New York State Route 9D - History

History

Modern NY 9D was acquired by the state of New York in stages over the course of the early 20th century. The first section to become a state highway was the piece between the Fishkill–Wappinger town line and the village of Wappingers Falls, which was added to the state highway system on June 28, 1905. State maintenance was extended south to the Beacon city line on December 30, 1907. In 1908, the New York State Legislature created Route 2, an unsigned legislative route following the Albany Post Road from New York City to Valatie. The post road originally passed through Wappingers Falls, entering from the southeast on East Main Street and leaving to the north on West Main Street. The road's northern approach to the village was taken over by the state of New York on July 6, 1911.

South Avenue in Wappingers Falls became state-maintained on February 15, 1917, extending state ownership north from the village line to South Avenue's junction with East Main Street. The part of Main Street between South Avenue and the northern village limits was added as a state road on January 5, 1918. When the first set of posted routes in New York were assigned in 1924, Main Street became part of NY 6, which followed all of legislative Route 2 north of Ossining. NY 6 was replaced by US 9 in 1927 following the creation of the U.S. Highway System.

The part of what is now NY 9D south of Beacon remained an unimproved local road through the mid-1920s. The reconstruction of this segment was authorized in 1925, and the highway was designated as legislative Route 2-a on April 2 of that year. Construction on parts of the road was stalled for years, however, with the delay on the stretch north of Cold Spring being attributed to problems in acquiring the highway's right-of-way. Work on the portion south of Garrison was completed by February 1930. In the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York, the Beacon–Wappingers Falls state highway was designated as NY 9D while the road between the Bear Mountain Bridge and Garrison became part of NY 9C, which continued north to Cold Spring and south through Peekskill to Croton-on-Hudson.

NY 9D was extended south to the Bear Mountain Bridge by the following year, replacing NY 9C from Cold Spring to the bridge. The reconstruction of the Garrison–Cold Spring stretch was finished by February 1931, and the Cold Spring–Beacon link was opened in October 1932. Various festivities were held in Beacon on October 20 to mark the occasion. In the early to mid-1930s, US 9 was realigned near Wappingers Falls to follow a new highway bypassing the village to the east, even though the project was staunchly opposed by the village's chamber of commerce. The northern half of US 9's former routing through the village became an extension of NY 9D.