New York State Route 120

New York Route120 (NY120) is a state highway in southern Westchester County, New York, in the United States. It begins in the city of Rye at an intersection with U.S. Route1 (US1) and runs for about 18 miles (29km) north to the hamlet of Millwood, where it ends at a junction with NY100. The route intersects with Interstate 684 (I-684) and the Saw Mill River Parkway, and serves the Westchester County Airport in North Castle. Portions of the route have been signed ceremonially in remembrance of American serviceman killed in the 2000s and 2010s during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

NY120 was assigned as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York, but only to the portion of its routing north of Westchester Avenue. It was extended south to Rye c.1938, then rerouted to follow Westchester Avenue east to Port Chester by the following year. Most of NY120's former routing to Rye became part of New York State Route119A at that time. NY120 was rerouted to serve Rye again in October1960, replacing NY119A.

Route description

Rye to Harrison

NY120 begins at an intersection with US1 (Boston Post Road) in the city of Rye. The route proceeds northward along Purchase Street as a two-lane street through the Locust Avenue Business District, intersecting a handful of local streets and serving Rye's station on the Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line. Past the station, the highway passes under the New Haven Line, Amtrak's Northeast Corridor line, and I-95 in quick succession ahead of the Purchase Street Business District. The commercial surroundings give way to residential neighborhoods after three blocks as NY120 winds northward through the northern part of Rye to the adjacent village/town of Harrison.

In Harrison, NY120 passes several mansions on both sides of the highway as it gradually turns northwestward and approaches I-287 (the Cross Westchester Expressway). The route parallels the western edge of the freeway for several blocks to Westchester Avenue, where NY120 meets the southern end of NY120A, an alternate route through the easternmost part of Westchester County. While NY120A heads east toward Port Chester, NY120 takes on the Westchester Avenue name as the two directions of the route split to follow collector/distributor roads running northwestward along both sides of I-287. The route remains on the frontage roads for about a half-mile (0.8km) to another section of Purchase Street, where NY120 turns to follow a slightly more northward track through another residential section of Harrison.

Less than 1 mile (1.6km) from I-287, NY120 connects to the Hutchinson River Parkway by way of exit27, a diamond interchange just northeast of the parkway's interchanges with I-287 and a reference route spur leading to I-684. Continuing northward from the parkway, the highway enters the hamlet of Purchase, where NY120 runs along the eastern edge of Manhattanville College's campus and passes a short distance west of the State University of New York at Purchase. Part of Purchase Street near the entrance to SUNY Purchase at Anderson Hill Road is named the Specialist Anthony N. Kalladeen Memorial Highway in memory of United States Army Specialist Anthony Kalladeen, a SUNY Purchase student who was killed in Iraq in 2004. A dormitory at the school is also named for him.

Another stretch of homes north of Purchase leads to Westchester County Airport, situated between NY120 and the New York–Connecticut state line about 1 mile (1.6km) to the east. Here, NY 120 begins to run alongside I-684 as a four-lane undivided road and both roads pass by Rye Lake, an offshoot of the Kensico Reservoir. NY120 meets the airport's main entrance in the town of North Castle, where the road connects to I-684 via Airport Road (unsigned County Route135 or CR135), where NY 120 reduces to two lanes.

North Castle to Millwood

Continuing northward, I-684 and NY120 head due north toward the state line, where NY120A rejoins its parent route at a junction with King Street just north of the airport. From here, I-684 continues north into Connecticut while NY120 takes on the King Street name and turns northwest to straddle the state line for roughly 1 mile (1.6km). The route passes over I-684 and the northern tip of Rye Lake and serves an industrial complex in the Connecticut town of Greenwich before the state line turns 90 degrees to the northeast. NY120 remains on a northwesterly alignment, however, and it crosses the Delaware Aqueduct prior to meeting NY22 (Mount Kisco Road) on the edge of another Kensico Reservoir inlet. The two routes briefly overlap to cross the inlet on a causeway before splitting on the water body's north shore. From here, NY120 heads through substantially less developed, mostly wooded areas as it traverses the northeastern edge of the reservoir.

North of the reservoir, NY120 crosses the northernmost part of the Bronx River and traverses the northeastern corner of the town of Mount Pleasant, where the woods give way to a handful of residential neighborhoods. The transition in surroundings continues into the adjacent town of New Castle, home to housing tracts that become less isolated as the road veers westward toward the hamlet of Chappaqua. NY120 proceeds west through residential and commercial areas to Chappaqua's central business district, where it meets the community's main north–south route, NY117 (Bedford Road). NY120 heads north through the center of Chappaqua, overlapping with NY117 to reach another section of King Street one block to the north. Past NY117, NY120 continues generally westward through Chappaqua, changing names to Quaker Road a short distance east of Chappaqua's station on the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem Line.

After crossing the Harlem Line, the route dips under the Saw Mill River Parkway and intersects two parallel local streets leading to the parkway's exit32. NY120 turns northward here, crossing over the Saw Mill River and leaving Chappaqua for less densely populated areas of the town of New Castle. At 0.6 miles (0.97km) north of Chappaqua early 19th-century farmhouses that clustered around the Quaker meeting house that was then the center of Chappaqua, line the road. Today these are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Old Chappaqua Historic District.

Roughly 1.5 miles (2.4km) past the historic district, NY120 makes a gradual turn to the west to reach a junction with NY133 (Millwood Road). NY120 turns onto NY133, following Millwood Road westward into the hamlet of Millwood and its commercial center. Here, the two routes cross the right-of-way of the former Putnam Division of the New York Central Railroad and pass by the site of Millwood's station, which was demolished in May 2012 after years of neglect. Just after the railroad right-of-way, NY133 turns southwestward onto Station Place while NY120 proceeds northwest as Millwood Road for one more sparsely developed block before terminating at a junction with NY100 (Saw Mill River Road) at the northern edge of the hamlet.

History

The segment of modern NY120 between Westchester Avenue and the north end of the overlap with NY22 was originally designated as part of Route1, an unsigned legislative route, by the New York State Legislature in 1908. Route1 approached Purchase Street from the west on Westchester Avenue and continued north from Armonk on what is now NY22. NY120, meanwhile, was assigned as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York to the portion of its modern alignment north of the junction of Purchase Street and Westchester Avenue (then NY119) in Harrison. It was extended south to US1 in Rye c.1938 by way of Purchase Street and Highland Road.

NY120 was altered again by the following year to follow NY119 east along Westchester Avenue to US1 in Port Chester. Most of NY120's former routing south of Westchester Avenue became part of NY119A, a new route assigned to all of Purchase Street between NY119 and NY120 in Harrison and US1 in Rye. NY120 was realigned once more in October1960 to follow Purchase Street south to Rye, supplanting NY119A. At the same time, NY119 was truncated on its east end to Purchase Street while the portion of Westchester Avenue that had carried NY119 and NY120 between Purchase Street and Port Chester became an extension of NY120A.

The two-lane bridge carrying NY120 over the Metro-North Railroad in Chappaqua was rebuilt as a four-lane bridge in 2012 for $19million. Once completed, the bridge was named the SSG Kyu Hyuk Chay Memorial Bridge in memory of Army Staff Sergeant Kyu Chay, whose family owns a dry cleaning business adjacent to the bridge. A plaque was also erected in his honor at the war memorial by the Chappaqua train station. Chay, a Special Forces linguist and Korean immigrant, was three credits shy of his law degree at Brooklyn Law School when he was killed in Afghanistan.

Suffixed routes

NY120 once had two suffixed routes; only one still exists.

• NY120A (8.55 miles or 13.76 kilometres) is an alternate route of NY120 between Harrison and North Castle. The northern half of the route straddles the New York–Connecticut state line, and two portions of the route are physically located in Connecticut. It was assigned c.1931.
• NY120B was an alternate route of NY120 between Rye and North Castle. It was assigned by 1932 and partially replaced by NY120A c.1939.

Major intersections

The entire route is in Westchester County.

See also

• U.S. roadsportal

External links

• New York State Route 120 at