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Landmarks and Points of Interest Near I-95

There’s more to I-95 than you may have guessed.

Split Rock at the junction of I-95 and the Hutchinson River Parkway.

When you’re stuck in traffic on I-95, the landscape seems desolate and dull. Not so to Barbara Barnes, who was inspired to write What’s Great About I-95: Maine to Florida. We asked her for nearby points of interest.

■ When you’re passing exit 21, think about the history of Boston Post Road instead of its congestion. “In the eighteenth century, a mishmash of paths and carriage roads were connected from New York City to Boston in order to deliver the mail more efficiently,” Barnes says. “Ben Franklin, then Postmaster General, meticulously measured and marked each mile, from the corner of Broadway and Wall Street to where the Massachusetts Turnpike exists now. Here in Rye, Franklin marked off miles twenty-four, twenty-five, and twenty-six. Those original markers are still found along Boston Post Road.”

Woolworth’s tomb at Woodlawn Cemetery.

■ You’ll find Split Rock Golf Course at the junction of I-95 and the Hutchinson River Parkway—but the pleasant golf course belies the brutality of how it got its name. “In 1643, settler Sarah Hutchinson and her family were attacked by Indians,” Barnes says. “Sarah took shelter in the crevice of a twenty-five-foot glacial boulder that had split in two. The rest of the story was bloody and bad for the Hutchinsons. Years later, when I-95 was being built, the path of the road was diverted to save Split Rock, which can barely be seen from I-95.”

■ We know of Woodlawn as a stop on the Metro-North, but the Woodlawn Cemetery, two miles from I-95, is where you’ll find some important names. “Some of them just seem to belong together,” Barnes says. “For instance, there’s Franklin Woolworth, founder of the five-and-dime store. Nearby is James Cash Penney, better known as J.C. Penney. Around the corner is Rowland Macy of, well, Macy’s. Before starting in retail, he was a sailor who had a tattoo of a star. That became Macy’s logo.”