Westchester Creek, was not planned to be completed until 1951. The Gull Construction Company was contracted to build this segment in May 1949, and Rusciano & Sons was hired the same month to build the footings for six bridges along the expressway. In addition, Frederick H. Zurmuhlen was supervising the construction of a bridge over Westchester Creek at a cost of $5,287,000; the ten-lane bridge was to supplement a surface-level span. Engineering firms Andrews & Clark and Hardesty & Hanover were hired to supervise the project later in 1949. A short segment near Bruckner Boulevard opened in 1950 and was the first part of the expressway to be completed. The state government hired the J. Kaufman Demolition Company in 1951 to raze structures on the right-of-way east of the Bronx River Parkway. By early 1953, part of the highway east of the Bronx River Parkway was also being constructed. The construction of this section required excavating underneath the Parkchester station of the New York City Subway's Pelham Line. In addition, the Bronx River had to be relocated several hundred feet in the vicinity of the Bronx River Parkway interchange. The section from the Bronx River Parkway to the Bruckner Interchange opened on November 5, 1955, at the same time as parts of the Queens Midtown and Major Deegan expressways. The first portion of the Cross Bronx Expressway had cost $34.6 million and was about long. The segment was six lanes wide; its original western end was at Rosedale Avenue, where ramps connected to the northbound Bronx River Parkway. A one-mile (1.5 km) western extension from the Bronx River Parkway to a temporary interchange at Longfellow Avenue, near Boston Road, opened on April 23, 1956. When the Throgs Neck Bridge to Queens opened on January 11, 1961, the Cross Bronx was extended east as one of the bridge's two northern approaches, the other being the Throgs Neck Expressway (later I-695). Both extensions were part of the Interstate Highway System. The Cross Bronx Expressway Extension and the Clearview Expressway were originally designated as part of I-78, which was to continue through Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan to the Holland Tunnel. Ultimately, most of I-78 was canceled in 1971. In anticipation of this change, the Cross Bronx Expressway Extension and the Clearview Expressway were renumbered I-295 on January 1, 1970. Central section The section of the Cross Bronx Expressway between Anthony and Longfellow Avenues