The Glory Years of the Pennsylvania Turnpike

by Mitchell E. Dakelman, Neal A. Schorr

Overview

Take a journey on the Pennsylvania Turnpike - the "superhighway" that went from one generation's tourist destination to the ridicule of another's.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike opened to traffic on October 1, 1940. Built using the right-of-way and unfinished tunnels of the never completed South Pennsylvania Railroad, it was a supreme achievement of civil engineering. The new highway immediately captured the public's imagination and proved to be an unqualified success. Motorists flocked from around the country to drive on the new "superhighway," and it became a tourist destination on its lonesome. But along with that success, the seeds were planted for its eventual fall from grace. Under-engineered, poorly maintained, and the victim of premature obsolescence, the highway became the object of public scorn in little more than a generation. Only since the turn of the 21st century were real efforts made to change that perception.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439658949
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	12/05/2016
Series:	Images of America Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	168
File size:	21 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

In 2004, Mitchell E. Dakelman and Neal A. Schorr coauthored The Pennsylvania Turnpike, a concise pictorial history of one of the nation's most famous highways. Once again, both authors have teamed up to tell the story of the creation of this remarkable road, its fall from grace, and the highway's ultimate rebirth. Combining Dakelman's superb collection of Pennsylvania Turnpike images and background in library science with Schorr's writing skills and knowledge of highway engineering, they tell a spellbinding story unknown to most modern-day travelers of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Editorial Reviews

"'The Glory Years of the Pennsylvania Turnpike,'[is] a coffee table book thick with vintage photos...



Dr. Schorr is a good storyteller and the book helps the reader see the big road taking shape with roughly 180 photos that his co-author and longtime friend, Mitchell E. Dakelman, collected across 40 years." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

From the Publisher