By Rich Lovejoy
I have always considered myself lucky to have grown up in Hastings. A simple walk home from school could often lead to a mini adventure of exploring windy roads, climbing old crumbling staircases, and testing out ‘secret’ word-of-mouth shortcuts to see where I’d end up. For me these excursions were in the late 70s and early 80s, but our landscape hasn’t changed too much since then. These overgrown, sometimes hard to navigate passageways pointed to a mysterious past, but all we could do was speculate as to why they were there and what their original purpose was.
Thankfully with a little research, we have most of the answers. Corinne McSpedon’s post on stairways and shortcuts explores these in detail, linked here.
In addition to these footpaths we also have a number of roads that have long been abandoned and have not seen car traffic for at least 60 years. All that is left are remnants of roadbeds, stone walls and other barely recognizable features. Today we’ll look at three of these roads. Please leave any others you’d like to see talked about in the comments.
The “Speedway” / Curry Farm Road
Within the patch of woods just south of Farragut Parkway lies a faint imprint of a roadbed with placed rocks and small boulders lining the sides. The old road curves slightly and leads toward present day Curry Road and the former location of Curry farm. As detailed in this post by Natalie Barry, the farm was in operation from the 1860s until the early to mid 20th century when portions were sold off for the development of James Street, Tompkins Ave, Curry Road and Ronny Circle.
On the map shown above, the road appears as the main driveway to the Curry farm and ends in a small turnaround in front of the house, common for estates and farmhouses of the era.
Next to this long lost road you might also find some long lost garbage. Apparently the area next to the road served as one of Hastings’ many dumps for a time. On one expedition I came across these glass bottles below which date back to the 1950’s or before. Any further knowledge on the background of these items would be appreciated.
Maps from 1914-1930 label this road as the “Speedway”, which is then superseded by Farragut Parkway in the 1930s. The road probably became used less frequently as Curry Farm was sold off in the decades that followed.
Lefurgy Park’s Nepperhan Drive
Moving on to one of my favorite neighborhoods for forgotten mystery relics- Hudson Heights. As you start the southward climb of Southgate Ave from Mt Hope Blvd, you will notice a narrow road veering off to the left. Upon first glance you might assume this is an unused driveway from decades ago, but in actuality this is the start of our second abandoned road, “Nepperhan Drive”.
The east side of this road is flanked by a stone wall in the style seen elsewhere in the neighborhood. In this post, Keith Doherty talks about these walls being hand crafted by immigrant stone masons. This road extends another 100 feet or so before it reaches a private back yard which happens to be the location of a tennis club that was in existence from 1916-1939 (see the Summer 1994 Hastings Historian).
This road overlooks a woodsy area known as Lefurgy Park. It’s still possible to access this park area via a trail way that leads through it, officially called the “Lefurgy Park Trail”. The trail goes from Mt. Hope Blvd through the woods to another short road, King Street (which also looks like a driveway) and then out to Fairmont. We sometimes used this trail to walk home from Hillside School. It was known as “The Spookway” then. (Does anyone still call it this?). Named I imagine because it had the same spooky feel you might get when entering a tunnel that may or may not bring you out safely. For us kids this was the perfect mix of a little bit of danger and a little bit of fun.
We’re not sure if Lefurgy Park was originally just a patch of woods as it is today or if there was perhaps a clearing with park amenities. Photos from the Historical Society’s Langmuir collection from the 1930s suggest it probably looked pretty similar to how it does today, however we would love to hear your memories about this public space.
Paul Street
From Southgate, if we head down Mt. Hope Blvd towards Cliff Street, we come to our final abandoned road of this installment, Paul Street. According to our map from 1910 there was a cluster of minor streets east of Cliff street which were probably never developed. If these roads existed at all they were removed with the construction of the parkway. One of these roads was known as Paul Street, and this one clearly did exist as the road bed and sidewalk can still be seen in the woods adjacent to Cliff Street. On a map from 1952, Paul Street appears to give access to the Saw Mill River Parkway, although this seemed redundant given Cliff Street was close by — which is possibly why it was taken out of commission.
I had always noticed the remnants of what looked like a road here from the South County Trailway but had never actually been able to take a closer look. Fortunately I had an opportunity when volunteering with the ‘Hastings Vine Squad’ in the winter of 2024. We took our vine loppers into these woods and I was able to explore this old road. This area is not easily accessible as you would need to go down Cliff Street and climb up to the road through woods next to the parkway, which is somewhat unsafe. However, thanks to the homeowners on Mt. Hope Blvd where Paul Street used to begin, we were able to enter there through private property.
I’ll let the photos tell the story of Paul Street for now, as I don’t have much of a story to tell about this road. The large stone retaining wall has managed to stay somewhat intact and there is a pretty good chunk of sidewalk left. We also have yet another example of the stone walls common to Mt. Hope, etc. lining the west side of the road.
About 10 yards from this road, overlooking the parkway, lies the seemingly out of place remains of a bench. Digging a little deeper into our 1931 map there appears to be a pathway or trail of some sort which meandered through the woods here. It looks like it extended from Stanley Ave in Hastings, north to Chauncey (the current home of Chauncey Square shopping center and Danforth apartments) and then all the way to Dobbs Ferry, ending near Battaglia Brothers Italian Deli and Dunkin Donuts. A part of this trail is home to Hillside Woods and is marked as the “Saw Mill River Trail”. Along the trail near Cliff Street there is yet another concrete support for a bench. And if you walk the section of trail farther north from Chauncey to Dobbs Ferry – lo and behold there is also the remains of a bench on this part of the trail.
Below we have another photo from the invaluable Langmuir collection showing a somewhat faint impression of this trail with a wooden railing visible.
All Together
I was surprised and delighted to notice that all three of these roads are visible in an aerial photo from 1926. The “Speedway” is most likely a dirt road, and it’s not clear if the others are fully paved.
Further Exploration
If you’ve seen these roads and wondered about their history, we hope this post reveals a few more pieces of the puzzle. If you’re interested in looking further, the 1926 aerial map of Hastings can be found here:
And the maps from 1931 in full resolution can be found on the Westchester Archives, here and here.
https://collections.westchestergov.com/digital/collection/1930atlas/id/135/rec/126
https://collections.westchestergov.com/digital/collection/1930atlas/id/137/rec/128
Other referenced posts:
Rich Lovejoy is a trustee of the Hastings Historical Society, grew up in Hastings and is a graduate of Hastings High School, class of 1990.
