The steel was rising and the concrete and asphalt not yet poured when this aerial view was snapped of the Scajaquada Expressway’s construction in about 1960. The Scajaquada Creek, narrowed to accommodate the expressway, is barely visible under ice and the shadow of the newly constructed viaduct. The New York Central crosses under the expressway and over the creek to Tonawanda Street, where companies like Fedders Manufacturing Company, Pratt & Lambert Varnish Works, Hard Manufacturing Company, and Pratt & Letchworth Malleable Iron Works were still in operation. On the south side of the creek, along Bradley Street, the gargantuan gasometer of the People’s Gas Light & Coke Company towers over everything. This is all long after the picturesqueness of Scajaquada Creek was first discovered and long before its more recent rediscovery.

 

Here’s (nearly) the same view in 2016: