Battery Tunnel by way of 12th Avenue and two other streets the Elevated Highway had previously run atop of, West Street and 11th Avenue. Completion of the project was originally set for October 2001; however, it was delayed for years due to damage caused by the September 11 attacks. It was finished by 2014.

Major intersections

See also

• U.S. roadsportal
• New York (state)portal
• New York Cityportal
• Hudson Valleyportal
• New Jersey Route 139, which continued NY9A back to US 9 in Jersey City when it was US 9 Business.

External links

• New York State Route 9A at •
• – includes formerly proposed extension off NY9A