Was the Cross Bronx Expressway worth building? No.
This is true not because the CBE is riddled with traffic nowadays. It is not because a train would have been better. It is not even necessarily because thousands of families were displaced from their homes in the wake of the road’s construction. If one were to make any of these arguments, he would fall into the dialectic game of pros versus cons– a game that Robert Moses would eventually (and did in fact) win with his statement that the lives of some families in the way of a highway will not be remembered or cared about as history washes them away.
He was right. The masses don’t remember this particular diaspora. So to take on the question of the CBE from any utilitarian perspective leads to the justification of its existence.
The problem lies in logical fallacy of utilitarianism. Not only is it wrong; it is like a disease.
The neighborhood of East Tremont was a healthy part of the body of NYC. And interestingly enough, it became this way through it’s own organic means– a testimony to the good will of a community. It did not become this way because one man decided it would be so.
East Tremont’s demise began not when they received a letter to be evicted. It began when Robert Moses decided not to see humanity, but utility. This is the disease that did them in. The CBE was just a side effect.
Peter Fields
