New York State Route 120 - History

History

The segment of modern NY 120 between Westchester Avenue and the north end of the overlap with NY 22 was originally designated as part of Route 1, an unsigned legislative route, by the New York State Legislature in 1908. Route 1 approached Purchase Street from the west on Westchester Avenue and continued north from Armonk on what is now NY 22. NY 120, 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 NY 119) in Harrison. It was extended south to US 1 in Rye c. 1938 by way of Purchase Street and Highland Road.

NY 120 was altered again by the following year to follow NY 119 east along Westchester Avenue to US 1 in Port Chester. Most of NY 120's former routing south of Westchester Avenue became part of NY 119A, a new route assigned to all of Purchase Street between NY 119 and NY 120 in Harrison and US 1 in Rye. NY 120 was realigned once more c. 1961 to follow Purchase Street south to Rye, supplanting NY 119A. At the same time, NY 119 was truncated on its east end to Purchase Street while the portion of Westchester Avenue that had carried NY 119 and NY 120 between Purchase Street and Port Chester became an extension of NY 120A.

The two-lane bridge carrying NY 120 over the Metro-North Railroad in Chappaqua was rebuilt as a four-lane bridge in 2012 for $19 million. 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.