The elevated Central Artery, officially the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway, was a six-lane steel viaduct raised 30 to 50 feet above downtown Boston, and through the North End it followed Cross Street, between the neighbourhood and Haymarket Square. The state began condemning property for it in 1950, and demolition started in the North End in the autumn of 1951. Over its whole length the road displaced an estimated 20,000 people. The block of Hanover Street between Cross and Blackstone Streets was demolished for it, cutting the North End's main street off from the rest of the city. The first section, from the High Bridge over the Charles River south to Haymarket Square, opened in October 1954. That first section cost $55 million. The southern end was carried underground through the Dewey Square Tunnel, and on 30 June 1959 the Central Artery and the Southeast Expressway opened to traffic together; about 60,000 vehicles used it on the first day, and by the early 1990s it carried upwards of 200,000 a day. The Big Dig replaced it with a tunnel beneath the same corridor. Northbound traffic moved underground on 29 March 2003 and southbound traffic on 20 December 2003, after which the viaduct was dismantled. The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, opened in October 2008, now occupies the strip where the elevated road stood.
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42.3623, -71.0563
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