A Border Can Define a Neighborhood

Robert Caro maintained that highways destroyed the neighborhoods of the Bronx.

I wondered if this was true for Blissville, out in Queens next to the BQE and the LIE. But the older men and women who grew up here in the 1930's told me the neighborhood was always a little marginal, divided more by industry (the horse tannery and beer breweries) than the LIE which had been there since 1939.


If you want to visit, there are two exits, Greenpoint Avenue and Van Dam (the last exit before the tunnel).

Leaving Blissville is as easy as arriving, with entrances to highways north, east, south and west. It's a vertible hub of highways.

But for those of us who live here the highways are just background noise, so ever present we forget their presence.