Robert Moses

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Robert Moses
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byNewbold Morris
Personal details
Born(1888-12-18)December 18, 1888
Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York
Political partyRepublican[1]
Spouses
  • Mary Sims
    (m. 1915; died 1966)
  • Mary Alicia Grady
    (m. 1966)
Children2
Education

Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid-20th century. Moses is regarded as one of the most powerful and influential people in the history of New York City and New York State. The grand scale of his infrastructure projects and his philosophy of urban development influenced a generation of engineers, architects, and urban planners across the United States.[2]

Never elected to any office, Moses held various positions throughout his more-than-40-year career. He held as many as 12 titles at once, including

public authorities, through which he controlled millions of dollars in revenue and directly issued bonds
to fund new ventures with little outside input or oversight.

Moses's projects transformed the New York area and revolutionized the way cities in the U.S. were designed and built. As Long Island State Park Commissioner, Moses oversaw the construction of Jones Beach State Park, the most-visited public beach in the United States,[4] and was the primary architect of the New York State Parkway System. As head of the Triborough Bridge Authority, Moses had near-complete control over bridges and tunnels in New York City as well as the tolls collected from them; he built, among others, the Triborough Bridge, the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel, and the Throgs Neck Bridge, as well as several major highways. These roadways and bridges, alongside urban renewal efforts that destroyed huge swaths of tenement housing and replaced them with large public housing projects, transformed the physical fabric of New York and inspired other cities to undertake similar development endeavors.

Moses's reputation declined after the publication of Robert Caro's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography The Power Broker (1974), which cast doubt on the purported benefits of many of Moses's projects and further cast Moses as racist. In large part because of The Power Broker,[5] Moses is today considered a controversial figure in the history of New York City.

Early life and career

Moses was born in

German Jewish parents, Bella (Silverman) and Emanuel Moses.[6][7] He spent the first nine years of his life living at 83 Dwight Street in New Haven, two blocks from Yale University. In 1897, the Moses family moved to New York City,[8] where they lived on East 46th Street off Fifth Avenue.[9] Moses's father was a successful department store owner and real estate speculator in New Haven. In order for the family to move to New York City, he sold his real estate holdings and store, then retired.[8] Moses's mother was active in the settlement movement, with her own love of building. Robert Moses and his brother Paul attended several schools for their elementary and secondary education, including the Ethical Culture School, the Dwight School and the Mohegan Lake School, a military academy near Peekskill.[10]

After graduating from

Oxford (B.A., Jurisprudence, 1911; M.A., 1913), and earning a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University in 1914, Moses became attracted to New York City reform politics.[11] A committed idealist, he developed several plans to rid New York of patronage hiring practices, including being the lead author of a 1919 proposal to reorganize the New York state government. None went very far, but Moses, due to his intelligence, caught the notice of Belle Moskowitz, a friend and trusted advisor to Governor Al Smith.[12] When the state Secretary of State's position became appointive rather than elective, Smith named Moses. He served from 1927 to 1929.[13]

Moses rose to power with Smith, who was elected as governor in 1918, and then again in 1922. With Smith's support, Moses set in motion a sweeping consolidation of the New York State government. During that period Moses began his first foray into large-scale public work initiatives, while drawing on Smith's political power to enact legislation. This helped create the new Long Island State Park Commission and the State Council of Parks.[14] In 1924, Governor Smith appointed Moses chairman of the State Council of Parks and president of the Long Island State Park Commission.[15] This centralization allowed Smith to run a government later used as a model for Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal federal government.[original research?] Moses also received numerous commissions that he carried out efficiently, such as the development of Jones Beach State Park.[citation needed] Displaying a strong command of law as well as matters of engineering, Moses became known for his skill in drafting legislation, and was called "the best bill drafter in Albany".[2] At a time when the public was accustomed to Tammany Hall corruption and incompetence, Moses was seen as a savior of government.[12]

Shortly after

federal government found itself with millions of New Deal dollars to spend, yet states and cities had few projects ready. Moses was one of the few local officials who had projects shovel ready. For that reason, New York City was able to obtain significant Works Progress Administration (WPA), Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and other Depression-era funding. One of his most influential and longest-lasting positions was that of Parks Commissioner of New York City, a role he served from January 18, 1934, to May 23, 1960.[16]

Offices held

The many offices and professional titles that Moses held gave him unusually broad power to shape urban development in the New York metropolitan region. These include, according to the New York Preservation Archive Project:[17]

  • Long Island State Park Commission (President, 1924–1963)
  • New York State Council of Parks (Chairman, 1924–1963)
  • New York Secretary of State (1927–1929)
  • Bethpage State Park Authority (President, 1933–1963)
  • Emergency Public Works Commission (Chairman, 1933–1934)
  • Jones Beach Parkway Authority (President, 1933–1963)
  • New York City Department of Parks (Commissioner, 1934–1960)
  • Triborough Bridge
    and Tunnel Authority (Chairman, 1934–1968)
  • New York City Planning Commission (Commissioner, 1942–1960)
  • New York State Power Authority (Chairman, 1954–1962)
  • New York's World Fair (President, 1960–1966)
  • Office of the Governor of New York (Special Advisor on Housing, 1974–1975)

Influence

During the 1920s, Moses sparred with Franklin D. Roosevelt, then head of the Taconic State Park Commission, who favored the prompt construction of a parkway through the Hudson Valley. Moses succeeded in diverting funds to his Long Island parkway projects (the Northern State Parkway, the Southern State Parkway and the Wantagh State Parkway), although the Taconic State Parkway was later completed as well.[18] Moses helped build Long Island's Meadowbrook State Parkway. It was the first fully divided limited access highway in the world.[19]

Moses was a highly influential figure in the initiation of many of the reforms that restructured New York state's government during the 1920s. A 'Reconstruction Commission' headed by Moses produced a highly influential report that provided recommendations that would largely be adopted, including the consolidation of 187 existing agencies under 18 departments, a new executive budget system, and the four-year term limit for the governorship.[20]

WPA swimming pools

During the

Fiorello H. La Guardia, was especially interested in creating new pools and other bathing facilities, such as those in Jacob Riis Park, Jones Beach, and Orchard Beach.[21][22] He devised a list of 23 pools around the city.[23][24] The pools would be built using funds from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a federal agency created as part of the New Deal to combat the Depression's negative effects.[22][25]

Eleven of these pools were to be designed concurrently and open in 1936. These comprised ten pools at Astoria Park, Betsy Head Park, Crotona Park, Hamilton Fish Park, Highbridge Park, Thomas Jefferson Park, McCarren Park, Red Hook Park, Jackie Robinson Park, and Sunset Park, as well as a standalone facility at Tompkinsville Pool.[26] Moses, along with architects Aymar Embury II and Gilmore David Clarke, created a common design for these proposed aquatic centers. Each location was to have distinct pools for diving, swimming, and wading; bleachers and viewing areas; and bathhouses with locker rooms that could be used as gymnasiums. The pools were to have several common features, such as a minimum 55-yard (50 m) length, underwater lighting, heating, filtration, and low-cost construction materials. To fit the requirement for cheap materials, each building would be built using elements of the Streamline Moderne and Classical architectural styles. The buildings would also be near "comfort stations", additional playgrounds, and spruced-up landscapes.[26][27]

Construction for some of the 11 pools began in October 1934.

New York City landmark status in 1990.[31] Ten of the pools were designated as New York City landmarks in 2007 and 2008.[32]

Moses allegedly fought to keep African American swimmers out of his pools and beaches. One subordinate remembers Moses saying the pools should be kept a few degrees colder, allegedly because Moses believed African Americans did not like cold water.[33]

Water crossings

Triborough Bridge

Part of the Triborough Bridge (left) with Astoria Park and its pool in the center

Although Moses had power over the construction of all

Triborough Bridge Authority that gave him the most power.[12]

The Triborough Bridge (later officially renamed the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge) opened in 1936, connecting the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens via three separate spans. Language in its Authority's bond contracts and multi-year Commissioner appointments made it largely impervious to pressure from mayors and governors. While New York City and New York State were perpetually strapped for money, the bridge's toll revenues amounted to tens of millions of dollars a year. The Authority was thus able to raise hundreds of millions of dollars by selling bonds, a method also used by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey[34] to fund large public construction projects. Toll revenues rose quickly as traffic on the bridges exceeded all projections. Rather than pay off the bonds, Moses used the revenue to build other toll projects, a cycle that would feed on itself.[35]

Brooklyn–Battery link

In the late 1930s a municipal controversy raged over whether an additional vehicular link between Brooklyn and

Queens-Midtown Tunnel and other City projects and refused to provide any additional funds to New York.[36] Awash in funds from Triborough Bridge tolls, Moses deemed that money could only be spent on a bridge. He also clashed with the chief engineer of the project, Ole Singstad, who preferred a tunnel instead of a bridge.[12]

Only a lack of a key federal approval thwarted the bridge project. President Roosevelt ordered the

Hugh L. Carey Tunnel), a tunnel connecting Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan. A 1941 publication from the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority claimed that the government had forced them to build a tunnel at "twice the cost, twice the operating fees, twice the difficulty to engineer, and half the traffic," although engineering studies did not support these conclusions, and a tunnel may have held many of the advantages Moses publicly tried to attach to the bridge option.[12]

This had not been the first time Moses pressed for a bridge over a tunnel. He had tried to upstage the Tunnel Authority when the

Queens-Midtown Tunnel was being planned.[37] He had raised the same arguments, which failed due to their lack of political support.[37]

Post-war influence of urban development and projects

The headquarters of the United Nations in New York City, viewed from the East River. The Secretariat Building is on the left and the General Assembly Building is the low structure to the right of the tower. This set of buildings straddles the FDR Drive, another of Moses's creations.

Moses's power increased after World War II after Mayor LaGuardia retired and a series of successors consented to almost all of his proposals. Named city "construction coordinator" in 1946 by Mayor William O'Dwyer, Moses became New York City's de facto representative in Washington. Moses was also given powers over public housing that had eluded him under LaGuardia. When O'Dwyer was forced to resign in disgrace and was succeeded by Vincent R. Impellitteri, Moses was able to assume even greater behind-the-scenes control over infrastructure projects.[12] One of Moses's first steps after Impellitteri took office was halting the creation of a citywide Comprehensive Zoning Plan underway since 1938 that would have curtailed his nearly unlimited power to build within the city and removed the Zoning Commissioner from power in the process. Moses was also empowered as the sole authority to negotiate in Washington for New York City projects. By 1959, he had overseen construction of 28,000 apartment units on hundreds of acres of land. In clearing the land for high-rises in accordance with the towers in the park concept, which at that time was seen as innovative and beneficial by leaving more grassy areas between high-rises, Moses sometimes destroyed almost as many housing units as he built.[12]

From the 1930s to the 1960s, Robert Moses was responsible for the construction of the

United Nations headquarters.[12]

Moses had influence outside the New York area as well. Public officials in many smaller American cities hired him to design freeway networks in the 1940s and early 1950s. For example,

Fremont Bridge were built.[38]

Moses himself did not know how to drive an automobile.

freeways, most notably in the form of the vast, federally funded Interstate Highway System network.[12]

Brooklyn Dodgers

When

NBA's Brooklyn Nets). O'Malley urged Moses to help him secure the property through eminent domain, but he refused, having already decided to build a parking garage on the site. Moreover, O'Malley's proposal — to have the city acquire the property for several times as much as he had originally said he was willing to pay — was rejected by both pro- and anti-Moses officials, newspapers, and the public as an unacceptable government subsidy of a private business enterprise.[40]

Moses envisioned New York's newest stadium being built in Queens'

Flushing Meadows on the former (and as it turned out, future) site of the World's Fair, where it would eventually host all three of the city's major league teams of the day. O'Malley vehemently opposed this plan, citing the team's Brooklyn identity. Moses refused to budge, and after the 1957 season the Dodgers left for Los Angeles and the New York Giants left for San Francisco.[12] Moses was later able to build the 55,000-seat multi-purpose Shea Stadium on the site; construction ran from October 1961 to its delayed completion in April 1964. The stadium attracted an expansion franchise: the New York Mets, who played at Shea until 2008, when the stadium was demolished and replaced with Citi Field. The NFL's New York Jets also played its home games at Shea from 1964 until 1983, after which the team moved its home games to the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey.[41]

End of the Moses era

View of the 1964–1965 New York World's Fair as seen from the observation towers of the New York State pavilion. The Fair's symbol, the Unisphere, is the central image.

Moses's reputation began to fade during the 1960s. Around this time, Moses's political acumen began to fail him, as he unwisely picked several controversial political battles he could not possibly win. For example, his campaign against the free Shakespeare in the Park program received much negative publicity, and his effort to destroy a shaded playground in Central Park to make way for a parking lot for the expensive Tavern-on-the-Green restaurant earned him many enemies among the middle-class voters of the Upper West Side.

A 1964 Parks Department map showing numerous Robert Moses projects, including several highways that went unbuilt or were only partially completed.

The opposition reached a climax over the demolition of

Mid-Manhattan Expressway both failed politically. One of his most vocal critics during this time was the urban activist Jane Jacobs, whose book The Death and Life of Great American Cities was instrumental in turning opinion against Moses's plans; the city government rejected the expressway in 1964.[45]

Moses's power was further eroded by his association with the

Seattle in 1962. According to the rules of the organization, no one nation could host more than one fair in a decade. The major European democracies, as well as Canada, Australia, and the Soviet Union, were all BIE members and they declined to participate, instead reserving their efforts for Expo 67 in Montreal
.

Robert Moses gives a salute after the ribbon-cutting ceremony to open the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge on November 21, 1964

After the World's Fair debacle, New York City mayor

Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority's (TBTA) bridges and tunnels to cover deficits in the city's then financially ailing agencies, including the subway system. Moses opposed this idea and fought to prevent it.[43]
Lindsay then removed Moses from his post as the city's chief advocate for federal highway money in Washington.

The legislature's vote to fold the TBTA into the newly created

Chase Manhattan Bank, headed then by David Rockefeller, the governor's brother. No suit was filed. Moses could have directed TBTA to go to court against the action, but having been promised a role in the merged authority, Moses declined to challenge the merger. On March 1, 1968, the TBTA was folded into the MTA and Moses gave up his post as chairman of the TBTA. He eventually became a consultant to the MTA, but its new chairman and the governor froze him out—the promised role did not materialize, and for all practical purposes Moses was out of power.[41]

Moses had thought he had convinced Nelson Rockefeller of the need for one last great bridge project, a span

. Rockefeller did not press for the project in the late 1960s through 1970, fearing public backlash among suburban Republicans would hinder his re-election prospects. A 1972 study found the bridge was fiscally prudent and could be environmentally manageable (according to the comparatively low environmental impact parameters of that period), but the anti-development sentiment was now insurmountable and in 1973 Rockefeller canceled plans for the bridge.

The Power Broker

External videos
video icon Presentation by Robert Caro on Robert Moses and urban development at the Brookings Institution, September 28, 1998, C-SPAN

Moses's image suffered a further blow in 1974 with the publication of

public transit. Much of Moses's reputation is attributable to Caro, whose book won both the Pulitzer Prize in Biography in 1975 and the Francis Parkman Prize (which is awarded by the Society of American Historians), and was named one of the 100 greatest non-fiction books of the twentieth century by the Modern Library.[47][12] Upon its publication, Moses denounced the biography in a 23-page statement, to which Caro replied to defend his work's integrity.[49]

Caro's depiction of Moses's life gives him full credit for his early achievements, showing, for example, how he conceived and created Jones Beach and the New York State Park system, but also shows how Moses's desire for power came to be more important to him than his earlier dreams. Moses is blamed for having destroyed more than a score of neighborhoods by building 13 expressways across New York City and by building large

Mies van der Rohe, had supported Moses. Many other cities, like Newark, Chicago, and St. Louis, also built massive, unattractive public housing projects.[50][12] However, Caro also points out that Moses demonstrated racist tendencies.[51] These allegedly included opposing black World War II veterans to move into a residential complex specifically designed for these veterans,[52][failed verification] and purportedly trying to make swimming pool water cold in order to drive away potential African American residents in white neighborhoods.[53]

People had come to see Moses as a bully who disregarded public input, but until the publication of Caro's book, they had not known many details of his private life—for instance, that his older brother Paul had spent much of his life in poverty. Moses was said to have blocked Paul, an engineer, from being hired for any public service jobs including major infrastructure projects that Moses himself had spearheaded.[54] Paul, whom Caro interviewed shortly before the former's death, claimed Robert had exerted undue influence on their mother to change her will in Robert's favor shortly before her death.[12] Caro notes that Paul was on bad terms with their mother over a long period and she may have changed the will of her own accord, and implies that Robert's subsequent treatment of Paul may have been legally justifiable but was morally questionable.[12]

Death

The crypt of Robert Moses

During the last years of his life, Moses concentrated on his lifelong love of

swimming
and was an active member of the Colonie Hill Health Club.

Moses died of

Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip, New York
.

Moses was of Jewish origin and raised in a

The Bronx, New York City following services at St. Peter's by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Bay Shore, New York
.

Legacy

Various locations and roadways in New York State bear Moses's name. These include two state parks, Robert Moses State Park – Thousand Islands in Massena, New York and Robert Moses State Park – Long Island, the Robert Moses Causeway on Long Island, and the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant in Lewiston, New York. The Niagara Scenic Parkway in Niagara Falls, New York was originally named the Robert Moses State Parkway in his honor; its name was changed in 2016. The Moses-Saunders Power Dam in Massena, New York also bears his name. Moses also has a school named after him in North Babylon, New York on Long Island; there is also a Robert Moses Playground in New York City. There are other signs of the surviving appreciation held for him by some circles of the public. A statue of Moses was erected next to the Village Hall in his long-time hometown, Babylon Village, New York.

During his tenure as chief of the state park system, the state's inventory of parks grew to nearly 2,600,000 acres (1,100,000 ha). By the time he left office, he had built 658 playgrounds in New York City alone, plus 416 miles (669 km) of parkways and 13 bridges.[56] However, the proportion of public benefit corporations is greater in New York than in any other U.S. state, making them the prime mode of infrastructure building and maintenance in New York and accounting for 90% of the state's debt.[57]

Appraisal

Criticism and The Power Broker

Moses's life was most famously characterized in Robert Caro's 1974 award-winning biography The Power Broker.

The book highlighted his practice of starting large projects well beyond any funding approved by the New York State legislature, with the knowledge that it would eventually have to pay for the rest to avoid looking as having failed to review the project properly (a tactic known as

communists during the Red Scare. The biography further notes that Moses fought against schools and other public needs in favor of his preference for parks.[12]

Moses's critics charge that he preferred automobiles over people. They point out that he displaced hundreds of thousands of residents in New York City and destroyed traditional neighborhoods by building multiple expressways through them. The projects contributed to the ruin of the

New York Giants Major League baseball teams to relocate to Los Angeles and San Francisco respectively, and precipitated the decline of public transport from disinvestment and neglect.[12] His building of expressways also hindered the proposed expansion of the New York City Subway from the 1930s to well into the 1960s because the parkways and expressways that were built replaced, at least to some extent, the planned subway lines. The 1968 Program for Action (which was never completed) was hoped to counter that.[12]
Other critics charge that he precluded the use of public transit, which would have allowed non-car-owners to enjoy the elaborate recreation facilities he built.

Racism

Caro's The Power Broker also accused Moses of building low bridges across his parkways in order to make them inaccessible to public transit buses, thereby restricting "the use of state parks by poor and lower-middle-class families" who did not own cars. Caro also wrote that Moses attempted to discourage Black people in particular from visiting Jones Beach, the centerpiece of the Long Island state park system, by such measures as making it difficult for Black groups to get permits to park buses, even if they came anyway (by other roads), and assigning Black lifeguards to "distant, less developed beaches" instead.[33] While the exclusion of commercial vehicles and the use of low bridges where appropriate were standard on earlier parkways, where they had been instituted for aesthetic reasons, Moses appears to have made greater use of low bridges, which his aide Sidney Shapiro said was done to make it more difficult for future legislators to allow commercial vehicles.[58][59] Woolgar and Cooper refer to the claim about bridges as an "urban legend".[60]

Moses vocally opposed allowing Black war veterans to move into

Stuyvesant Town, a Manhattan residential development complex created to house World War II veterans.[52][12] In response to the biography, Moses defended his forced displacement of poor and minority communities as an inevitable part of urban revitalization: "I raise my stein to the builder who can remove ghettos without moving people as I hail the chef who can make omelets without breaking eggs."[49]

Additionally, there were allegations that Moses selectively chose locations for recreational facilities based on the racial compositions of neighborhood, such as when he selected sites for eleven pools that opened in 1936. According to one author, Moses purposely placed some pools in neighborhoods with mainly-white populations to deter African Americans from using them, and other pools intended for African Americans, such as the one in Colonial Park, now

Thomas Jefferson Pool, in then-predominantly-white East Harlem, by making the water too cold.[63][53] However, no other source has corroborated the claim that heaters in any particular pool were deactivated or not included in the pool's design.[64]

In addition, Moses took a favorable view on the British Empire and a racism much broader than solely the African American Community. He had spoken of British Empire as useful in stemming the "rise of the lesser breeds without the law".[65]

Reappraisal

Some scholars have attempted to rehabilitate Moses's reputation by contrasting the scale of works with the high cost and the slow speed of public works in the decades following his era. The peak of Moses's construction occurred during the economic duress of the

Big Dig project.[66]

Three major exhibits in 2007 prompted a reconsideration of his image among some intellectuals, as they acknowledged the magnitude of his achievements. According to the Columbia University architectural historian Hilary Ballon and colleagues, Moses deserves a better reputation. They argue that his legacy is more relevant than ever and that people take the parks, playgrounds, and housing that Moses built, now generally binding forces in those areas, for granted even if the old-style New York neighborhood was of no interest to Moses himself. Moreover, were it not for Moses's public infrastructure and his resolve to carve out more space, New York might not have been able to recover from the blight and flight of the 1970s and the 1980s to become today's economic magnet.[67]

"Every generation writes its own history," said Kenneth T. Jackson, a historian of New York City to the New York Times in 2007. "It could be that The Power Broker was a reflection of its time: New York was in trouble and had been in decline for 15 years. Now, for a whole host of reasons, New York is entering a new time, a time of optimism, growth and revival that hasn't been seen in half a century. And that causes us to look at our infrastructure," said Jackson. "A lot of big projects are on the table again, and it kind of suggests a Moses era without Moses," he added.[67] Politicians are also reconsidering the Moses legacy; in a 2006 speech to the Regional Plan Association on downstate transportation needs, New York Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer stated a biography of Moses written today might be called At Least He Got It Built: "That's what we need today. A real commitment to get things done."[68]

In popular culture

  • Moses is the subject of a satirical song by John Forster entitled "The Ballad of Robert Moses", included on his 1997 album Helium.[69]
  • In season 3, episode 2 of the television series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, "Kimmy's Roommate Lemonades", Kimmy is shown considering attendance at several New York City colleges with comedic names based on the city's culture and history. One was originally called "Robert Moses College for Whites", and its sign has been altered by crossing out "Whites" and replacing it with the word "Everyone".[70]
  • Moses is the subject of a critical song by NYHC band Sick of It All entitled "Robert Moses was a racist", included on their 2018 album Wake the sleeping dragon!.[71]
  • The band Bob Moses is named after Robert Moses.[72]
  • A fictionalized version of Moses is the main villain of The Unsleeping City, the third season of the web series Dimension 20.
  • The character of Moses Randolph in
    Motherless Brooklyn is based on Robert Moses.[73]
  • At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, when many TV commentators, politicians and others worked from their homes, The New York Times noted the frequent placement of The Power Broker as a background element.[74]
  • The
    America", a group of Puerto Rican demonstrators appear, protesting their pending evictions, and one of them holds a sign condemning Robert Moses.[75]

See also

References

  1. ^ Robert Caro, The Power Broker, 1975.
  2. ^ a b Caro, Robert A. (July 22, 1974). "Annals of Power". The New Yorker. Retrieved September 1, 2011.
  3. ^ Sarachan, Sydney (January 17, 2013). "The legacy of Robert Moses". Need to Know | PBS. Retrieved December 3, 2019.
  4. ^ "Jones Beach". Long Island Exchange. Archived from the original on January 21, 2013. Retrieved November 21, 2012.
  5. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved March 23, 2024.
  6. ^ "Robert Moses, Master Builder, is Dead at 92". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016.
  7. ^ Caro 1974, p. 25.
  8. ^ a b Caro 1974, pp. 29.
  9. ^ DeWan, George (2007). "The Master Builder". Long Island History. Newsday. Archived from the original on December 11, 2006. Retrieved April 4, 2007.
  10. ^ Caro 1974, pp. 35.
  11. ^ "Robert Moses".
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Caro 1974.
  13. ^ "Moses Resigns State Position". Cornell Daily Sun. Ithaca, NY. December 19, 1928. p. 8.
  14. ^ Gutfreund, Owen. "Moses, Robert". Anb.org. Retrieved December 24, 2014.
  15. .
  16. ^ "New York City Parks Commissioners : NYC Parks". www.nycgovparks.org. Retrieved March 29, 2018.
  17. ^ "Robert Moses |". www.nypap.org. Retrieved March 29, 2018.
  18. ^ "Taconic State Parkway". NYCRoads.com. Retrieved May 25, 2006.
  19. ^ Leonard, Wallock (1991). The Myth of The Master Builder. Journal of Urban History. p. 339.
  20. ^ Caro 1974, pp. 106, 260.
  21. OCLC 13860977
    .
  22. ^ .
  23. . Retrieved August 9, 2019.
  24. ^ "Public Swimming Facilities in New York City" (PDF) (Press release). New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. July 23, 1934. p. 3 (PDF p. 30). Retrieved January 6, 2021.
  25. ^ "City to Construct 9 Pools To Provide Safe Swimming". New York Daily News. July 23, 1934. p. 8. Retrieved August 18, 2019 – via newspapers.com Open access icon.
  26. ^ a b "History of Parks' Swimming Pools". New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
  27. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved January 8, 2021.
  28. . Retrieved January 13, 2021.
  29. ^ "Revisiting The 11 Pools Whose Gala Openings Defined 1936". Curbed NY. August 29, 2013.
  30. .
  31. . Retrieved January 11, 2021.
  32. . Retrieved May 12, 2021 – via ProQuest.
  33. ^ a b Caro 1974, pp. 318–319.
  34. .
  35. ^ a b Carion, Carlos. "Robert Moses" (PDF). Nexus.umn.edu. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 26, 2014. Retrieved December 24, 2014.
  36. ^ "Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel (I-478)". Nycroads.com. Retrieved March 12, 2014.
  37. ^ a b "Queens-Midtown Tunnel". NYCRoads.com. Retrieved August 1, 2010.
  38. ^ Mesh, Aaron (November 5, 2014). "Feb. 4, 1974: Portland kills the Mount Hood Freeway". Willamette Week. Retrieved November 21, 2014. Every great civilization has an origin story. For modern Portland, it is an exodus from Moses. That's Robert Moses, the master builder of New York City's grid of expressways and bridges who brought the Big Apple its car commuters, smog and sprawl. In 1943, the city of Portland hired Moses to design its urban future. Moses charted a highway loop around the city's core with a web of spur freeways running through neighborhoods. The city and state embraced much of the plan. The loop Moses envisioned became Interstate 405 as it links with I-5 south of downtown and runs north across the Fremont Bridge.
  39. .
  40. ^ Fetter, Henry D. (Winter 2008). "Revising the Revisionists: Walter O'Malley, Robert Moses, and the End of the Brooklyn Dodgers". New York History (New York State Historical Association). Archived from the original on May 5, 2010.
  41. ^ a b Murphy, Robert (June 24, 2009). "OMalley-vs-Moses". Huffington Post.
  42. ^ Lopate, Phillip (March 13, 2007). "Rethinking Robert Moses". Metropolis Magazine. Archived from the original on March 1, 2009. Retrieved October 9, 2010.
  43. ^ a b Kay, Jane Holtz (April 24, 1989). "Robert Moses: The Master Builder" (PDF). The Nation. 248 (16): 569. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 16, 2004. Retrieved October 9, 2010.
  44. ^ "Environmental and Urban Economics: Robert Moses: New York City's Master Builder?". Greeneconomics.blogspot.com. May 6, 2007. Retrieved March 12, 2014.
  45. ^ "The Next American System — The Master Builder (1977)". PBS. February 3, 2010.
  46. ^ "Robert Moses: Long Island's Master Builder". YouTube. Archived from the original on November 14, 2021. Retrieved December 24, 2014.
  47. ^ a b "Robert Moses". Learn.columbia.edu. Archived from the original on October 28, 2017. Retrieved December 24, 2014.
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Bibliography

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Political offices
Preceded by Secretary of State of New York
January 17, 1927 – January 1, 1929
Succeeded by
Civic offices
Preceded by
Unified
Commissioner of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
January 18, 1934 – May 23, 1960
Succeeded by
Government offices
Preceded by
Established
Chairman of the
New York State Council of Parks

April 30, 1924 – January 1, 1963
Succeeded by
Preceded by Chairman of the
Triborough Bridge Authority

November 14, 1936 – April 25, 1946
Succeeded by
Merged into Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority
Preceded by
Unified
Chairman of the
Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority

April 26, 1946 – February 29, 1968
Succeeded by
Preceded by
John E. Burton
Chairman of the New York Power Authority
March 8, 1954 – January 1, 1963
Succeeded by
James A. FitzPatrick
Party political offices
Preceded by
William Joseph Donovan
Republican Nominee for Governor of New York
1934
Succeeded by