Revisit Robert Moses's Most Hated Proposal: The Lower Manhattan Expressway

Robert Moses was not exactly known for having a light touch, ramming all sorts of highways and public works projects through the city without what many people would consider "due process" or "public consensus."

His most reviled undertaking, though, was his 1929 proposal for a 10-lane expressway called LOMEX, which would have ruthlessly bifurcated Soho and Little Italy by connecting the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges to the Holland Tunnel.

The highway was reimagined and re-proposed many, many times, though the $72 million plan to demolish 14 blocks and displace 2,000 families never quite took, and was eventually nixed in 1962. All hail Jane Jacobs.

Now, visitors to the NYC Municipal Archives Building can explore the long-discarded plans in detail in a new two-room installation called “In the Shadow of the Highway: Robert Moses’ Expressway and the Battle for Downtown.” According to Untapped Cities, the exhibit contextualizes Moses as a master city shaper, but wastes no time moving on to the backlash that not only got the project defeated, but ended Moses's years-long stranglehold on development across the city.

The exhibit, located at the NYC Department of Records Visitor Center at 31 Chambers Street, will run through February.