Korean War Veterans Parkway - History

History

The parkway that exists today represents less than half of the highway that was originally planned. From Richmond Avenue, the parkway would have continued northeast to Staten Island's Sunnyside neighborhood, where it would connect to the Staten Island Expressway. The 4.5-mile (7.2 km) section west of Richmond Avenue was constructed along Drumgoole Road from 1966 to 1972 and opened to traffic in late 1972. As a result, the parkway's one-way service roads were named Drumgoole Road East and Drumgoole Road West. Drumgoole Road itself was named for Father John Drumgoole, the Irish-born founder of the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin, a Roman Catholic orphanage and monastery better known today as Mount Loretto.

In the late 1960s, intense community opposition erupted over the portion east of Richmond Avenue—much of it from environmentalists—because the parkway's planned route would have bisected the Staten Island Greenbelt and would have required the condemnation and razing of miles of private property. Al Deppe's Restaurant, a highly popular establishment resembling Chuck E. Cheese's which had stood at the corner of Richmond Avenue and Arthur Kill Road since 1921, was forced out of business while the arguments raged. The 4.8-mile (7.7 km) section of the parkway between Richmond Avenue and the proposed Staten Island Expressway interchange ended up never being built, and the route was subsequently demapped. From time to time, proposals have been made to revive the aborted section of the parkway in response to steadily increasing traffic congestion on Staten Island. However, none of these proposals have received significant support from the island's elected officials or residents. As of early November 2012, the abandoned interchange of the parkway was demolished, including the unused roads.

Wolfe's Pond Parkway, a spur route connecting Richmond Parkway to Wolfe's Pond Park on Staten Island's South Shore, was proposed by Robert Moses in 1941. The highway never advanced past the planning stage, and it was ultimately cancelled in the 1970s.

In 1997, the Richmond Parkway was officially renamed the Korean War Veterans Memorial Parkway; however, when signs announcing the change were erected, the word "Memorial" was inadvertently omitted. The vast majority of Staten Islanders continue to refer to the parkway by its original name.