He Never Won Elected Office, Yet He Reshaped All of New York
Robert Moses stacked appointed positions to accumulate power, rewrote New York with parks and highways, and wrote racial bias into the city's fabric — his legacy is still being argued over today.
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Never elected, yet he held enormous power
Robert Moses was never elected to any public office in his life, yet he accumulated enormous power through appointment to various government positions. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, his work included 35 highways, 12 bridges, numerous parks, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Shea Stadium, many housing projects, two hydroelectric power plants, and the 1964 New York World's Fair. He has been dead 45 years and remains a divisive figure, and his legacy may be argued over for more than a century.
— Holly FreyHis mentor taught him not to anger voters
Moses became chief of staff of the New York State Reconstruction Commission in 1919 and learned a great deal from Belle Moskovitz. Moskovitz understood deeply how to maneuver within government to achieve goals without antagonizing those in power. One example: in an early draft of a report, Moses suggested cutting part of the workforce, and Moskovitz reminded him that every one of those people was a voter, that they could not be angered, and that a way had to be found to cut costs without cutting that many people. This ‘don't anger the voters’ thinking ran through his later government work.
— Tracy V. WilsonParks were the means, highways were the end
When Moses took over the parks commission, most green space plans merely preserved natural wilderness, but he envisioned adding more manicured landscaping and dedicated recreation areas. More importantly, every time he built a new park, he made sure the project included roads connecting the park to highways — this is where the parkway came from. From the start he planned a large state park system for Long Island, all connected by new roads. In just four years in office, he added 13 parks to Long Island, totaling about 9,700 acres, where previously there had been only one park.
— Holly FreyHis mother lent him $20,000 to save Jones Beach
Jones Beach was originally just a sandbar on the southern edge of Long Island, almost completely submerged at high tide. Moses wanted to turn it into a great park, and most of the government and the media considered it impractical. He first used large-scale dredging to dig about 40 million cubic yards of sand from the seabed, raising the sandbar from two feet above sea level to twelve feet. But the project nearly died when funds ran out, and Moses did something highly unusual: he borrowed $20,000 from his mother Bella to continue the work. He later confirmed that if his mother had not put up the money, the contractor would not have come back with the equipment to finish. Jones Beach finally opened on August 4, 1925, in a dust storm, and an estimated 1.5 million people visited in its first year.
— Tracy V. WilsonHis only campaign, and he lost badly
Moses ran for public office only once in his life. In 1934 he ran for governor of New York and was thoroughly defeated by the incumbent Democratic governor, Herbert H. Lehman. Lehman received more than 2.2 million popular votes; Moses fewer than 1.4 million. Reporting on Lehman's victory, The New York Times wrote: ‘Meanwhile, his formidable and combative opponent, Robert Moses, will be free to continue his work as the great parks commissioner.’ After this defeat he never tried to run for office again, instead continuing to expand his power through appointed positions.
— Holly Frey235 new playgrounds, only one in Harlem
Starting in the 1930s, Moses greatly expanded the city's playgrounds, building 235 new ones. But a pattern began to emerge: he ignored the needs of districts with predominantly non-white populations. Of the 235 playgrounds, only one was in Harlem. In the summer of 1936 he opened 11 new swimming pools: 4 in Manhattan (including one in Harlem and one in West Harlem), 4 in Brooklyn, and 1 each in the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island. These pools had new filtration and chlorination systems, heating, and underwater lighting, and were considered advanced, but they were also designed to be drained in the cooler months and used for other activities, from shuffleboard to roller skating.
— Tracy V. Wilson‘Tear down the slums, just build a road’
In a 1945 article in The Atlantic Monthly, Moses opened by describing how slums form: existing buildings are overcrowded, speculators add tenants, and people are packed into tenements like chickens. But the ‘cure’ he offered was this: clearing slums in most cities is done indirectly — not for public, semi-public, or private housing, but for parks, playgrounds, parkways, highways, boulevards, and other public improvements. He boasted that his ‘demolition and construction devil's brigade’ had torn down more old slums than all the housing experts combined, and that ‘we built nothing but broad highways, flanked by landscaping and recreational facilities.’
— Holly FreyEminent domain is the only salvation
In the article Moses explicitly endorsed the use of eminent domain to acquire land. He wrote that buying large tracts of land at a reasonable price had become impossible, and that in such a situation, ‘eminent domain is the only salvation.’ Eminent domain must be exercised by the city, state, or federal government for private limited-dividend or redevelopment companies. He also criticized unions as ‘a serious obstacle to financing slum clearance,’ accusing them of insisting on retaining hourly wage rights, striking, and ‘resisting invention and improvement in the building field.’ He said this attitude was ‘unreasonable’ and would not change until a better-educated new generation of union officials appeared.
— Tracy V. WilsonIn their own words · checked verbatim
as long as you're fighting for parks, you can be sure of having public opinion on your side. And as long as you have public opinion on your side, you're safe.
Holly Frey11:11
Let us have no illusions about Jones Beach as we found it. It was an isolated swampy sandbar accessible only by small boats and infrequent ferries inhabited by fishermen and loners, surf casters and assorted oddballs and beachcombers trying to get away from it all. The tales told of a lovely primitive paradise wilderness with indestructible dunes were fiction. Jones Beach was in fact a mosquito infested tidal swamp full of stagnant pools flanked by shifting dunes.
Holly Frey14:17
The general pattern of the development of slums is almost always the same. They begin with the overcrowding of existing buildings and the addition of tenants built by consciousness speculators to a considerable height on little land without reference to light, air, sanitation, and other standards of decent living and safety.
Holly Frey25:35
that my particular little group of demolition and building demons is have without fanfare and social worker abracadabra pulled down more old rookeries than all the housing experts and authorities put together. And the best thing about it is we have substituted nothing for the rookeries, but broad highways lined with landscaping and recreation facilities open to the sun and the elements
Holly Frey29:37
in this situation, the power of eminent domain is the only salvation. Condemnation must be exercised for the private limited dividend or redevelopment company by the city, state, or federal government.
Tracy V. Wilson33:43
the notion that every effort to reduce building costs, every advance in building technique is an attack on unionism and a conspiracy against the laboring man is so deep-seated that there seems no possibility of dislodging it. This attitude makes no sense, but it will not change until we deal with another generation of union officials educated in a better school.
Tracy V. Wilson34:45
Figures
| Number of parks Moses added to Long Island during his tenure | 13 parks, about 9,700 acres | 11:11 |
| Sand dredged for Jones Beach | about 40 million cubic yards | 13:14 |
| Amount Moses's mother Bella lent him | $20,000 | 13:14 |
| Visitors to Jones Beach in its first year | about 1.5 million | 15:18 |
| 1934 New York governor's race vote totals | Lehman more than 2.2 million votes, Moses fewer than 1.4 million votes | 22:31 |
| Number of playgrounds Moses built | 235, of which only 1 was in Harlem | 23:33 |
| Number of swimming pools opened in 1936 | 11 | 23:33 |
| Final size of Jones Beach | 2,413 acres, 6.5 miles of oceanfront | 15:18 |
Glossary
- eminent domain
- The government's power to forcibly take private property for public use.
- parkway
- A landscaped road built to connect parks and restricted to non-commercial traffic.
- slum clearance
- An urban renewal method of demolishing slums and redeveloping the land.
- Works Progress Administration
- A New Deal agency that provided federal funding and jobs.
How to listen
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