To date, I cannot personally name another individual who has had a more profound, controversial, significant, and possibly destructive influence on modern New York City than Robert Moses. The Power Broker, one of the most explosive exposes into Moses’s dealings with the city of New York. The book was the first of many to tarnish the generally celebrated reputation of Robert Mose as a city planner and orchestrator of some of the greatest architectural and engineering developments in New York City. It examined the often corrosive tactics Moses used to achieve his aims, and both the positive and negative effects which came as a result.
Robert Moses’s achievements cannot be understated. Much of the infrastructure and mass transport networks that currently occupy New York CIty we owe to Moses. Triborough Bridge, Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, numerous public housing projects, and somewhat more controversially; the cross bronx expressway. The way in which many New Yorkers get from one place to another, and in a larger sense the way they structure their lives are largely impacted by Moses’s creations. New York City would be a much different place without him.
Before I discuss some of Mr. Moses more controversial projects I would like to harp back on the cross bronx expressway which I mentioned before. I often take the cross bronx expressway as it is convenient route from my home on Long Island and my apartment in the Washington Heights. For anyone who hasn’t taken the Cross Bronx, it is a rather narrow (thus explaining the heavy traffic often found on it) passage through a relatively densely populated area of the bronx. The causeway also contains one of the most sad sights that can be found in new york.
As one drives along the cross bronx expressway, it is hard to not notice the decrepit apartment tenements which line the sides. This is characteristic of a public work created by Robert Moses. What became the battle cry for critics of Moses’s methods, and much discussed in The Power Broker, is Moses’ ambivalence towards preexistencing neighborhoods and the profound effects his projects would have on them. Moses tended to ignore the human element in what makes a city a community, and a neighborhood a home. It was this insensitivity which led to the ruin of many a neighborhood such as those bisected by the cross bronx. By creating a massive highway right in between places such as East Tremont and Morrisantia, Moses in effect ruptured the sensitive social fabric which brought places like those together
In review, Moses is still credited as one of the most influential and decisive public officials in New York City. It is very hard to understate his many achievements, but it is even harder to avoid the many criticisms hurled at him. His prominence directly led to the rise of social thinkers critical of his movements towards urban renewal such as Jane Jacobs. As we discussed before, Ms. Jacobs had very differing views on what was best for a city to thrive. Moses will remain both a celebrated and derided figure in New York CIty history.
