Robert Moses, by many accounts, was not a good man. He was manipulative, conniving, deceitful, and a terror to his enemies. However, it cannot be argued that Moses was not a great man. A titanic figure in the history of New York, he has arguably done more than any other single person to change New York City. He used all of the powers to him to shape New York City to conform to his vision. The projects completed under Moses’ watch include highways, parks, bridges and housing across the city.
The arguably most influential of his projects would be the system of highways that would spread across the boroughs, connecting what had once been the distant outskirts with the hub of the city. With this connection, people could move out of the city to the newly established suburbs of Long Island while still remaining connected to the city for work. Because of this ease of connection, Robert Moses’ highways would be a leading cause of the “white flight” of the 1960s and 70s, and the wide spread decay that would come to define the city in the late 70s and early 80s as a result of it. Those that left were predominately white and upper class, and the loss of a substantial part of the tax base would leave the city starved for money in the years before its near bankruptcy.
Despite this, Robert Moses did do some good for the city. Cultural landmarks such as Lincoln Center would not exist without Moses, and controversial as they are, his highways would become a template for the expansion of the highway system across the country.
Jon Baumann
