10 Streets That Changed America

10 Streets That Changed America

episode

Geoffrey Baer discovers how streets have connected the nation, divided communities, and changed the way Americans live, work, and shop. Trace Broadway's 400-year evolution: from Native American trail to Dutch trading route to the home of America's first public transit service and an electrically-lighted theater district known as the "Great White Way." This episode reveals how Broadway has become the poster child for the "complete streets" movement, in which automobiles take a back seat to more sustainable forms of transit. Ride from Boston to New York on the Boston Post Road, a dirt "highway" created for the nation's first mail carriers. Take America's oldest streetcar line out to some of the nation's first suburbs in New Orleans, and in Detroit drive a Model T along America's first mile of concrete-paved road. Explore a car-friendly street created by a 1920s entrepreneur who predicted that Los Angeles would be dominated by the automobile, and take a horse and carriage ride on a Brooklyn parkway built on the proposition that streets should be scenic. Visit wttw.com/10 to explore more locations; web-exclusive stories, interactive games, and features; timelines and maps; behind-the-scenes images, and more.

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