Rehabilitating Robert Moses?
The New York Times had a deeply disturbing article in Sunday's Arts section. The article describes several exhibitions on Moses, and flowing from them, an effort to rehabilitate his name, which has since Robert Caro's The Power Broker never quite recovered.
“It could be that ‘The Power Broker’ was a reflection of its time: New York was in trouble and had been in decline for 15 years. Now, for a whole host of reasons, New York is entering a new time, a time of optimism, growth and revival that hasn’t been seen in half a century. And that causes us to look at our infrastructure.â€
“A lot of big projects are on the table again, and it kind of suggests a Moses era without Moses,†added [Kenneth T. Jackson, a historian of New York City at Columbia who co-edited the exhibition catalog].
It's true enough that we have a new Moses era, but that requires us to precisely not forget his legacy. And that legacy is mixed. Robert Moses destroyed the South Bronx and built the Cross-Bronx Expressway. He built hundreds of playgrounds in Manhattan, only one of which – according to The Powerbroker, it was decorated with little brass monkeys playing – was north of 125th Street. Robert Moses segregated previously integrated neighborhoods. The parkways leading out to the open air, the ones he built while starving mass transit, feature pretty little bridges built so low that no buses can use them, cutting off the poor (read: the black) from this bounty. Robert Moses' racism permeates literally all he has done. Along the way, he engaged in staggering acts of corruption that would be impossible today, the best efforts of Joe Bruno and Efrain Gonzalez notwithstanding.
Moses, I seem to recall, once compared himself to Augustus, who said he had found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble. Moses found a somewhat integrated city of trains and real neighborhoods and left it a segregated city of freeways and slums.
It's a deeply ominous sign that exhibitions whitewashing this record are being held in an era like ours, with huge new developments rising all over the City. The renaissance we've seen since the end of the Moses era isn't because, but despite of him. Beware history repeating itself.
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Submitted by Bouldin on 29 January 2007 - 9:34pm.
...Moses had it. He was very much the man in charge. This was his doing, no matter who else may have helped or benefitted from it.
Having read every blasted
Submitted by Anonymous Coward (not verified) on 29 January 2007 - 11:26pm.
Having read every blasted word of Caro, I can say he gets some things wrong. Floyd Bennett Field is in Brooklyn, not Queens, and Teddy Jr. is related to Eleanor Roosevelt by blood, not marriage, etc, etc.
But Millstone obviously has not read the book or he would understand that Moses managed to make himself more powerful than any elected of his era; he was not Iris Weinshall.
Still, Michael, The "One Mile" chapter was not about the creation of the South Borxn, which came much later. It was about the destruction of one nirghborhood, as emblematic of the many neighborhoods Moses destroyed. And East Tremont, my friend is pretty far North; just South of Fordham Belmont. Caro never implies that Moses was responsible for the South Bronx. Sadly, though, the construction of Co-Op City, which drianed the area's middle class, amy have been, so blame the unions.
Caro's book is not Holy Writ.
Submitted by Daniel Millstone on 30 January 2007 - 12:27am.
It's the opinion of a guy -- a guy with whom (I guess) you agree but with whom I disagree. My memory and perceptions were that Moses' bureaucratic power came from his patrons. As I see it, he was a smart and agile broker and deal maker. The idea of Moses the powerful before whom all were helpless was part of the sell.
Moses' work was often appalling
but he was the messenger, the fixer, not the principal. While this attempt at rehab is bizarre, it's helpful to remember that Moses was just the guy on point.
Robert Moses was appointed by elected officials and empowered by the contractors, real estate developers and bankers his work enriched.
If we oppose & demonize Moses or even lesser figures like Iris Weinshall, for example, or Joel Klien, we're neglecting to look behind the curtain.