| Conduit Boulevard North / South Conduit Avenue | |
 | |
 Interactive map of Conduit Avenue | |
| Namesake | Ridgewood Aqueduct |
|---|---|
| Owner | City of New York |
| Maintained by | NYSDOT andNYCDOT |
| Length | 8.0 mi (12.9 km)[1] |
| Location | Brooklyn andQueens,New York City |
| West end | Atlantic Avenue inCypress Hills |
| Major junctions |  NY 27 (Linden Boulevard) inLindenwood  NY 878 /Belt Parkway inSouth Ozone Park I-678 in South Ozone ParkJFK Expressway in South Ozone Park Belt Parkway inLaurelton |
| East end | NY 27 / Hook Creek Boulevard inRosedale |
Conduit Avenue (Conduit Boulevard inBrooklyn) is anarterial road inNew York City, the vast majority of which is inQueens. The divided highway runs fromAtlantic Avenue inCypress Hills, Brooklyn to Hook Creek Boulevard inRosedale, Queens at theNassau County border. The thoroughfare is named after anaqueduct in itsright-of-way.
Conduit Avenue and Conduit Boulevard were conceived in 1921 as part of the Conduit Highway, later theSunrise Highway, with the original highway opening in 1929. The highway was expanded in 1940 as part of the construction of theBelt Parkway. The Brooklyn section was originally supposed to hostInterstate 78 within its median, but this section was ultimately not built.
Conduit Avenue and Conduit Boulevard are named for the conduit of theBrooklyn Waterworks, which fedRidgewood Reservoir. The roads were constructed on the formerright-of-way of the aqueduct.[2][3] The conduit was known as the Ridgewood Aqueduct.[4]
West ofCross Bay Boulevard, Conduit Boulevard has a wide, grassymedian strip and runs adjacent to a number of parks with playgrounds. Conduit Boulevard serves as the boundary between the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Cypress Hills andCity Line, and the Queens neighborhoods ofOzone Park andLindenwood.[1] Between theShore Parkway and theLaurelton Parkway, Conduit Avenue serves as theservice road forSouthern Parkway. East of Brookville Boulevard, South Conduit Avenue parallels theMontauk Branch of theLong Island Rail Road (LIRR) and continues asSunrise Highway inValley Stream. At 225th Street, North Conduit Avenue diverges to the north to Hook Creek Boulevard, while the Sunrise Highway merges into the avenue to the south.[1]
Conduit Avenue is designated asNew York State Route 27 betweenLinden Boulevard and the Nassau County border and accommodates car, bus and truck traffic. Westbound vehicles use the roadway named North Conduit Avenue; eastbound vehicles use South Conduit Avenue.[1] At various times the road has been used as a drag strip, particularly in Rosedale.[5]
The western segment of the highway, between Atlantic Avenue and Cross Bay Boulevard, was originally slated to be the eastern part of a planned, but never built,Bushwick Expressway. That highway was proposed to run from theWilliamsburg Bridge through Williamsburg, Bushwick and East New York before feeding into theBelt Parkway.[6][7]
Conduit Avenue and Conduit Boulevard are served by the following bus routes:[8]
In addition, theAqueduct–North Conduit Avenue station of theNew York City Subway, served by theA train, is near Cohancy Street.[8]
The originalBrooklyn Waterworks brick conduit stretched from Long Island to the Ridgewood Pumping Station, now the site of City Line Park, in East New York.[9][10][11] There, the water was pushed via a steam-powered pump north through a "force tube" into theRidgewood Reservoir;[4][10][12] the route of this tube is now Force Tube Avenue.[13] The reservoir was opened in 1858, and the pumping station in 1886.[4][11] The aqueduct was located on the north side of what is now Conduit Avenue, and was built on a right-of-way that had not been developed at the time.[4] When theCity of Brooklyn was consolidated as a borough ofNew York City in 1898, New York City gained possession of the Brooklyn Waterworks' assets, including the reservoir and its 25-mile (40 km) long aqueduct stretching toMassapequa inNassau County. At this time, the right-of-way was still largely undeveloped, with the conduits located underground.[9][3] Both Force Tube Avenue and Conduit Avenue were laid out and paved by the 1910s.[14][15]
Plans to construct a highway along the conduit path emerged around 1913.[16][17] In 1921, theNew York State Legislature signed a bill to construct a highway along the right-of-way known asConduit Highway, ending inAmityville. The route included both Conduit Avenue and theSunrise Highway.[9][3] The original plans called for a grade-separated parkway,[16] but the route was later designed to be 30 to 40 feet (9.1 to 12.2 m) wide.[6][9][3] The highway was planned to relieve congestion onMerrick Road/Merrick Boulevard.[2] Construction began on the highway in 1924[2] or 1925.[18] In conjunction with the project, what was then Linden Avenue was extended east fromKings Highway to Conduit Boulevard, becomingLinden Boulevard.[19] The highway was referred to by various names includingConduit Boulevard andPipe Line Boulevard.[2] By 1928, the entire stretch from Brooklyn to Amityville was officially named the Sunrise Highway, following efforts by the Long Island Chamber of Commerce.[2] The labelConduit was deemed "an unattractive one and quite meaningless." TheSunrise Highway name, meanwhile, was reference to the nickname for Long Island, "Land of the Sunrise Trails".[20] The entire highway was opened on June 9, 1929. An inauguration ceremony was held atLiberty Avenue in Brooklyn.[21] In 1931, the city planned to extend Conduit Boulevard north toJamaica Avenue along Force Tube Avenue, which would require condemning property along the avenue in order to widen it, but this never took place.[22]
In the early 1930s, it was proposed to convert the Conduit Boulevard route between Linden Boulevard and Laurelton Boulevard/Brookville Boulevard into a state parkway, with North and South Conduit Avenues created as service roads for the parkway. The purpose of the project was to create express highway links between Brooklyn and Nassau County, via Linden Boulevard, Sunrise Highway, and theSouthern State Parkway.[18][16][23] The original 1931 plans, known as the Southern State Parkway extension, called for anarterial road adjacent to the existing narrow Sunrise Highway.[24][25] Later plans called for a parkway.[16][23] As early as July 1934, land was acquired viaeminent domain to widen Conduit Boulevard and build the new parkway.[6][16][23] The project would become the Southern Parkway section of theBelt Parkway, which would connect to the Belt system's Laurelton Parkway at Brookville Boulevard and feed into the Southern State Parkway.[12][23][26][27][28] In justifying the conversion of the Conduit route into part of the Belt system,New York City Parks commissionerRobert Moses cited the "approximately 10,000,000 cars" traveling the route on an annual basis, and the need for a highway link between Brooklyn and Long Island to create "the ultimate circumferential boulevard."[29]
North and South Conduit Avenue were constructed as service roads along with the Southern Parkway.[23] Shortly after the opening of the Belt Parkway system in 1940,[30] Conduit Boulevard west of the parkway was expanded into a six-lane highway, with the right-of-way widened to create the grassy median. The project was undertaken in conjunction with the widening ofAtlantic Avenue and grade separation of theLong Island Rail Road'sAtlantic Branch.[31][32]
Around 1954, officials proposed constructing theBushwick Expressway as part ofInterstate 78, between theWilliamsburg Bridge and theNassau Expressway (NY 878).[33] The expressway would have followedBroadway,Bushwick Avenue, and the Conduit Boulevard/Avenue corridor within Brooklyn.[34][35] The widened median of Conduit Boulevard would have facilitated the expressway.[7] An alternate routing proposed in the 1960s by theTriborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA) would have traveled slightly farther north, connecting to theLong Island Expressway (I-495) in western Queens.[36][37][38] The Bushwick Expressway was opposed due to the destruction of residences and businesses in Brooklyn and Queens that would be required;[39] the TBTA estimated that nearly 4,000 families would be displaced by the expressway.[37] The Bushwick Expressway plan was later truncated[38][40][41] and later dropped entirely in 1969.[38][42][43] GovernorNelson Rockefeller eliminated the expressway from the state's construction plans in March 1971.[44]
In 2000, NYC Parks published a report in which it proposed constructing a bikeway and horse trail within the large grassy median of Conduit Boulevard. The trails would be part of a greenway along the southern and eastern edges of Queens, running fromEast New York, Brooklyn, along theLaurelton Parkway andCross Island Parkway toBayside, Queens.[45] The greenway itself had been proposed in the 1990s. However, as of 2017[update], the full greenway had not been constructed due to disagreements within theHoward Beach community.[7] In 2025, theNew York City Department of Transportation began studying safety upgrades to the westernmost 3 miles (4.8 km) of Conduit Avenue and Boulevard.[46][47]
