‘The Power Broker’ at 50: How Robert Moses Still Shapes New York City and the World
Many of New York City’s current residents likely don’t know the man who shaped their city — Robert Moses. His name appears infrequently. I lived in Manhattan for over a decade before discovering Moses, who arguably impacted this city and state more than anyone.
As described in Robert Caro’s classic biography, The Power Broker, Moses left an indelible footprint on New York and influenced countless government officials globally. After reading the book, I can attest that his complicated legacy continues to this day.
The Power Broker recently turned 50 years old. It was originally published in September 1974. At the time, its voluminous tale of Moses’s raw exercise of power as a public servant was unfathomable and shocking to most people. Moses demonstrated what achievements and consequences are possible with unchecked power.
From bridges and beaches to parks and parkways, New Yorkers still spend their daily lives using the public works Moses believed would make him immortal. The Power Broker does a masterful job of telling the complex tale of Robert Moses; a story that remains relevant today as cities like New York continue to struggle with transportation, affordable housing, and urban planning.
Robert Moses: public servant or public autocrat?
Robert Moses was a builder. But he wasn’t an engineer. He wasn’t an architect or a construction worker. He never swung a hammer (to my knowledge).
Instead, Robert Moses was a more amorphous and mysterious of figures — an unelected government bureaucrat.
Despite never once being elected to public office, Robert Moses ruled over New York City and New York State from 1924 to 1968. He commanded the powerful Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, and the Long Island State Park Commission, among other roles.
Moses institutionalized himself by convincing New York politicians to pass laws without reading or understanding their fine print. Those laws insulated Moses, preventing multiple administrations of governors and New York City mayors from challenging his authority. Moses forced them to bend the knee.
There’s no evidence that Robert Moses ever accepted monetary bribes or otherwise benefited financially from his power. The power was the juice that quenched his thirst.
His raw exercise of unchecked power routinely destroyed neighborhoods. It allowed him to flout the law, coerce politicians from all political parties, and leave a wake of social calamity that continues to this day.
Robert Caro does a masterful job telling this complicated story, which he divided into three parts: (i) Moses’s rise to power; (ii) his exercise of power; and (iii) his loss of power. Caro’s research skills are unparalleled and his source materials — drawn from hundreds of interviews and public records — enrich the story.
For example, the harrowing details pulled from interviews of those whose homes were razed and destroyed so Moses could build his parkways and expressways were absolutely riveting.
The Power Broker illustrates the significant costs of Moses’s many accomplishments, with a list of everything he built serving as the introduction to the book ($27 billion in public works projects over his career!). Even Caro admits that Robert Moses “was undoubtedly America’s greatest builder.”
The list of public works built by Robert Moses is as impressive as the misery he caused for many communities. Many of the heavily minority-populated areas of New York City still don’t have great parks or water access because Moses designed them that way. Instead of building great underground subways, Moses erected bridges and elevated roadways, many of the largest cutting through minority neighborhoods. These vast arteries displaced thousands and still divide New York City, blighting an otherwise beautiful metropolis.
Robert Moses was largely praised at the time for completing his many public works. He was lauded as an exemplary public servant. Bureaucrats and government officials from around the world visited, studied, and copied his strategies and tactics.
In the end, Caro’s main theme gets Moses’s enduring legacy correct — none of his public works were for the public good. They were for power. Influence. Ego. Immortality.
These public works demonstrated what an unelected public autocrat can accomplish, while also warning what an unchecked autocrat can destroy.
The impact of ‘The Power Broker’ and how it shapes New York City today
Robert Moses rose to power as a champion of mothers and children. He built parks and playgrounds across New York City, on Long Island, and throughout Westchester County (north of New York City). People initially celebrated Moses.
It helped that Robert Moses had strong connections in the media and in government. And given his self-created and insulated power, he was effectively untouchable. Politicians knew it. So many of them went along with whatever he said, barring a few exceptions (namely, FDR and Nelson Rockefeller).
Moses used the backdoors and smoky rooms to push his projects through, sidestepping democratic processes (e.g., standard reviews, approvals, etc.). Ironically, he would later use Communist epithets on opponents during the infamous Joseph McCarthy era.
The Power Broker told this full story of Robert Moses for the first time. The respected and celebrated builder, the bureaucrat above reproach, was transformed into a power-hungry villain overnight. In many ways it was understandable, as is the current view of Robert Moses shared by many of my fellow New Yorkers today.
Some of the parks and playgrounds he built were eventually razed — at his own direction — to build parking lots. People were evicted from their homes en masse for his projects that received no democratic approval. They were approved by only one man — Robert Moses.
We suffer today in New York City from Robert Moses’s lack of vision. He came of age in the era of the car, but the problem was he was driven everywhere by a chauffeur in a large black limousine. Moses never had to commute a day in his life driving himself.
This lack of empathy for commuters and his fixation on cars led him to push roads, parkways, and bridge projects everywhere he could. As a result, to this day in New York City we have traffic everywhere. We lack the beautiful pedestrian-only boulevards of European capitals.
Only now are there finally plans to expand Manhattan’s 5th Avenue to make it more suitable for pedestrians (we probably won’t see it completed for a decade or more). Only a handful of new subway lines have been completed in recent decades, with major technological and logistical challenges for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to overcome.
The New York City subway is outdated. It doesn’t help it was largely neglected during Moses’s reign — a time when Moses pushed car-centric projects without any democratic checks on his decision-making.
Robert Moses is the perfect example of the dangers posed by unelected bureaucrats. Especially those who crave power and believe the ends justify the means. It’s a reminder today that we need checks to ensure another Robert Moses cannot rise and rule in such an unchecked manner again.
Now after reading The Power Broker, whenever I’m driving over the Triborough Bridge or on any of the other arteries Moses was responsible for searing into the skin of New York City, I’m reminded that there’s little worse than an autocrat without vision. He was able to force his ideas upon an entire city and state without any checks. We still live with these ideas today.
‘The Power Broker’ is still a crucial text for understanding cities, urban development, and power
Robert Caro has done a few interviews to commemorate and celebrate the 50th anniversary of his seminal book (he won the Pulitzer Prize for it in 1975). In an interview with The New York Times, he mentioned how politicians and government officials to this day still talk to him about reading it. Anyone interested in power probably faithfully reads the book, too.
My one big criticism of this 1,000+ page book on Robert Moses and New York is that it wasn’t long enough. There were so many little anecdotes that may have warranted separate books unto themselves. Like Moses’s tumultuous relationship with FDR. How he originally designed Jones Beach on Long Island to be segregated. The list goes on.
Each episode that fit into the entire narrative was so fascinating, so jaw-dropping, and so crazy to think it was real that I only wanted to read more. How could someone wield the power to control mayors, governors, and even presidents from some unelected office at the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority?
The levers of power pulled by Robert Moses will be studied by generations to come. Unfortunately for my fellow New Yorkers and anyone who visits our great city, you’ll probably have to deal with the massive parkways and expressways that divide her for the rest of your lives, too.
All thanks to one man: Robert Moses.
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