page_title: New York State Route 37B
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: New York State Route 37B / History
caption_attribution_description: Westbound on New York State Route 37 at the eastern terminus of New York State Route 37B in Massena.
context_page_description: New York State Route 37B is an east–west state highway located in St. Lawrence County, New York, in the United States. It serves as a business route of NY 37 through the village of Massena. While NY 37B enters the village, NY 37 bypasses it to the south. The western terminus of the route is at an intersection with NY 37 in the town of Louisville. Its eastern terminus is at a junction with NY 37 just east of the village limits in the town of Massena. NY 37B intersects North Main Street, a state-maintained northward extension of NY 420, in Massena's central district.
  The origins of NY 37B date back to the early 20th century when the New York State Legislature created Route 32, an unsigned legislative route extending from North Lawrence to Ogdensburg via Massena. From Waddington to Massena, Route 32 followed River Road and Town Line Road. This portion of the route became part of NY 3 in 1924. In the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York, the Waddington–Massena segment of NY 3 became NY 37B. The route was extended east into Massena in the 1950s after NY 37 was realigned to follow a new bypass around the village.
context_section_description: In 1908, the New York State Legislature created Route 32, an unsigned legislative route extending from North Lawrence to Ogdensburg via Winthrop and Massena. It entered Massena on what is now NY 420 and followed Main Street and Maple Street through the village. West of Massena, the highway was routed on Town Line Road and River Road to a junction east of Waddington, where Route 32 continued west on modern NY 37 to Waddington. When state highways in New York were first posted in 1924, the portion of Route 32 between Waddington and Massena became part of NY 3, a highway extending across the width of the state.
  The segment of NY 3 east of Watertown was rerouted as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York to largely follow its modern alignment between Watertown and Plattsburgh. Most of NY 3's former alignment along the St. Lawrence River from Alexandria Bay to Hogansburg became part of the new NY 37; however, from Waddington to Massena, NY 37 used a more inland routing. As a result, the former routing of NY 3 between the two villages became NY 37B instead. In the mid-to-late 1950s, NY 37 was rerouted to follow a new bypass around the southern edge of Massena. Following its completion, NY 37B was extended eastward along NY 37's former routing on Maple Street, Parker Avenue, and Orvis Street to meet the bypass east of the village.
  In the 1950s, construction began on the St. Lawrence Seaway, a system of canals and locks that would make the St. Lawrence River suitable for shipping. As part of the seaway's construction, a low-lying area in Ontario and New York between Waddington, New York, and Cornwall, Ontario, would be inundated with water in order to create a navigable channel through the Long Sault rapids and to allow hydroelectric stations to be established immediately upriver from Massena and Cornwall. Much of NY 37B was located within the flood-prone region due to its proximity to the river. On July 1, 1958, the intentional flooding was carried out via the destruction of a cofferdam upstream, creating what is now known as Lake St. Lawrence and inundating the majority of NY 37B west of Massena.
  Following the destruction of the majority of NY 37B, the route was realigned west of Massena to follow a new riverside roadway to the hamlet of Louisville Corner, where it came to an end at NY 37. The remainder of NY 37B along the Massena–Louisville town line road and in Massena was unchanged. By 1960, a connector between NY 37 in Louisville and NY 37B and Massena utilizing NY 37's former routing west of the village was designated as NY 131. The alignments of NY 37B and NY 131 west of the Maple Street / Town Line Road intersection were flipped c. 1962, placing NY 131 on the riverside and town line roads and NY 37B on NY 37's former routing into Massena.
caption: NY 37B's eastern terminus at the NY 37 bypass just east of Massena
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