Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and politician. He worked mainly in the New York metropolitan area. He was known as the "master builder" of mid-20th century New York City, Long Island, Rockland County, and Westchester County. His works helped modernized and shape the Manhattan skyline.[1]
From 1927 to 1929, Moses was the Secretary of State of New York. In 1934, he was the Republican nominee for Governor. He lost the election to Herbert H. Lehman.
Moses was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He studied at Yale University, Oxford University and at Columbia University. Moses died on July 29, 1981 in West Islip, New York from heart disease, aged 92.[1]
Criticism and The Power Broker
change
Moses's life was most famously characterized in Robert Caro's 1974 award-winning biography The Power Broker.
The book highlighted his practice of starting projects certain to cost more than the initial funding approved by the New York State legislature, knowing the legislature would eventually have to fund the full project to avoid appearing to have provided ineffective oversight (fait accompli). He was also characterized as using his political power to benefit his friends, including a case in which he secretly shifted the planned route of the Northern State Parkway large distances to avoid impinging on the estates of the rich, but told owners of the family farms who lost land that it was an unbiased decision based on "engineering considerations."[2] The book also charged that Moses libeled officials who opposed him, attempting to have them removed from office by calling them communists during the Red Scare. The biography further notes that Moses fought against schools and other public needs in favor of his preference for parks.[2]
Moses's critics charge that he preferred automobiles over people. They point out that he displaced hundreds of thousands of residents in New York City and destroyed traditional neighborhoods by building multiple expressways through them. The projects contributed to the ruin of the South Bronx and the amusement parks of Coney Island, caused the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants Major League baseball teams to relocate to Los Angeles and San Francisco respectively, and precipitated the decline of public transport from disinvestment and neglect.[2] His building of expressways also hindered the proposed expansion of the New York City Subway from the 1930s to well into the 1960s because the parkways and expressways that were built replaced, at least to some extent, the planned subway lines. The 1968 Program for Action (which was never completed) was hoped to counter that.[2] Other critics charge that he precluded the use of public transit, which would have allowed non-car-owners to enjoy the elaborate recreation facilities he built.
Racism and Classism
changeCaro's The Power Broker also accused Moses of building low bridges across his parkways to make them inaccessible to public transit buses, thereby restricting "the use of state parks by poor and lower-middle-class families" who did not own cars. Caro also wrote that Moses attempted to discourage Black people in particular from visiting Jones Beach, the centerpiece of the Long Island state park system, by such measures as making it difficult for Black groups to get permits to park buses, and assigning Black lifeguards to "distant, less developed beaches".[3] While the exclusion of commercial vehicles and the use of low bridges where appropriate were standard on earlier parkways, where they had been instituted for aesthetic reasons, Moses appears to have made greater use of low bridges, which his aide Sidney Shapiro said was done to make it more difficult for future legislatures to allow access for commercial vehicles.[4][5]
Moses vocally opposed allowing Black war veterans to move into Stuyvesant Town, a Manhattan residential development complex created to house World War II veterans.[6][2] In response to the biography, Moses defended his forced displacement of poor and minority communities as an inevitable part of urban revitalization: "I raise my stein to the builder who can remove ghettos without moving people as I hail the chef who can make omelets without breaking eggs."[7]
Additionally, there were allegations that Moses selectively chose locations for recreational facilities based on the racial compositions of a neighborhood, such as when he selected sites for eleven pools that opened in 1936. According to one author, Moses purposely placed some pools in neighborhoods with mainly white populations to deter African Americans from using them, and other pools intended for African Americans, such as the one in Colonial Park (now Jackie Robinson Park), were placed in inconvenient locations.[8] Another author wrote that of 255 playgrounds built in the 1930s under Moses's tenure, only two were in largely Black neighborhoods.[9] Caro wrote that close associates of Moses had claimed they could keep African Americans from using the Thomas Jefferson Pool, in then-predominantly-white East Harlem, by making the water too cold.[10][11] Nonetheless, no other source has corroborated the claim that heaters in any particular pool were deactivated or not included in the pool's design.[12]
In addition, Moses took a favorable view of the British Empire and a racism much broader than solely towards the African-American community, speaking of Empire as useful in stemming the "rise of the lesser breeds without the law".[13][14][15]
References
change- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Goldberger, Paul (July 30, 1981). "Robert Moses, Master Builder, is Dead at 92". The New York Times. Retrieved November 11, 2009.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Caro 1974.
- ↑ Caro 1974, pp. 318–319.
- ↑ Caro 1974, pp. 952.
- ↑ Campanella, Thomas (July 9, 2017). "How Low Did He Go?". Bloomberg.com. Archived from the original on July 17, 2018. Retrieved July 25, 2018.
- ↑ Chaldekas, Cynthia (March 16, 2010). "Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on New York's Master Builder and Transformed the American City". New York Public Library. Retrieved October 9, 2010.
- ↑ Cite error: The named reference
Boeing2017Moseswas used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page). - ↑ Wiltse, Jeff (2009). Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America. University of North Carolina Press. p. 140. ISBN 978-0-8078-8898-8. Retrieved January 10, 2021.
- ↑ Riess, Steven A. (1991). City Games: The Evolution of American Urban Society and the Rise of Sports. An Illini book. University of Illinois Press. p. 148. ISBN 978-0-252-06216-2.
- ↑ Caro 1974, pp. 512–514.
- ↑ Cite error: The named reference
nyt2citieswas used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page). - ↑ Gutman 2008, pp. 537–538.
- ↑ Jeffries, Glen (2023-11-13). "Winston Churchill's Mother? You've Got the Wrong Brooklyn Address". Hell Gate. Retrieved 2023-11-17.
- ↑ "Ceremonies in Honor of Lady Churchill | WNYC | New York Public Radio, Podcasts, Live Streaming Radio, News". WNYC. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
- ↑ "HONORING MEMORY OF WINSTON CHURCHILL'S MOTHER; Plaque Unveiled on Brooklyn Home, Birthplace of Churchill's Mother". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-08-16.
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