The Sprain Brook was first proposed in the early 1920s as a parkway between the Bronx River Parkway and the Hawthorne Circle. The parkway sold a majority of its right-of-way in the 1920s, but the proposed parkway met strong opposition from the village of Bronxville and Yonkers. The Sprain Brook proposal sat on the table until 1949, when the State Council of Parks, run by Robert Moses, sought to ease congestion on the Bronx River Parkway. Moses proposed that a new state park would be constructed in Westchester, with the Sprain Brook Parkway serving as a traffic alternative to the Bronx River, and nearly a decade and a half after the parkway was deeded land. This time, Bronxville opposed the project rather than Yonkers, but an agreement was worked out in 1951. This new alignment would bypass the parts of Bronxville and Yonkers to construct the freeway.