Thank Goodness for the Battle of Central Park

I was particularly drawn to the chapter from The Power Broker because it told a real story with a beginning, middle, and end about a real part of the Robert Moses regime. I enjoyed watching how the protests against the Tavern on the Green parking lot grew from an underestimated grumbling from local mothers to a citywide and nationwide spectacle that finally made everyone– not just the evicted- aware of his dark side. I am especially impressed and proud that mothers/women of that time had enough influence in their protests to make headlines. With sexism still so rampant even in large northern cities, I didn’t think anything would have gotten done.

My first impression was that the Battle of Central Park was a victory for democracy, but I found Tyler’s opinion fascinating. I suppose I do agree with him that the battle might not have been a democratic victory, but rather a victory for freedom of speech. Giving it further thought, perhaps the whole battle would have been more democratic if we had heard more from Robert Moses. But Robert Moses was strangely elusive during most of the telling of the story. Perhaps this is the book’s own biased way of painting him in a bad light, but I don’t feel that the battle could have been democratic if one side was missing. We saw the actions of the other side, of course, but I would have liked to hear more worded arguments in response to the protests. I also wanted to hear real words from the Tavern on the Green itself. For most of the battle, it seemed that the mothers of Central Park and Robert Moses’ people were arguing with the Tavern on the Green in the middle- what did the owner/manager personally think about it? Perhaps they kept quiet because, as would soon be unearthed, the restaurant skimped on tens of thousands of dollars in taxes to New York. I wonder if a parking lot, since the 1950’s, has been added to the Tavern on the Green through some other means? I never recalled seeing one, but it would be quite ironic if there was one!

I appreciated reading a more positive view on Robert Moses in The Rise of New York, but having read that after The Power Broker chapter, it was hard for me to retract my new dislike of him. I did like that the article mentioned a few downsides of The Power Broker, however, because I realized how easy it was to get swept up in the exciting anti-Moses opinion. The article operated a lot like a book review, though, and I would have liked to see more pro-Moses research and stats to help support his case. A lot of the writing in that piece sounded like opinion, to me. Among the three readings, The Rise of New York is the more even-tempered one- The Death and Life of Great American Cities is an even more staunchly anti-Moses perspective.