Robert Moses is unarguably one of the greatest influences in the development of New York City. What is arguable, and in fact heavily debated, is whether his work had a more positive or negative effect on the city. Emily Nonko’s article, “Robert Moses and the decline of the NYC subway system,” delves into what the readings from Robert Moses and the Transformation of New York didn’t properly explain in Robert Moses’ career—his disdain for mass transit. While he revolutionized the use of the automobile in New York City, his personal ambitions were not the right fit for the city he aimed to redevelop. A city like LA, where the population density is lower compared to its size, was a better fit for the amount of highways he wished to build. NYC, with its incredibly high population packed into a small city, could not and still cannot thrive on automobiles as the main mode of transportation—a fact he did not consider. Kenneth T. Jackson and Hillary Ballon both rationalize Moses’ tyrannical approach to his projects by emphasizing the change he made to the city—even going as far to suggest that “had Moses never lived, America’s greatest city might have deteriorated beyond the capabilities of anyone to return it to prosperity” (p. 93). It is true that his influence helped NYC escape the slum problem that crippled the city at the time. However, Nonko’s article shows that his success was only temporary. He had the power to save the transit system that all of NYC depends on—he just chose not to, based on his own personal dislike. It is important to critique Moses not only as his accomplishments at the time, but also the effects of those accomplishments on the city we live in today.
“Robert Moses and the Decline of the NYC Subway System” attributes the rapid deterioration of the aging transit system to the ignorance of 20th century NY’s “master builder,” Robert Moses, whose lack of interest in subway system aligned with his general disdain for the poor as well as people of color. The article claims that he didn’t only ignore the subway system, but also made decisions that worsened its condition today. He controlled public funding that it went away from attempts to renovate mass transit systems and towards his highway-centered projects instead. He was known as a public official who had the resources and the drive to take initiative in the projects he wanted to complete, but his personal bias contributed to the reason why, by the time he left power, the city’s mass transit system became one of the worst in the world (Nonko).
Moses, as a public figure who was never fazed by the controversy that surrounding him, never attempted to be subtle as he openly expressed his favor towards the middle class and his desire to create a city that was best built for them. Both Martha Biondi and Nonko use the Jones Beach State Park project as an example of his personal dislike—the Long Island Parkway that leads to it had overpasses with clearances that were too low for buses to go through, and any mode of transportation other than a car could not be used to commute there (p. 121). The numerous bridges, buildings, and highways that he created were completed to align with his vision of NYC as an international capital that looked powerful and successful to the rest of the world—this could be done so by focusing on relocating the middle class back to the city from the suburbs, providing greater opportunities for higher education, and through world-class organizations like Lincoln Center (p. 106). He had no concern as to how NYC could become a more comfortable home to its residents, and “saw the metropolis as a whole rather than as a series of discrete neighborhoods, each with a particular history and feel and pattern” (p. 70). The current state of the city’s mass transportation system is only one example of his blatant favoritism towards a small portion of NYC and ignorance of so many minority groups whose lives were uprooted as a byproduct of his projects. While Robert Moses is definitely a revolutionary character in terms of his incredible ability to get things done, his personal bias is too obviously reflected in the state of one of NYC’s most important assets today.
Sources:
Ballon, Hilary, and Kenneth T. Jackson. Robert Moses and the Modern City: the Transformation of New York. W.W. Norton, 2008.
Nonko, Emily. “New York City’s Subway Crisis Started with Robert Moses.” Curbed NY, Curbed NY, 27 July 2017, ny.curbed.com/2017/7/27/15985648/nyc-subway-robert-moses-power-broker.
