Robert Moses represents a significant and controversial figure in New York City’s history. He represents a man who was pivotal in creating the layout and outlook of the city as it is today, as well as a man who worked to bring his vision to reality without care for those who served as collateral damage. In Hilary Ballon and Kenneth Jackson’s Robert Moses and the Transformation of New York, Moses and his plans for the city were discussed and debated, outlining the goals he wanted to achieve and how he achieved them. Moses advocated for complete urban redevelopment, leading the largest slum clearance program in the 1950s (Ballon 94). In doing so, he aimed to bring back the middle class with affordable housing to reduce the polarization between the two extremes of the social class spectrum, to establish New York as a center of higher education by making land available for university expansion, and to elevate the status of the city in the nation and the world through installations of different “world-class cultural institutions” (Ballon 106). Finally, he wanted to create expressways throughout the city as a more efficient way of traveling through automobile rather than the “ancient relic” of the public transport system (Jackson 68-69). He argued that the city was built “by and for traffic” (Fishman 125). From his perspective, the city needed to be redeveloped in order to make it more efficient and uniform, as well as to create a center of success and culture known across the globe.
Spring 2018: Shaping the Future of New York City
a macaulay honors college seminar taught by prof. gaston alonso
