HORACE HARDING

Who? You ask!

You’ve seen the name if you’ve driven on the LIE and are in Little Neck. It is a roadway that existed long before the LIE or 495 and parallels it for a stretch.

But who IS Horace Harding, and what did he do?

Warren G. Harding, no relationship to Horace

At first you mistaken him for Warren G. Harding, and then wonder, is he a brother or relative of the President. You see the name and think: I have to look him up. But do you, Nooooo, you wait for me to do it.

Old Horace was a great supporter of that bum Robert Moses who took the Dodgers out of Brooklyn, along with that so-called mayor: Mayor Wagner and the traitor dumb-ass Walter O’Malley, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers and left us with the Mets!

Kathleen McGrath, an amateur Queens historian and self-proclaimed expert. 

"Horace J. Harding was an affluent financier and director of the New York Municipal Railways System. But he was also an ardent supporter of Robert Moses’ 'great parkway' plan who used his influence to petition for a highway from Queens Boulevard out to Shelter Rock in Nassau County," McGrath said. "He was a big golfer and wanted to build a road that would provide better access to the Oakland Country Club where he was a member," she said.

But for McGrath, the story behind Horace Harding and his expressway is a timeless tale of opulence and entitlement. 

"I think the real legacy left behind by Horace Harding is that despite all the money he and his friends had, they used their influence to cajole public funds from the city to build what was in essence a driveway to their country club out east," she said.

And so my friends, there you have it, the real skinny behind the Horace Harding mystery. One of these days, we examine who the heck was Hutchinson (man or woman?) of the Hutchinson River Parkway, unless of course you want to do it.