 New York State Route 52 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 NY 52 highlighted in red, NY 52A in pink, NY 52 Business in blue (Darker blue maintained as NY 980J) | ||||
| Route information | ||||
| Maintained by NYSDOT, JIBC, NYSBA, and Sullivan County | ||||
| Length | 108.72 mi[1] (174.97 km) | |||
| Existed | 1930[2]–present | |||
| Major junctions | ||||
| West end |  PA 652 at the Pennsylvania state line in Tusten | |||
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| East end |  US 6 in Carmel | |||
| Location | ||||
| Country | United States | |||
| State | New York | |||
| Counties | Sullivan, Ulster, Orange, Dutchess, Putnam | |||
| Highway system | ||||
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New York State Route 52 (NY 52) is a 108.72-mile-long (174.97 km) state highway in the southeastern part of the state. It generally runs from west to east through five counties, beginning at the Pennsylvania state line in the Delaware River near Narrowsburg, crossing the Hudson River on the Newburgh–Beacon Bridge, and ending in Carmel. NY 52 and NY 55, both major east–west routes of the Mid-Hudson Region, run parallel to each other, intersecting in downtown Liberty.
With the exception of the section overlapping Interstate 84 (I-84), most of Route 52 is a two-lane road through lightly developed rural areas. The road west of the Hudson River serves a number of small communities in the southern Catskills and Hudson Valley, such as the villages of Jeffersonville, Ellenville and Walden. East of the Hudson, it closely parallels I-84 after leaving it at the village of Fishkill. It once passed through the cities of Newburgh and Beacon, following a ferry between them, but since the bridge's construction Route 52 runs concurrently with I-84 just to their north.
Much of what is today Route 52 was built as private turnpikes in the early 19th century. After their operating companies folded later in the century, the state took over the roads in the 1890s. While some portions of today's Route 52 were included in New York's first designations of state highways, it was not until a 1930 renumbering that Route 52 took that number.
At that time it followed most of its present alignment, but continued east of its present terminus to NY 22. The truncation to its junction with US 6 in Carmel came later in the 1930s, along with an exchange of alignments between routes 52 and 216. When the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge was opened in the early 1960s, Route 52 was rerouted onto I-84, bypassing a route to the ferry landings in Newburgh and Beacon. The alignment to I-84 in the latter city is today Route 52 Business.