Moses, Robert (1888–1981)

U.S. civil servant

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Robert Moses grew up on Manhattan's East Side and received a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University. Moses disliked the noise, corruption, and chaos of the New York City of his youth, and committed his life to changing it. In 1924, Governor Al Smith of New York appointed him head of the Long Island State Parks Commission. In this role, Moses established thousands of acres of parks and parkways, including Jones Beach State Park (1930), which was nearly two miles long and an important source of recreation and community for millions thereafter. But Moses had bigger tasks ahead.

In 1934, Moses became the New York City parks commissioner and set out to create the modern metropolis. He saw the city of his youth as too unruly, dirty, and dangerous. He spent billions to eliminate New York's congestion and bedlam. He constructed more than 416 miles of parkways, created over 650 playgrounds, designated millions of acres for parks and recreation facilities throughout the state, and built highways, tunnels, and bridges to connect the boroughs of the sprawling city. These monumental accomplishments included the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (the longest suspension bridge of its time), the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, the United Nations Headquarters, and Lincoln Center. He was dubbed “the man who gets things done.”

A section of the Triborough Bridge under construction in New York City.

Underwood & Underwood/Corbis; used with permission.

Getting things done, however, required abandoning many of the progressive ideals he had held in his youth. Moses gained considerable power and developed an autocratic arrogance for all those who did not share his vision of New York. As head of the Triborough Bridge Authority, he forged an empire outside the control of elected civic officials, leading to many abuses.

By the 1950s, Moses's actions and attitude began to alienate many New Yorkers. First, his aggressive use of urban-renewal funds to bulldoze homes in lower-class neighborhoods, which he replaced with high-rise public housing projects, destroyed many communities. More than 300,000 New Yorkers were uprooted; Moses believed it was the price to pay for progress. Furthermore, he refused to build modern stadiums for New York's sports teams, resulting in the loss of the Giants and Dodgers, two of New York's baseball teams. The final straw came when he proposed putting a parking lot in Central Park and a highway through Washington Square. By the end of the 1950s, city officials pushed Moses out of office. He spent his last years in public service in charge of organizing the 1964 New York World's Fair. In 1968, Governor Nelson Rockefeller took control of the Triborough Bridge Authority away from Moses, who then retired.

Moses epitomized both the positive and negative aspects of city building in the twentieth century. Massive accomplishments made New York a more ordered city and established the modern metropolis. However, rather than fostering close-knit communities, Moses's methods destroyed neighborhoods and created a stale, cold, city where community was contrived, not real. City planners in New York and across the country have spent the last generation trying to restore the bustling, congested character of the urban environment that Moses removed.

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