Evidence Moses lowered overpasses to block Black people comes from only a dead witness
The claim originates from Moses's assistant Sidney Shapiro telling Caro, but Shapiro died two years before the book was published, and several of the allegedly lowered bridges were actually built to match existing Westchester County designs.
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Charming in person, ruthless with a pen
A contemporary described Moses as 'personable in public and social settings, but becomes a fierce fighter the moment he puts pen to paper.' He actually wrote his own material—his prose was excellent, and any ghostwriter that skilled would have become famous themselves. He was also genuinely charming, which is partly how he built and maintained his coalition of supporters over decades, not through bullying but by knowing when to apply pressure and when to hold back. This echoes an earlier caution from Bill Moskovitz: don't permanently alienate people you might need to work with again.
He remarried less than a month after his wife died
Moses's first wife died, and he remarried in less than a month. Caro's biography contains a long section implying improper relationships with women, including rumors of an affair with Ruth Pratt, New York's first female congresswoman. Moses responded with language of extraordinary ferocity, calling it 'a personal, vile, false and malicious, retaliatory slander,' and specifically emphasized that his travel companion on a Florida trip was only his daughter Jan.
The overpasses were copied from existing Westchester County designs
The claim that 'Moses lowered bridges to block buses' circulates constantly on social media, treated almost as settled fact. But a group of historians, architects, and urban planning scholars contend that Caro's narrative is either fabricated or significantly exaggerated. Their reasoning: these contested bridges were largely built to match the dimensions of existing bridges already standing in Westchester County. Some bridges were indeed unusually low, but analysis suggests this resulted from terrain and geological conditions rather than deliberate design.
The sole witness died two years before the book came out
The entire 'Moses lowered overpasses to block Black people' narrative rests on engineer Sidney Shapiro relaying this account to Caro during over 100 hours of interviews. The catch: Shapiro died two years before Caro's book was published, making the claim impossible to verify. Caro states in interviews that 'Moses was one of the most racist people I've ever met'—probably true—but that doesn't confirm this particular allegation.
Plausible to suspect but never proven beyond doubt
The verdict: claiming Moses deliberately built low bridges to keep buses away—and thus keep 'undesirable' people off the beaches—makes logical sense but remains unproven. More troubling: pinning all of New York's infrastructure racism on Moses alone obscures the larger truth that the entire system was already fundamentally racist. Similar segregationist infrastructure existed throughout NYC, not just in Moses's projects. He was operating within an existing racist system, not inventing one by himself.
The highway zealot who never learned to drive
Here's the irony: Moses, celebrated for relentlessly promoting automobile-centered transportation and devoting his life to building highways and overpasses, never owned a car. The parallel shows up in today's housing disputes—when parking requirements drop, people ask 'how will people get around?'—yet car dependency wasn't Moses's invention. Many American cities still privilege cars, and resistance to shifting resources toward transit and bicycle infrastructure has deep roots beyond Moses.
Public pools almost had background music playing forever
Muzak, founded in 1934, delivered background music to public venues through dedicated telephone lines rather than broadcast radio. When Astoria Pool opened in 1938, it signed a Muzak contract and music played continuously. By 1939 it was being tested as a pilot program; visitors liked it. The problem: Muzak cost $115 per month per pool, which the city deemed too expensive, so the system never rolled out to other pools.
In their own words · checked verbatim
Though personally kind and gentle, at least at public events and social affairs, Mr. Moses becomes a violent, cutting fighter when he sets words to paper.
among personal, nasty, false, venomous, and vindictive canards is one that I was romantically linked with Mrs. Ruth Pratt, our first congresswoman, and that as a result, my wife took sick, became an alcoholic and a recluse
Robert Moses is one of the most racist human beings I have ever encountered.
it's plausible, but not confirmed. that it was an intentional effort to keep buses from getting to the beach so that there would be fewer, quote, undesirable, in his mind, people at the beach.
It is not as though Robert Moses introduced racism to New York.
Robert Moses... infamous for prioritizing car traffic, didn't drive.
it was going to be 115 a month per pool and that was too much for the city and they were like we can't actually do this
Figures
| Moses report length | over 400 pages | 0:01 |
| Caro's interviews with Shapiro | over 100 hours | 5:06 |
| Astoria pool Muzak monthly fee | $115 per month per pool | 17:21 |
Glossary
- parkway
- A scenic road open only to private automobiles, prohibiting buses, trucks, and commercial traffic.
- Muzak
- Company founded in 1934 that delivered background music to public venues through dedicated lines rather than radio broadcast.
How to listen
Anyone who finished this week's two main Moses episodes and wants to know whether the much-cited lowered-overpasses claim actually has solid evidence backing it up.
You can skip the closing remarks about background music systems and Hamilton lyrics—they're tangential to Moses.