for the National Gallery of Art. In 1927, he commissioned Oswald Birley to make a portrait of President Plutarco Elías Calles of Mexico, which he presented to the Mexican government. Legacy Harding supported the development of Long Island's roadways and was a proponent of Robert Moses' parkway plan. He personally commissioned engineering studies to promote the construction of a highway from Queens Boulevard to Nassau County, in order to provide better access to Oakland Country Club, where he was a member and avid golfer. The road was built during Mayor Jimmy Walker's administration and was opened in 1928 as Nassau Boulevard. In 1917, he paid $100,000 for the construction of Harding Road, to connect Broad Street in Red Bank with Ridge Road in Rumson, in Monmouth County, New Jersey. He was also a member of the board of governors of the Long Branch Hospital since 1914. In May 1929, four months after Harding's death, the road was named Horace Harding Boulevard in his honor. In 1939, the New York City Council proposed renaming Horace Harding Boulevard to Worlds Fair Boulevard due to the New York World's Fair, but Mayor Fiorello La Guardia refused to remove the name of his friend. Today, it is the section between Queens Boulevard and the Queens-Nassau county line of the Long Island Expressway and is known as New York State Route 25D. He was also the namesake of the Horace Harding Hospital in Elmhurst, Queens (later renamed St. John's Hospital before it closed in March 2009) and Horace Harding Playground, located in the Queens neighborhood of Rego Park. There is also a bas-relief bust of Harding on a three-sided parcel of land at the intersection of Harding Road and Ridge Road in Little Silver, near Thornton, Harding's summer home in Rumson, New Jersey. References External links The Collection of the Late J. Horace Harding: 654 Madison Avenue, New York City 1863 births 1929 deaths American bankers American financiers Deaths from influenza People from Rumson, New Jersey