(Few New Yorkers have ever called it the Miller Highway, taking almost immediately to the more impersonal nomenclature, the West Side Highway. A few years ago, ex mayor Rudolph Giuliani, an unabashed Yankee fan, maybe forgetting that the road had already been named for an individual, chose to rename it the Joe DiMaggio Highway when the Yankee Clipper passed away, which designation New Yorkers have also largely ignored.) Miller may have broken ground, but Robert Moses, expanding his domain from parks commissioner to highways and bridges, enthusiastically carried through perimeterroad construction around the whole island of Manhattan. If highways by the water's edge have proven to be a hideous idea, we must remember that many other cities in the United States and overseas were just as guilty of embracing that concept. It was in the air, not a demoniacal infliction by the Power Broker. Years later, in 1974, when perimeter highways were becoming openly reviled for robbing the public of waterfront access, a discarded Robert Moses wrote this defense, using passive tense and first person plural to suggest the more impersonal processes of collective reasoning: "Not long after the turn of the century it became apparent that Manhattan's street system would not be able to cope with the inevitable growth of motor traffic. Congestion, particularly in the northsouth avenues, was plain evidence of worse conditions yet to come. Northsouth arterials were needed, yet these could not be built in the interior of the borough. . . . The solution was obvious. Ring the borough with an arterial belt, remove the "Death Avenue" tracks to a separate right of way, and along Riverside Park, cover them. Bring the park to the river's side, and create new waterfront parks and promenades in the process. Thus were the east side and west side improvements initiated." By these he means the ""Death Avenue" referred to Twelfth Avenue and its freight railway spur, which took the lives '' eral citizens before being shut down. » d n OR THE BATTLE OF WESTWAY 81 OUTBOARD, o (later renamed FDR) Drive, the Harlem River Drive, and the Fast Kiver v rthern extension of Miller Highway above 72nd Street, all the way into о y where it connected with Westchester's parkway system, the Bronx, w "Such improvements were hailed as great achievements years ago. They d Manhattan from traffic strangulation that would have stunted the el0pment of the business core. The Metropolitan region's worldwide minence in commerce and industry is due in no small measure to them." Here Moses dodges the issue of why the roads had to be built in such a way as to leave a brutal gash in the urban fabric, and make it nearly impossible for people to get to the water by foot. He had shown, in his sensitive handling of Carl Schurz Park, the Brooklyn Esplanade, and parts of the Battery and Riverside Park, that he knew how to fold a highway underneath a public space quite beautifully, when he wanted to.