I-95 Newark Toll Plaza (John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway, Delaware Turnpike)

No man-made achievement has affected northern Delaware so much as this interstate, a key link in East Coast megalopolis (see also its bridge at Wilmington, WL61). Ten thousand people gathered at the state line west of the toll plaza on November 14, 1963, for the dedication of the Maryland and Delaware turnpikes, limited access superhighways that symbolized America's preference for automobile transportation and allowed motorists to drive from Newark to Baltimore without stopping (the equivalent stretch of old U.S. 40 had nearly 100 dangerous at-grade intersections). At four o'clock in the afternoon, President John F. Kennedy alighted from an Army helicopter and gave a speech referring prophetically to the future, when the Boston-to-Washington corridor would be “one gigantic urban complex.” Governor Elbert N. Carvel said to him, “We in Delaware look forward to your presence at the dedication of the second Delaware Memorial Bridge, which we expect will take place some time during your second term, probably in 1967.” Kennedy snipped a ribbon to unveil a replica of a Mason-Dixon crown stone, a copy of several originals that still mark the eighteenth-century boundary between the two colonies. Six days later, he flew to Dallas.