This may come off as a tad provincial, but Caro's Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Robert Moses is one of my top 5 books of all time and whenever I pick it up, I have trouble putting it down; it's like a moth to a flame. Provincial because it's about my home city, but to me it's still one of the most interesting examples of how the sheer willpower of one person can outshine hordes of people with different opinions.
Long story short, Moses essentially ran New York City's highways and parts for basically 50 years. He supervised the construction of almost all of New York's highways, bridges and tunnels and build enormous parks, such as Jones Beach and Flushing Meadows Corona Park. He preferred the automobile to the train, which is why New York didn't build a single additional subway line for a hundred years, but built one highway after another after another. Since Moses fell from grace in the 1960s, New York had built almost no new highways. the ones that Moses left half-built (like the General Sheridan Expressway) remain half-built to this day. Except for the Second Avenue subway line and the new Penn Station, basically, in the last hundred years in NYC, either Moses did it or it didn't get done.
Along the way, Moses ignored damage to neighborhoods that his projects did, stomped on politicians who stood up to him, cowed the others and basically rode roughshod over everything in his path. The Van Wyck expressway could have been a little wider with a train track running down the middle, but Moses wasn't interested so it didn't happen. He killed the neighborhoods of east Tremont and Spuyten Duyvil by ramming the Cross Bronx Expressway and Henry Hudson Parkway (respectively) through them even though there were good alternatives, because he wanted to.
At one point, when, for once, he was successfully opposed on his Brooklyn-Battery Bridge proposal, he literally drained the New York Aquarium at Battery Park just to spite an opposition member who sat on its board. He was the original Juggernaut and you didn't get in his way if you knew what's good for you.
When Caro's masterpiece came out, NYC had fallen on hard times in the 1970s and the narrative crystalized thar Moses had ruined the City (hence the book's subtitle "Robert Moses and the Fall of New York" ). As NYC recovered in the 90s and 00s, the narrative started to shift and Moses' posthumous stock rose. One prominent NY politician (I forget who, but I think it was either Elliot Spitzer or Andrew Cuomo) said that if the Moses book were written today, the subtitle would be "Robert Moses: At Least He Got Things Done." In the 1970s, the federal government wanted to fund the Westway project, which would have run an interstate highway with a chain of parks up Manhattan's west side, but environmentalist activism and bureaucratic red tape killed the project. If Moses would have still been around, we probably would have simply woken up one morning and it's done. He didn't brook dissent.
Anyway, enough rambling. I'm wondering if anyone has opinions on Moses or any other thoughts (though I imagine no1 sees him as an elitist autocratic monster).
@sh76 saidGetting things done can be a handy trait but if those things are environmental monstrosities the trait becomes a liability and spiteful people are never a good thing.
This may come off as a tad provincial, but Caro's Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Robert Moses is one of my top 5 books of all time and whenever I pick it up, I have trouble putting it down; it's like a moth to a flame. Provincial because it's about my home city, but to me it's still one of the most interesting examples of how the sheer willpower of one person can outshine h ...[text shortened]... ons on Moses or any other thoughts (though I imagine no1 sees him as an elitist autocratic monster).
I suppose if you prefer roads to rails you’d view him as a genius.
@kevcvs57 saidI'd prefer NYC build more rails rather than roads and I despise his destroying neighborhoods (including the once great Jewish community of the South Bronx), but I still view him as a genius.
Getting things done can be a handy trait but if those things are environmental monstrosities the trait becomes a liability and spiteful people are never a good thing.
I suppose if you prefer roads to rails you’d view him as a genius.
Love him or hate him, it's hard to dispute that he was a genius.
@sh76 saidYeah certainly sounds like a force of nature, maybe NYs Isambard kingdom Brunel who was also a bit of a narcissist but maybe it’s a required trait for pushing projects through a resistant system.
I'd prefer NYC build more rails rather than roads and I despise his destroying neighborhoods (including the once great Jewish community of the South Bronx), but I still view him as a genius.
Love him or hate him, it's hard to dispute that he was a genius.