Who The Heck Was Horace Harding?

The Horace Harding Expressway is hard to miss when you live in Little Neck, especially for anyone who commutes on Interstate 495.

Still, if one were to ask local residents who Horace Harding was, there would be little chance of getting a right answer. In fact, a quick poll of people around the Little Neck area late last week netted no one who knew.

"One of the early settlers in the area?" said Fran Wenard of Glen Oaks. "I haven't got the foggiest," Dan Tera of Little Neck Hills added. And while both admitted to driving on the road multiple times throughout the day, none said they ever actually stopped to wonder who exactly Harding was, or why there was even a road named after him.

Ready to set the record straight was 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.

Though McGrath was quick to speculate that Harding had ulterior motives—aside from public interest—behind promoting the construction of the road which now bares his name.

"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.

However, for at least one commuter, it didn't matter why the Horace Harding Expressway was built or who the man was, so long as the road which bares his name helped provide a way around afternoon rush hour.

"It's a great way to avoid all the bottle necks on the L.I.E. You jump off at exit 34, then back on at 33, then off again at 32 and back on after Douglaston Parkway," said Dave Gradiannio who commutes out to Farmingdale five days a week using the Long Island Expressway.

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.