Joseph M. Bryan Boulevard (often signed as just Bryan Blvd) is a limited-access corridor connecting North Carolina Highway 68 with Benjamin Parkway in Greensboro, North Carolina. Segments of this road may be used as the Future Interstate 73 corridor. The 4-lane highway serves as the main entrance for Piedmont Triad International Airport and was once named "Airport Parkway". A construction project in 2006 relocated a segment of Bryan Boulevard to make room for the airport's new FedEx hub and third runway; flyover ramps for the airport's entrances and exits have been the most recent additions to Bryan Blvd.
Bryan Boulevard is designated Secondary Road 2085.
Bryan Boulevard was named after Greensboro resident Joseph McKinley Bryan, an insurance executive and broadcasting pioneer. Bryan sat on executive boards of many different insurance companies like the Greensboro-based Jefferson-Pilot Corporation (now Lincoln National Corporation). In 1934, he became president of WBIG, which was Greensboro's only radio station at the time. Later on, Bryan's company founded WBTV, the first television station in the Carolinas.
This is one of five freeway corridors in Greensboro to use the "Boulevard" designation; the Greensboro Urban Loop is sometimes known as Painter Boulevard, O'Henry Boulevard carries a stretch of US 29 east of downtown, I-40 (formerly Business I-40) is routed along Fordham Boulevard, and Business I-85 is also signed as Preddy Boulevard. Bryan Boulevard is the only one to be called by name rather than by number by locals.
Famous quotes containing the words bryan and/or boulevard:
“Do you know I believe that [William Jennings] Bryan will force his nomination on the Democrats again. I believe he will either do this by advocating Prohibition, or else he will run on a Prohibition platform independent of the Democrats. But you will see that the year before the election he will organize a mammoth lecture tour and will make Prohibition the leading note of every address.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting
In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag
Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting
here, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair,
The pink paint on the innocence of fear;
Walk in a gingerly manner up the hall.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)