The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

By: Robert A. Caro  

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Average Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5

Publisher: Vintage

Release Date: 1975-07-12

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Classic look at urban history and political power - This book is a truly fascinating study for those interested in the urban history of New York, political power, or urban development. It clearly looks at the rise of Robert Moses who would go on to hold 12 different state, local and private positions including president of the World Fair. Through these interlocking positions Moses would command the resources to build almost all of the major roads, bridges and parkways in the five boroughs today. The story of how these roads came into being is fascinating and articulately and artfully told in this wonderful narrative. In a story so mind boggling it is almost hard to believe you see how "the civil servant that got things done" accomplishes bureaucratic wrangling to harness federal, state, local and private dollars into mammoth building projects. From Jones Beach to the Triborough Authority the master of legislative and monetary manipulation brought together the necessary engineering and political talent to achieve these projects in record time. Despite having enemies as powerful as the President of the United States Franklin Roosevelt or mayor of New York City La Guardia try to oust him he always held on. His ability to blend power from a variety of different sources and form "authorities" that were semi private with shareholders protected by legal rights he could keep his positions. The book covers so many different aspects that a review could go on for 30 pages but the bottom line is that this is a classic in political and urban history that should not be missed.Cl

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Power in America - This is the best non-fiction book I have ever read. Seriously. It is probably the best biography, the best urban history, and the best study of power written in the latter half of the 20th century (though Caro's still-unfinished LBJ saga may top "Broker;" I haven't read those yet).

Essentially, for 40+ years Robert Moses was the most powerful man in the entire state of New York. A large portion of his power was derived from his chairmanship of the Triborough Bridge Authority. Typically, a public authority shuts down after its bonds have been repaid and its construction projects have been finished. But Moses, called by Caro "the best bill drafter in Albany," set up the Authority in a way that allowed him to continually issue bonds year after year after year. And since the Constitution states that "No states shall...impair the obligations of contracts," no one could do anything about it. Triborough became a small empire for Moses...at its homebase on Randall's Island, the TBA was the supreme law of the land, and it was enforced by some 200 TBA police officers. Moses often used them to escort his big limousine around NYC and Long Island.

One big factor in Moses' power was the press. For four decades he maintained the image of a totally non-political and selfless public servant (he famously refused to take a salary for most of his positions). The sometimes-willful ignorance of the press to Moses' abuses of power is amazing to read. Caro painstakingly documents so many of them.

His genius and his impact are absolutely inimitable. Name a major bridge, parkway, expressway, thruway, park, or beach in the New York metropolitan area, Long Island, or New York State, and the MAJORITY of them will have been built by Robert Moses. This was a guy who almost never slept, who swam out into the middle of the ocean alone when he was in his 80s, who fell into absolutely horrifying bouts of rage when someone dared to disagree with him. He may have been one of the greatest abusers of power in recent history but, as Caro says, he "Got Things Done."

I loved reading about the absolute control he exercised over various New York mayors, governors, and other officials. He would routinely ignore requests to meet with mayors; if they wanted to meet with Moses, they had to come to him. Every time a new mayor was sworn in, Moses would grab the slips on which mayoral appointments were written and write his own name and position on them. The mayor would then meekly sign it, knowing that he couldn't possibly deny Moses any of those positions.

I could say so much more but the other reviewers have already covered the book's strengths. I'll end with this: Moses was one of the most fascinating politicians in the history of this country. But so many have already forgotten him. I hope people will read this book to learn not only about Moses, bu about New York, Washington, and most importantly the use of political power in this country.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York - I got the soft cover book and took me almost a year to finish reading it
Highly recommend if you are interested in power and how Robert Moses wielded it to shape NYC, when you go there you will get a better appreciation for NYC

I gave it to a friend who went to NYC to work; I thought highly of the book so I gave it to him to also gain from it

I liked it so much and plan to read it again in my lifetime that I bought this hardcover version on Amazon, I recommend the hardcover over the soft cover since the hardcover has more maps in it

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Reread - Back in 1958 I was employed by the NYSDOT,who was working with the Moses group on the Moses Power Project in Niagara Falls, N.Y. and was considerably impressed with them. As a result I had read a borrowed copy of the book. since then I have wanted to reread it as I felt it was a great revelation of the times we were living in. Though the title doesn't give Moses the credit it should it never the less is an excellent book.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Brilliant - If you combined Milton's "Paradise Lost" with New York State's tax code the result would be Robert Caro's "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York." Here is a strong and powerful man - both physically and mentally - who in the morning would rush to work early in the morning, driven by and driving others with an imagination as prodigious and as wide as the Atlantic Ocean he would swim in for two hours every night after work. Like Milton's Satan, Robert Moses is a charming, beguiling individual who on the surface seems romantic and noble but who underneath seeks nothing but power for the sake of poker. Tireless and brilliant Robert Moses committed himself to the accumulation of raw power, and in his ascent and at his apex he destroyed the world's greatest city. Moses' highways and parkways, designed to relieve traffic, instead caused the city to be bloated with it. Moses' urban renewal projects, meant to clear slums, instead created more slums. And the Moses organization was corrupt and wasteful, a parasite on the public.

It didn't start out that way. Under the patronage of New York Governor Al Smith Robert Moses came to define the "public servant" by accomplishing two Promethean tasks: he created a dazzling state park system, and reformed the civil service. But to do so, Robert Caro writes, Robert Moses had to please the vested interests the young reformer fought so valiantly against. In the end, Robert Moses' machine was just as corrupt as the Tammany Hall machine that he once despised, and indeed late in his life Robert Moses and Tammany Hall co-operated well together.

This is, of course, the stuff of epics: the young idealist who corrupted by power becomes the man he once despised. And while that's the main narrative there's enough evidence in Robert Caro's 1162 pages to suggest that Moses was always power mad. At Yale, Robert Moses' attempt to lie to the swimming team's benefactor got him kicked off the team. And while as a young reformer Robert Moses tried to fight against the industrial barons who would deny parks to the public he soon discovered he had more in common with them than with the "public." Indeed, Robert Moses only had a nebulous conception of the "public," so shielded was he by limousines, wealth, and supplicants from the harshness of reality that he created: New York's worsening traffic and slum problems. And Robert Moses was a bigot: he refused to build parks in poor neighborhoods, and sought ways to prevent blacks from coming to his parks.

The man was also vindictive. He detached himself from his family, and stole the inheritance of his brother and sister. His parents paid for Moses' political career, but Moses had no praise for them after they died. Anyone who stood in Moses' way was mercilessly disparaged in the press. He once tried to choke a man to death. While physically and mentally tough outside Moses was a tempest of emotions, conflicts, and contradictions inside.

It's odd then that Mr. Caro, otherwise so critical of Moses, fails to discuss the emotional volatility of this great man in depth. Little is discussed about Moses' relationship with his wife, and none at all about his daughters (who judging by their pictures are anything but happy with their life and workaholic father). We are overloaded with and ultimately numbed by information about Moses' organizational, legal, and bureaucratic genius (bureaucratic swashbuckling in Albany has the same speed and motion of steering an oceanliner), while failing to uncover Moses' emotional volatility.
Mr. Caro himself is a "public servant," and spending seven years on this project he quickly discovered that Moses' rise to power was his ability to fathom and navigate the bureaucratic and legislative machinery of Albany and New York City, more so than any politician and lawyer in the country. And because the press, politicians, and the public failed to be interested in and understand the bizarre ways of bureaucracies (especially how public authorities, because their existence is dependent on contracts, are beyond bureaucratic control) Robert Moses was able to hurt so many people in his 44 years in power. Explaining how Robert Moses mastered the bureaucracy to serve his purposes (and showing in fact how any workaholic malevolent genius can do so) Mr. Caro has performed a genuine public service. But he won't stop the re-incarnation of Robert Moses: he just works too hard, and everyone else is too lazy.

In Mr. Caro's epic the real tragedy isn't the fall of Robert Moses, nor is the tragedy how Moses demolished the life and spirit out of Manhattan. The real tragedy is the fall of the "public servant." Moses stepped on the reputations, power, and influence of reformers, Al Smith, and Fiorello La Guardia - all great noble men - to climb to power, and while his arrogance and haughtiness had much to do with his decline, it was ultimately Nelson Rockefeller, a man just as power-hungry and duplicitious as Moses, who took it all away from him. And the rise of Moses and then of Rockefeller spelled the end of the age of the "public servant," which ironically enough is the image that Moses used to accumulate all his power. Who we have nowadays is not even worth contemplating.

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