WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.100 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. We have a massive 00:00:03.100 --> 00:00:05.620 stack of research on the table today. And honestly, 00:00:05.740 --> 00:00:07.960 looking through it all, I feel like we're about 00:00:07.960 --> 00:00:10.759 to talk about a mythological figure rather than 00:00:10.759 --> 00:00:13.339 a bureaucrat. That's such a good way to put it. 00:00:13.480 --> 00:00:14.960 You know, usually when we talk about history, 00:00:15.039 --> 00:00:18.199 we're talking about presidents, generals, maybe 00:00:18.199 --> 00:00:21.079 a revolutionary or two, people whose faces are 00:00:21.079 --> 00:00:23.059 on the currency. Right. The elected officials. 00:00:23.690 --> 00:00:26.589 The ones who lead armies. Exactly. But today 00:00:26.589 --> 00:00:29.550 we are talking about a guy who never held an 00:00:29.550 --> 00:00:31.969 elected office. He never got a single vote from 00:00:31.969 --> 00:00:35.189 the public for anything. And yet, if you are 00:00:35.189 --> 00:00:38.090 anywhere near New York, New Jersey or Connecticut, 00:00:38.369 --> 00:00:41.049 you are essentially living inside a machine that 00:00:41.049 --> 00:00:43.429 he built. It's not just living inside a machine 00:00:43.429 --> 00:00:45.890 he built. It's living in a physical reality he 00:00:45.890 --> 00:00:47.770 sculpted. We are talking about Robert Moses. 00:00:47.869 --> 00:00:49.509 And you're right. Bureaucrat is the technical 00:00:49.509 --> 00:00:53.770 term, but it feels woefully inadequate. It really 00:00:53.770 --> 00:00:55.810 does. If you look at a satellite map of the New 00:00:55.810 --> 00:00:58.229 York metropolitan area, just pull up Google Maps 00:00:58.229 --> 00:01:00.969 and zoom out, you see the arteries of the highways, 00:01:01.130 --> 00:01:03.549 the placement of the bridges, the vast green 00:01:03.549 --> 00:01:06.310 swaths of parks on Long Island. The clusters 00:01:06.310 --> 00:01:08.489 of high -rise housing projects in the Bronx and 00:01:08.489 --> 00:01:10.959 Manhattan. All of it. That isn't a natural formation. 00:01:10.959 --> 00:01:13.879 That is the fingerprint of one man. It's actually 00:01:13.879 --> 00:01:15.439 kind of terrifying when you put it that way. 00:01:15.480 --> 00:01:17.379 I was looking at the numbers in the prep material, 00:01:17.519 --> 00:01:21.219 and they don't even seem real. 658 playgrounds. 00:01:21.640 --> 00:01:25.620 Staggering. 416 miles of parkways. 13 bridges. 00:01:26.239 --> 00:01:30.599 2 .6 million acres of parkland. I mean, most 00:01:30.599 --> 00:01:32.620 mayors are lucky if they get a couple of bike 00:01:32.620 --> 00:01:34.859 lanes and a library renovation done in two terms. 00:01:35.439 --> 00:01:38.750 How does one human being do all of this? That 00:01:38.750 --> 00:01:41.069 is the paradox we have to unravel today. Robert 00:01:41.069 --> 00:01:43.730 Moses is this massive contradiction. On one hand, 00:01:43.730 --> 00:01:45.430 he's probably the greatest builder in American 00:01:45.430 --> 00:01:48.989 history. He physically created the modern suburb. 00:01:49.049 --> 00:01:51.129 The whole concept of commuting by car from Long 00:01:51.129 --> 00:01:53.450 Island into the city. That was him. He created 00:01:53.450 --> 00:01:56.030 the concept of the parkway. He built Jones Beach, 00:01:56.129 --> 00:01:58.109 which is still considered a masterpiece of public 00:01:58.109 --> 00:02:00.769 space. But on the other hand, the cost of that 00:02:00.769 --> 00:02:03.730 construction, human, social, political, was just, 00:02:03.810 --> 00:02:06.989 it was staggering. Right. He displaced hundreds 00:02:06.989 --> 00:02:10.370 of thousands of people. He destroyed entire neighborhoods. 00:02:10.650 --> 00:02:14.509 He entrenched segregation through concrete. And 00:02:14.509 --> 00:02:17.050 he did it all while sitting in an office appointed, 00:02:17.229 --> 00:02:20.229 not elected, for 44 years. 44 years. That's the 00:02:20.229 --> 00:02:22.629 hook for me. The 44 years part? Yeah. Presidents 00:02:22.629 --> 00:02:24.590 get four years, maybe eight if they're lucky. 00:02:24.669 --> 00:02:28.909 Mayors come and go. But Moses stayed. He was 00:02:28.909 --> 00:02:31.050 there for Al Smith. He was there for FDR. He 00:02:31.050 --> 00:02:33.990 was there for LaGuardia. He was there for Rockefeller. 00:02:34.030 --> 00:02:36.530 He outlasted every single one of them. He saw 00:02:36.530 --> 00:02:39.590 them as temporary employees. So the mission for 00:02:39.590 --> 00:02:41.750 this deep dive isn't just to list what he built. 00:02:41.889 --> 00:02:44.849 I mean, anyone can read a Wikipedia list. We 00:02:44.849 --> 00:02:46.650 need to figure out how he did it. What was the 00:02:46.650 --> 00:02:49.430 mechanism? How does a guy with a PhD in political 00:02:49.430 --> 00:02:52.409 science hack the democratic system so effectively 00:02:52.409 --> 00:02:54.629 that he becomes more powerful than the people 00:02:54.629 --> 00:02:56.129 who are technically in charge of him? And to 00:02:56.129 --> 00:02:59.139 understand the how. We have to go way, way back. 00:02:59.219 --> 00:03:01.960 And I think we have to strip away the image of 00:03:01.960 --> 00:03:04.139 the old man Moses, you know, the heavy scowling 00:03:04.139 --> 00:03:06.620 guy in all the photos, and look at where he started. 00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:08.939 Okay. Because he didn't start as a power broker. 00:03:09.139 --> 00:03:11.259 He started as an idealist. Yeah, this really 00:03:11.259 --> 00:03:13.199 surprised me in the research. He wasn't some, 00:03:13.219 --> 00:03:15.740 you know, mob boss type. He was a rich kid from 00:03:15.740 --> 00:03:19.039 New Haven, Connecticut, born in 1888. Right. 00:03:19.099 --> 00:03:21.860 His parents were wealthy German Jews. His father 00:03:21.860 --> 00:03:24.340 was a successful department store owner who retired 00:03:24.340 --> 00:03:27.599 early and they moved to a townhouse on East 46th 00:03:27.599 --> 00:03:30.180 Street in Manhattan. He had every advantage. 00:03:30.419 --> 00:03:32.879 And the education to match. Yale, then Oxford, 00:03:33.020 --> 00:03:35.120 then the Ph .D. in political science from Columbia. 00:03:35.300 --> 00:03:37.860 He was swimming in academia. He was brilliant. 00:03:38.120 --> 00:03:41.259 I mean, a legitimate genius. At Oxford, he fell 00:03:41.259 --> 00:03:43.199 in love with the British civil service system. 00:03:43.240 --> 00:03:45.360 He got obsessed with the idea of a government 00:03:45.360 --> 00:03:48.120 run by the best and brightest, a meritocracy. 00:03:48.759 --> 00:03:51.360 Uncorrupted by messy politics and backroom deals. 00:03:51.460 --> 00:03:53.219 So he comes back to New York. It's the progressive 00:03:53.219 --> 00:03:56.180 era. And he has this burning desire to fix things. 00:03:56.379 --> 00:03:58.539 He's on fire with it. He looks at New York City 00:03:58.539 --> 00:04:01.020 in the 1910s and all he sees is Tammany Hall. 00:04:01.199 --> 00:04:03.639 Right. And for listeners who aren't history buffs, 00:04:03.860 --> 00:04:06.400 Tammany Hall was basically the political machine 00:04:06.400 --> 00:04:09.560 that ran New York for decades. It was corruption 00:04:09.560 --> 00:04:13.740 central. absolute patronage, bribes, jobs for 00:04:13.740 --> 00:04:16.519 the boys. You got a city job because you knew 00:04:16.519 --> 00:04:18.079 somebody who knew somebody, not because you were 00:04:18.079 --> 00:04:20.199 qualified. It was everything he hated. Exactly. 00:04:20.620 --> 00:04:24.220 It was inefficient and it was dirty. Moses looked 00:04:24.220 --> 00:04:26.759 at that and thought, this is irrational. Government 00:04:26.759 --> 00:04:29.180 should be scientific. It should be based on merit 00:04:29.180 --> 00:04:31.899 and efficiency. So he starts working for these 00:04:31.899 --> 00:04:33.879 reform bureaus. And what was he doing there? 00:04:33.980 --> 00:04:37.240 He's writing these incredibly detailed, almost 00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:41.110 obsessive plans on how to, like, rate the efficiency 00:04:41.110 --> 00:04:43.430 of garbage collectors based on the tonnage they 00:04:43.430 --> 00:04:46.329 picked up per hour. Wow. He's designing civil 00:04:46.329 --> 00:04:49.290 service exams. He's trying to bring his Oxford 00:04:49.290 --> 00:04:52.250 ideal to the grimy streets of New York. And failing 00:04:52.250 --> 00:04:54.750 miserably, right? The notes say he got completely 00:04:54.750 --> 00:04:56.550 stonewalled. Oh, completely. The politicians 00:04:56.550 --> 00:04:58.689 laugh at him. You have this arrogant intellectual 00:04:58.689 --> 00:05:01.230 academic coming in with his charts and his graphs 00:05:01.230 --> 00:05:04.550 telling these seasoned street politicians how 00:05:04.550 --> 00:05:06.389 to run their city. They must have loved that. 00:05:06.600 --> 00:05:09.699 They chewed him up and spit him out. He was humiliated. 00:05:09.699 --> 00:05:13.339 He quit in frustration. And that failure, I think, 00:05:13.339 --> 00:05:15.600 is the single most important moment of his entire 00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:18.500 life because he realized that being right wasn't 00:05:18.500 --> 00:05:20.759 enough. Having the best plan wasn't enough. You 00:05:20.759 --> 00:05:23.040 needed power. You needed power. That's the classic 00:05:23.040 --> 00:05:25.939 villain origin story moment. You know, the idealist 00:05:25.939 --> 00:05:28.620 gets crushed by the system and decides that next 00:05:28.620 --> 00:05:31.319 time he's going to bring a tank. And his tank 00:05:31.319 --> 00:05:34.199 was Governor Al Smith. This is where the story 00:05:34.199 --> 00:05:37.600 really, really starts. Al Smith was a rough -edged, 00:05:37.660 --> 00:05:40.600 cigar -chomping politician from the Lower East 00:05:40.600 --> 00:05:43.540 Side, the total opposite of the refined academic 00:05:43.540 --> 00:05:46.459 Moses. But Smith saw something in him. Smith 00:05:46.459 --> 00:05:49.699 was smart. He saw that Moses had ideas, incredible 00:05:49.699 --> 00:05:52.899 ideas, and more importantly, Moses had an unbelievable 00:05:53.980 --> 00:05:56.699 inexhaustible energy. Moses could work 18 hours 00:05:56.699 --> 00:05:58.860 a day, seven days a week. He just never stopped. 00:05:59.079 --> 00:06:01.000 So Smith brings him into his inner circle in 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:03.040 Albany. And this is where Moses discovers his 00:06:03.040 --> 00:06:05.459 superpower. It wasn't public speaking. He was 00:06:05.459 --> 00:06:07.040 actually terrible at that. It wasn't shaking 00:06:07.040 --> 00:06:09.319 hands and kissing babies. It was drafting bills. 00:06:09.519 --> 00:06:12.060 I want to dig into this because bill drafting 00:06:12.060 --> 00:06:15.199 sounds like the most boring superpower imaginable. 00:06:15.379 --> 00:06:17.980 It sounds like being really good at filing your 00:06:17.980 --> 00:06:20.720 taxes or something. But in the notes, it describes 00:06:20.720 --> 00:06:24.439 this as a weapon. How does writing a bill give 00:06:24.439 --> 00:06:27.660 you power? This is the absolute genius of Robert 00:06:27.660 --> 00:06:30.839 Moses. Most people write laws to be understood. 00:06:31.420 --> 00:06:34.199 Moses wrote laws to be misunderstood or rather 00:06:34.199 --> 00:06:37.100 to be ignored by the people voting on them until 00:06:37.100 --> 00:06:39.220 it was way too late. What does that mean? He 00:06:39.220 --> 00:06:41.500 realized that legislators in Albany were busy. 00:06:41.819 --> 00:06:45.029 They were often, frankly. Lazy. And they didn't 00:06:45.029 --> 00:06:47.009 read the fine print. So when he drafted legislation 00:06:47.009 --> 00:06:50.050 to, say, create a new parks commission or a planning 00:06:50.050 --> 00:06:53.529 board, he would bury the real power in the definitions 00:06:53.529 --> 00:06:56.250 section. In the definitions. Or in cross -references 00:06:56.250 --> 00:06:58.470 to other obscure laws that nobody remembered. 00:06:58.569 --> 00:07:01.329 He would write a beautiful, high -minded preamble 00:07:01.329 --> 00:07:03.569 about the public good and green space for the 00:07:03.569 --> 00:07:05.910 children and then slip in a sentence on page 00:07:05.910 --> 00:07:09.310 47 that gave him dictatorial authority. Could 00:07:09.310 --> 00:07:10.810 you give us an example of what that looks like 00:07:10.810 --> 00:07:13.389 in practice? Because it sounds so abstract. Sure. 00:07:13.769 --> 00:07:15.889 Let's look at the phrase appropriation of land. 00:07:16.310 --> 00:07:19.230 A normal bill might say the state can buy land 00:07:19.230 --> 00:07:21.449 for a park if the owner agrees to sell it at 00:07:21.449 --> 00:07:24.910 a fair price. Very straightforward. Okay. Moses 00:07:24.910 --> 00:07:28.029 would draft a clause that allowed for entry and 00:07:28.029 --> 00:07:31.399 appropriation by the filing of a map. It sounds 00:07:31.399 --> 00:07:34.199 like boring, technical, procedural language. 00:07:34.420 --> 00:07:36.660 Right, it just sounds like paperwork. But what 00:07:36.660 --> 00:07:39.860 it meant, in practice, was that Moses' commission 00:07:39.860 --> 00:07:42.800 could walk onto your private property, drive 00:07:42.800 --> 00:07:44.980 a stake into the ground, go back to the county 00:07:44.980 --> 00:07:47.199 clerk's office and file a map of the land they'd 00:07:47.199 --> 00:07:49.639 just staked out, and boom, the land belongs to 00:07:49.639 --> 00:07:52.920 the state. Immediately. Wait, immediately. Without 00:07:52.920 --> 00:07:55.639 a court order. Immediately. You can sue for the 00:07:55.639 --> 00:07:58.100 price later, but you cannot stop him from taking 00:07:58.100 --> 00:08:00.620 the land. The bulldozers could be there the next 00:08:00.620 --> 00:08:04.540 day. He hid the raw power of eminent domain inside 00:08:04.540 --> 00:08:07.379 boring procedural language that no one bothered 00:08:07.379 --> 00:08:09.959 to question. That is devious. So the legislators 00:08:09.959 --> 00:08:11.819 vote on it thinking, oh, this is a nice wholesome 00:08:11.819 --> 00:08:13.819 park spill. And the next thing you know, Moses 00:08:13.819 --> 00:08:16.319 is bulldozing private estates on Long Island. 00:08:16.420 --> 00:08:19.029 That is exactly what happened. And the owners 00:08:19.029 --> 00:08:21.110 are calling the police, and Moses just waves 00:08:21.110 --> 00:08:22.829 a piece of paper and says, actually, this is 00:08:22.829 --> 00:08:25.399 my land now. Read the law you passed. That's 00:08:25.399 --> 00:08:27.759 precisely what he did on Long Island. He wanted 00:08:27.759 --> 00:08:30.240 to build the northern and southern state parkways 00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:33.799 and Jones Beach. But to do that, he had to go 00:08:33.799 --> 00:08:35.700 through the playground of the robber barons, 00:08:35.740 --> 00:08:38.299 the Vanderbilts, the Morgans, the financier. 00:08:38.299 --> 00:08:40.200 They did not want that. They hated him. They 00:08:40.200 --> 00:08:42.399 didn't want the rabble from the city driving 00:08:42.399 --> 00:08:44.860 their noisy cars out to their quiet, exclusive 00:08:44.860 --> 00:08:48.320 countryside. They had armies of high priced lawyers 00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:52.240 ready to fade him. But he beat them. He outmaneuvered 00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:54.419 them legally before they even knew it was happening. 00:08:54.759 --> 00:08:57.240 He used those boring bills to seize their land 00:08:57.240 --> 00:08:59.340 before they could even get an injunction. He 00:08:59.340 --> 00:09:01.340 played a different game, and he wrote the rules 00:09:01.340 --> 00:09:04.700 himself. This all leads to his first real consolidation 00:09:04.700 --> 00:09:08.539 of power. In the 1920s, under Governor Smith, 00:09:08.779 --> 00:09:11.700 he oversees this massive reorganization of the 00:09:11.700 --> 00:09:13.940 New York state government. Right. He takes something 00:09:13.940 --> 00:09:18.200 like 187 different overlapping inefficient state 00:09:18.200 --> 00:09:22.179 agencies and shrinks them down to just 18 streamlined 00:09:22.179 --> 00:09:24.980 departments, which on the surface sounds like 00:09:24.980 --> 00:09:27.120 great efficient government. I'm a good government. 00:09:27.450 --> 00:09:29.070 What he always wanted. It was great efficiency. 00:09:29.629 --> 00:09:32.850 But it was also a massive centralization of power. 00:09:33.429 --> 00:09:36.570 And in the process, he creates brand new entities 00:09:36.570 --> 00:09:38.549 like the State Council of Parks and the Long 00:09:38.549 --> 00:09:40.690 Island State Park Commission. And let me guess, 00:09:40.750 --> 00:09:42.809 he gets himself appointed to lead them. Naturally. 00:09:43.070 --> 00:09:46.029 But here's the trick. He wrote the law so that 00:09:46.029 --> 00:09:48.289 the term of the parks commissioner was six years 00:09:48.289 --> 00:09:50.899 long. Okay. The governor's term at the time was 00:09:50.899 --> 00:09:52.620 only two years. Oh, I see where this is going. 00:09:52.679 --> 00:09:55.419 So even if a new governor gets elected and hates 00:09:55.419 --> 00:09:57.679 his guts. Moses can just wait him out. He's got 00:09:57.679 --> 00:10:00.519 four more years on his term. He created a fiefdom 00:10:00.519 --> 00:10:03.279 for himself that existed outside the normal electoral 00:10:03.279 --> 00:10:06.220 cycle. It was insulated from politics. And this 00:10:06.220 --> 00:10:08.240 became the model for everything he did after. 00:10:08.679 --> 00:10:10.919 He wasn't just building parks. He was building 00:10:10.919 --> 00:10:13.500 a state within a state. Perfectly put. He was 00:10:13.500 --> 00:10:16.059 building a fortress of power, brick by legal 00:10:16.059 --> 00:10:20.220 brick. And he didn't stop with one job. The list 00:10:20.220 --> 00:10:23.179 of titles he held is just comical. At one point, 00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:25.320 he had 12 different positions simultaneously. 00:10:25.759 --> 00:10:28.340 Twelve, yes. New York City Parks Commissioner, 00:10:28.620 --> 00:10:30.500 Chairman of the State Council of Parks, City 00:10:30.500 --> 00:10:32.340 Planning Commissioner, Chairman of the Triborough 00:10:32.340 --> 00:10:34.600 Bridge Authority, Chairman of the State Power 00:10:34.600 --> 00:10:38.139 Authority. The list just goes on and on. Why? 00:10:38.279 --> 00:10:41.230 I mean, was it just pure ego? Or was there a 00:10:41.230 --> 00:10:43.409 strategic reason to have that many business cards? 00:10:43.529 --> 00:10:45.769 Oh, it was pure strategy. It was a web. It made 00:10:45.769 --> 00:10:48.350 him irremovable. Oh, so. Okay, so let's say you're 00:10:48.350 --> 00:10:50.309 the mayor of New York. And let's pick a strong 00:10:50.309 --> 00:10:52.629 one, like Fiorello LaGuardia, the little flower. 00:10:52.809 --> 00:10:55.250 He was a very powerful, very strong -willed mayor. 00:10:55.450 --> 00:10:57.730 Right. You get mad at Moses because he's doing 00:10:57.730 --> 00:10:59.450 something you don't like with the city parks. 00:10:59.649 --> 00:11:01.970 He's tearing something down or refusing to build 00:11:01.970 --> 00:11:05.269 something. You, as mayor, want to fire him. So 00:11:05.269 --> 00:11:07.250 I call him into my office and say, you're fired. 00:11:08.139 --> 00:11:11.679 And Moses looks at you and says, OK, fire me 00:11:11.679 --> 00:11:14.120 as city parks commissioner. That's your right. 00:11:14.340 --> 00:11:16.539 But I'm still the head of the state parks council, 00:11:16.679 --> 00:11:18.740 which, by the way, controls all the state parks 00:11:18.740 --> 00:11:21.480 that happen to be inside your city limits. And 00:11:21.480 --> 00:11:25.379 he would continue. I'm also the head of the Triborough 00:11:25.379 --> 00:11:28.019 Bridge Authority, which has the money and the 00:11:28.019 --> 00:11:30.620 engineering talent you desperately need for your 00:11:30.620 --> 00:11:33.240 other public works projects. So if you fire me 00:11:33.240 --> 00:11:36.279 from job A, I will use my power from job B and 00:11:36.279 --> 00:11:39.179 job C to strangle your administration. I'll rock 00:11:39.179 --> 00:11:41.240 your permits. I'll withhold my funds. I'll make 00:11:41.240 --> 00:11:43.740 your life a living hell. He weaponized the bureaucracy 00:11:43.740 --> 00:11:47.659 against his own bosses. He was woven so tightly 00:11:47.659 --> 00:11:49.919 into the fabric of the government that you couldn't 00:11:49.919 --> 00:11:51.899 cut him out without unraveling the whole sweater. 00:11:52.460 --> 00:11:54.860 Precisely. It was a system of mutually assured 00:11:54.860 --> 00:11:57.440 destruction, but only he had his finger on the 00:11:57.440 --> 00:11:59.539 button. And he used these positions to leverage 00:11:59.539 --> 00:12:01.639 each other constantly. He would use state money 00:12:01.639 --> 00:12:04.179 to force the city to do something or city land 00:12:04.179 --> 00:12:06.580 to leverage federal money. He was the only person 00:12:06.580 --> 00:12:08.159 who knew where all the levers were. Because he 00:12:08.159 --> 00:12:10.320 was the one pulling all of them. Exactly. But 00:12:10.320 --> 00:12:12.639 levers and titles are one thing. You still need 00:12:12.639 --> 00:12:16.299 cash. I mean, concrete costs money. Steel costs 00:12:16.299 --> 00:12:19.360 money. And usually in a democracy, if you want 00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:21.039 money, you have to go to the city council or 00:12:21.039 --> 00:12:23.759 the state legislature, hat in hand, and ask for 00:12:23.759 --> 00:12:26.799 it. And they can say no. And Robert Moses hated 00:12:26.799 --> 00:12:29.700 asking. He despised it. He hated being dependent 00:12:29.700 --> 00:12:33.320 on politicians who could cut his budget or question 00:12:33.320 --> 00:12:36.639 his vision. So he found a way to never have to 00:12:36.639 --> 00:12:39.299 ask again. He perfected the public authority. 00:12:39.600 --> 00:12:41.440 This is the money machine we have in our outline. 00:12:41.639 --> 00:12:43.259 Yeah. I think this is the part that most people 00:12:43.259 --> 00:12:46.600 don't understand about how New York or really 00:12:46.600 --> 00:12:50.159 any major infrastructure works. We hear port 00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:52.519 authority or tribal bridge authority and we just 00:12:52.519 --> 00:12:54.990 think. government departments but it's not is 00:12:54.990 --> 00:12:57.210 it it's a fundamental misunderstanding so what 00:12:57.210 --> 00:13:00.230 is it a public authority is a corporation it's 00:13:00.230 --> 00:13:03.070 a quasi -governmental entity created by the state 00:13:03.070 --> 00:13:06.850 to do a specific job usually building and running 00:13:06.850 --> 00:13:09.090 something that generates revenue like a bridge 00:13:09.090 --> 00:13:11.669 or a port it operates like a business it operates 00:13:11.669 --> 00:13:14.190 exactly like a business it issues bonds which 00:13:14.190 --> 00:13:16.570 are basically loans from private investors on 00:13:16.570 --> 00:13:18.850 wall street to get the cash to build the bridge 00:13:19.549 --> 00:13:21.750 Then it charges tolls to the cars crossing the 00:13:21.750 --> 00:13:24.710 bridge. That toll money is then used to pay back 00:13:24.710 --> 00:13:27.590 the investors with interest. Okay, that sounds 00:13:27.590 --> 00:13:30.110 pretty standard. You borrow money to buy a house, 00:13:30.230 --> 00:13:32.570 you pay the mortgage, and eventually you own 00:13:32.570 --> 00:13:35.149 the house free and clear. So when the bridge 00:13:35.149 --> 00:13:38.970 is paid for, the tolls should stop or the money 00:13:38.970 --> 00:13:40.490 should go back to the city, right? Yeah, that 00:13:40.490 --> 00:13:42.929 was the original intent of the law. And that's 00:13:42.929 --> 00:13:45.090 the democratic check on the authority's power. 00:13:45.649 --> 00:13:48.049 Once the debt is gone, the authority is supposed 00:13:48.049 --> 00:13:50.269 to dissolve. But that's not what happened with 00:13:50.269 --> 00:13:52.429 Moses. Not at all. Let's look at the Triborough 00:13:52.429 --> 00:13:55.070 Bridge, the massive complex connecting Manhattan, 00:13:55.490 --> 00:14:00.190 Queens, and the Bronx. It opened in 1936, and 00:14:00.190 --> 00:14:03.330 it was a cash cow from day one. The tolls were 00:14:03.330 --> 00:14:06.429 just pouring in, millions and millions of dollars 00:14:06.429 --> 00:14:08.370 a year. So the bonds were going to be paid off 00:14:08.370 --> 00:14:11.240 pretty quickly. Way ahead of schedule. But Moses 00:14:11.240 --> 00:14:14.220 saw this looming deadline. If the bonds were 00:14:14.220 --> 00:14:16.179 paid off, the tribe or bridge authority would 00:14:16.179 --> 00:14:18.899 go out of existence and he would lose his independent 00:14:18.899 --> 00:14:21.320 power base. He'd lose his money. He'd have to 00:14:21.320 --> 00:14:23.919 go back to begging the legislature. So what did 00:14:23.919 --> 00:14:26.399 the best bill drafter do? He found a loophole 00:14:26.399 --> 00:14:29.299 in corporate finance. He rewrote the bond contracts. 00:14:29.580 --> 00:14:31.899 He essentially went to the investors and said, 00:14:32.039 --> 00:14:35.340 hey, instead of me paying you back now, how about 00:14:35.340 --> 00:14:38.039 we refinance? I'll keep the debt going and I'll 00:14:38.039 --> 00:14:40.860 use all this extra toll money as collateral to 00:14:40.860 --> 00:14:43.600 issue new bonds to build another bridge. The 00:14:43.600 --> 00:14:46.240 Bronx Whitestone Bridge. Exactly. And then a 00:14:46.240 --> 00:14:49.679 tunnel. And then another highway. He created 00:14:49.679 --> 00:14:51.980 a cycle where the debt was never fully retired. 00:14:52.539 --> 00:14:55.259 The Triborough Bridge Authority became a perpetual 00:14:55.259 --> 00:14:58.559 motion machine of money and construction. It's 00:14:58.559 --> 00:15:00.740 like having a credit card with an infinite limit 00:15:00.740 --> 00:15:02.679 where the minimum payment is always covered by 00:15:02.679 --> 00:15:04.100 the tolls and you can just keep spending the 00:15:04.100 --> 00:15:06.200 principal and whatever you want. And here is 00:15:06.200 --> 00:15:09.320 the absolute kicker. Because the authority was 00:15:09.320 --> 00:15:11.519 a separate corporation with its own independent 00:15:11.519 --> 00:15:15.120 revenue source, Moses didn't need tax money. 00:15:15.259 --> 00:15:17.700 He didn't need the mayor or the governor or the 00:15:17.700 --> 00:15:20.259 city council to approve his budget. He had his 00:15:20.259 --> 00:15:21.919 own bank account. He had his own bank account. 00:15:22.039 --> 00:15:25.059 In the 1940s and 50s, the Triborough Authority 00:15:25.059 --> 00:15:27.960 had more disposable income, more cash on hand 00:15:27.960 --> 00:15:30.960 than the city of New York itself. That is just 00:15:30.960 --> 00:15:34.179 mind blowing. Right. He essentially privatized 00:15:34.179 --> 00:15:36.960 a core function of public infrastructure for 00:15:36.960 --> 00:15:39.379 his own use. And he locked it down legally. This 00:15:39.379 --> 00:15:42.440 is the final turn of the screw. In the bond contracts, 00:15:42.799 --> 00:15:44.740 the agreements with the Wall Street investors, 00:15:45.019 --> 00:15:48.779 he included covenants. These are legally binding 00:15:48.779 --> 00:15:51.100 promises to the bondholders. What did they say? 00:15:51.259 --> 00:15:53.220 They said that the state of New York and the 00:15:53.220 --> 00:15:55.200 city of New York could not interfere with the 00:15:55.200 --> 00:15:58.320 authorities operations, reduce its powers. or 00:15:58.320 --> 00:16:01.500 limit its ability to collect tolls, as long as 00:16:01.500 --> 00:16:04.159 a single bond was still outstanding. And since 00:16:04.159 --> 00:16:06.639 he was always issuing new bonds? The bonds were 00:16:06.639 --> 00:16:08.480 never paid off, and here's why that matters. 00:16:08.779 --> 00:16:11.580 The U .S. Constitution has a clause that forbids 00:16:11.580 --> 00:16:14.100 states from impairing the obligation of contracts. 00:16:14.480 --> 00:16:16.860 So if a governor tried to fire Moses or take 00:16:16.860 --> 00:16:19.840 his toll money, Moses' lawyers would sue, and 00:16:19.840 --> 00:16:21.299 the Supreme Court would step in and say, you 00:16:21.299 --> 00:16:23.200 can't do that, you're breaking a contract with 00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:25.159 Wall Street. He engineered a situation where 00:16:25.159 --> 00:16:27.750 democracy literally could not touch him. That 00:16:27.750 --> 00:16:30.750 is, honestly, it's brilliant in a terrifying, 00:16:30.889 --> 00:16:34.049 Machiavellian way. It was a masterpiece of legal 00:16:34.049 --> 00:16:36.750 and financial engineering. And that financial 00:16:36.750 --> 00:16:38.809 independence is what allowed him to shape the 00:16:38.809 --> 00:16:41.070 city for the next 30 years without anyone being 00:16:41.070 --> 00:16:43.409 able to stop him. So let's talk about what he 00:16:43.409 --> 00:16:45.870 actually did with all that power and all that 00:16:45.870 --> 00:16:49.210 money. Because we can't deny the sheer volume 00:16:49.210 --> 00:16:52.070 of stuff he built. And a lot of it happened during 00:16:52.070 --> 00:16:54.909 the absolute worst time, the Great Depression. 00:16:55.049 --> 00:16:58.659 Right. The 1930s, the country is on its knees. 00:16:59.279 --> 00:17:02.240 Unemployment is at 25 percent. Franklin D. Roosevelt 00:17:02.240 --> 00:17:04.920 starts the New Deal. The federal government is 00:17:04.920 --> 00:17:07.720 basically printing money through agencies like 00:17:07.720 --> 00:17:10.259 the WPA, the Public Works Administration, to 00:17:10.259 --> 00:17:12.160 try to get people back to work. And they're desperate 00:17:12.160 --> 00:17:14.759 for projects. They're desperate. But here's the 00:17:14.759 --> 00:17:17.000 catch. You can't just throw money at a vague 00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:19.279 idea. You need blueprints. You need engineering 00:17:19.279 --> 00:17:21.240 surveys. You need cost estimates. You need to 00:17:21.240 --> 00:17:24.680 be in lingo, shovel ready. And most cities weren't 00:17:24.680 --> 00:17:26.559 ready. They were broke. Their planning departments 00:17:26.559 --> 00:17:29.980 were shells. Exactly. Most cities had vague concepts. 00:17:30.220 --> 00:17:33.180 We'd like a park over here someday. But Robert 00:17:33.180 --> 00:17:36.400 Moses. Moses had been working for years. He had 00:17:36.400 --> 00:17:39.579 a massive salaried staff of the best engineers 00:17:39.579 --> 00:17:42.400 and architects paid for by his early state commissions. 00:17:42.759 --> 00:17:44.880 And he had them designing projects that he didn't 00:17:44.880 --> 00:17:46.680 even have the money for yet. He was planning 00:17:46.680 --> 00:17:49.200 for a future he couldn't afford. He had drawers, 00:17:49.539 --> 00:17:52.579 literal file cabinets full of blueprints, the 00:17:52.579 --> 00:17:55.200 Triborough Bridge, the West Side Highway, dozens 00:17:55.200 --> 00:17:58.400 of parks and pools. So when the federal spigot 00:17:58.400 --> 00:18:00.480 opened, Moses showed up in Washington and said, 00:18:00.579 --> 00:18:02.859 I can put 50 ,000 men to work tomorrow. Here 00:18:02.859 --> 00:18:05.220 are the plans. And Washington must have just 00:18:05.220 --> 00:18:07.200 seen him as a savior. He was their dream come 00:18:07.200 --> 00:18:10.519 true. So New York City got a massive, completely 00:18:10.519 --> 00:18:13.720 disproportionate share of New Deal funding simply 00:18:13.720 --> 00:18:15.700 because Robert Moses was the only guy in the 00:18:15.700 --> 00:18:17.279 country who was ready to spend it and spend it 00:18:17.279 --> 00:18:20.660 fast. And one of the most famous results of that 00:18:20.660 --> 00:18:23.400 spending spree was the swimming pools. the summer 00:18:23.400 --> 00:18:26.579 of 1936. It was a legendary summer. It's the 00:18:26.579 --> 00:18:29.259 middle of a brutal heat wave in the dead center 00:18:29.259 --> 00:18:31.980 of the Depression. People are suffering. And 00:18:31.980 --> 00:18:34.819 in one summer, Moses opens 11 massive outdoor 00:18:34.819 --> 00:18:37.819 swimming pools. McCarran in Brooklyn. Astoria 00:18:37.819 --> 00:18:40.740 in Queens. Highbridge in Manhattan Sunset Park. 00:18:40.980 --> 00:18:43.059 All over the city. And these weren't little wading 00:18:43.059 --> 00:18:45.440 pools. These were aquatic cathedrals. Some of 00:18:45.440 --> 00:18:47.900 them could hold 10 ,000 people at a time. I was 00:18:47.900 --> 00:18:50.220 looking at photos of the Astoria pool from opening 00:18:50.220 --> 00:18:53.599 day. It looks like a Roman spectacle. The scale, 00:18:53.700 --> 00:18:56.119 the architecture, the lighting, it's unbelievable. 00:18:56.539 --> 00:18:59.579 He used a grand architectural style, a mix of 00:18:59.579 --> 00:19:02.440 streamlined, modern, and classical. It was meant 00:19:02.440 --> 00:19:06.200 to be imposing, monumental. He used underwater 00:19:06.200 --> 00:19:08.819 lighting, which was cutting -edge, expensive 00:19:08.819 --> 00:19:11.359 technology at the time. Why go to all that expense 00:19:11.359 --> 00:19:14.019 during the Depression? He included heating systems 00:19:14.019 --> 00:19:16.460 in the filtration plants so they could extend 00:19:16.460 --> 00:19:18.180 the swimming season into the spring and fall. 00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:21.220 He wanted the poor children of New York, kids 00:19:21.220 --> 00:19:23.500 who lived in sweltering tenements to feel like 00:19:23.500 --> 00:19:26.500 they were entering a palace. He had this philosophy 00:19:26.500 --> 00:19:29.660 that public didn't have to mean cheap or ugly. 00:19:29.779 --> 00:19:31.960 He wanted to give them the best. That sounds 00:19:31.960 --> 00:19:35.599 incredibly noble. The best for the most. But 00:19:35.599 --> 00:19:37.220 this is where we have to pivot to the darker 00:19:37.220 --> 00:19:39.380 side of the ledger, because you can't talk about 00:19:39.380 --> 00:19:42.240 Moses and his cools or his parkways without talking 00:19:42.240 --> 00:19:44.519 about who he thought the public was and who was 00:19:44.519 --> 00:19:46.700 allowed to enjoy these creations. This is the 00:19:46.700 --> 00:19:48.759 shadow that defines the second half of Robert 00:19:48.759 --> 00:19:51.099 Caro's book, The Power Broker, and it's the part 00:19:51.099 --> 00:19:53.240 of his legacy that is the most debated and the 00:19:53.240 --> 00:19:56.180 most toxic. The accusation is that Moses was 00:19:56.180 --> 00:19:58.980 deeply racist and classist and that he designed 00:19:58.980 --> 00:20:01.420 the physical city to enforce those prejudices. 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:04.059 Let's address the specific allegations because 00:20:04.059 --> 00:20:06.640 they're explosive. The cold water story is the 00:20:06.640 --> 00:20:08.359 one that always comes up in relation to the pools. 00:20:08.599 --> 00:20:11.619 The idea that he deliberately kept the pool water 00:20:11.619 --> 00:20:14.140 cold to keep black people out. Is that true? 00:20:14.359 --> 00:20:16.299 Well, let's look at the source for that claim. 00:20:17.319 --> 00:20:19.920 Robert Caro, in his book, interviewed one of 00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:23.619 Moses' longtime high -level aides. And this aide 00:20:23.619 --> 00:20:26.519 claimed, on the record, that Moses held a racist 00:20:26.519 --> 00:20:28.980 stereotype that African Americans didn't like 00:20:28.980 --> 00:20:32.990 cold water. And that, based on this belief, He 00:20:32.990 --> 00:20:35.730 instructed the pool engineers to lower the temperature 00:20:35.730 --> 00:20:38.650 in pools located in or near black neighborhoods 00:20:38.650 --> 00:20:41.250 to deter them from coming. That sounds like a 00:20:41.250 --> 00:20:43.650 cartoon villain. Turn down the thermostat. It's 00:20:43.650 --> 00:20:46.410 so petty and overtly racist. But is there any 00:20:46.410 --> 00:20:48.710 hard proof? And that's the problem for historians. 00:20:49.089 --> 00:20:51.589 There are no memos found to date that say official 00:20:51.589 --> 00:20:54.430 order make the water colder in Harlem. There 00:20:54.430 --> 00:20:56.930 are no engineering logs showing temperature manipulation. 00:20:57.549 --> 00:21:00.329 So strictly speaking, we can't verify the physical 00:21:00.329 --> 00:21:02.569 act. The heaters were installed in all the pools. 00:21:02.789 --> 00:21:04.750 So it might just be an anecdote. It might be, 00:21:04.849 --> 00:21:06.829 but the fact that his close associates believed 00:21:06.829 --> 00:21:09.150 he was capable of it and told Caro about it speaks 00:21:09.150 --> 00:21:11.009 volumes about the culture in his organization 00:21:11.009 --> 00:21:13.990 and his own reputation among his staff. But there 00:21:13.990 --> 00:21:17.069 is another much more famous allegation that has 00:21:17.069 --> 00:21:19.650 much more physical, concrete evidence. The low 00:21:19.650 --> 00:21:22.230 bridges on the parkways to Long Island. The low 00:21:22.230 --> 00:21:23.930 bridges. This is the one that really gets me. 00:21:24.049 --> 00:21:26.430 If you drive on the Southern State Parkway on 00:21:26.430 --> 00:21:29.779 Long Island today. the overpasses the beautiful 00:21:29.779 --> 00:21:32.740 arched stone -faced bridges that go over the 00:21:32.740 --> 00:21:35.599 road are incredibly low dangerously low sometimes 00:21:35.599 --> 00:21:37.940 trucks are always hitting them They are. And 00:21:37.940 --> 00:21:40.279 the allegation, again, laid out in meticulous 00:21:40.279 --> 00:21:42.759 detail by Caro, is that Moses designed them that 00:21:42.759 --> 00:21:45.440 way on purpose to prevent buses from using the 00:21:45.440 --> 00:21:48.640 parkway. Because in the 1930s and 40s, poor people 00:21:48.640 --> 00:21:51.539 and people of color overwhelmingly did not own 00:21:51.539 --> 00:21:54.220 cars. They relied on public transportation, on 00:21:54.220 --> 00:21:56.680 buses. So buses can't fit under the bridges. 00:21:56.859 --> 00:21:59.279 Then the rabble can't get to Jones Beach. Jones 00:21:59.279 --> 00:22:02.140 Beach was Moses's pride and joy, his masterpiece. 00:22:02.619 --> 00:22:05.299 He wanted it to be a pristine, orderly, middle 00:22:05.299 --> 00:22:08.289 class escape. want the chaotic, diverse, working 00:22:08.289 --> 00:22:09.890 class crowds that you found at Coney Island. 00:22:10.029 --> 00:22:11.869 So by keeping the bridges low, he effectively 00:22:11.869 --> 00:22:14.789 filtered the population by class and by extension, 00:22:15.069 --> 00:22:17.930 race. Now, I have read some pushback on this. 00:22:18.029 --> 00:22:20.089 Some historians and engineers have called this 00:22:20.089 --> 00:22:22.950 an urban legend. They say, well, parkways were 00:22:22.950 --> 00:22:26.509 designed for cars, not commercial traffic. Trucks 00:22:26.509 --> 00:22:29.029 were banned anyway, so the low bridges were just 00:22:29.029 --> 00:22:31.700 an aesthetic choice. That is the main counter 00:22:31.700 --> 00:22:34.059 argument, and it's important to address it. Parkways, 00:22:34.160 --> 00:22:37.000 by definition, were meant to be linear parks. 00:22:37.279 --> 00:22:39.980 They were for pleasure driving. So commercial 00:22:39.980 --> 00:22:43.160 vehicles, including buses, were banned by regulations. 00:22:43.200 --> 00:22:45.460 So you could argue the bridges were just designed 00:22:45.460 --> 00:22:48.259 to be quaint and low profile to fit that park 00:22:48.259 --> 00:22:50.660 like aesthetic. But there's more to it. There 00:22:50.660 --> 00:22:53.380 is. Sidney Shapiro, who is one of Moses's top 00:22:53.380 --> 00:22:55.880 engineers and a very close aide, admitted to 00:22:55.880 --> 00:22:59.180 Caro that while the law banned buses, Moses knew 00:22:59.180 --> 00:23:01.519 that laws. could be changed. A future mayor, 00:23:01.660 --> 00:23:04.160 a future governor could come along and say, let 00:23:04.160 --> 00:23:06.680 the buses go to Jones Beach. But you can't change 00:23:06.680 --> 00:23:09.359 concrete. But you can't change concrete. Concrete 00:23:09.359 --> 00:23:11.579 is permanent. If you build the bridge too low, 00:23:11.660 --> 00:23:13.559 you physically prevent that political change 00:23:13.559 --> 00:23:15.640 from ever happening. It was social engineering 00:23:15.640 --> 00:23:18.880 hardened into stone. That is a profound concept. 00:23:19.180 --> 00:23:21.900 The idea that infrastructure is politics frozen 00:23:21.900 --> 00:23:24.759 in time. A bridge isn't just a bridge. It's a 00:23:24.759 --> 00:23:27.200 gatekeeper. Exactly. And it wasn't just bridges. 00:23:27.220 --> 00:23:29.640 It was housing. It was his entire approach to 00:23:29.640 --> 00:23:32.559 slum clearance. Moses was a huge proponent of 00:23:32.559 --> 00:23:35.559 the idea that you had to destroy the cancer of 00:23:35.559 --> 00:23:38.160 old, dense neighborhoods to save the city. But 00:23:38.160 --> 00:23:41.019 the slums were people's homes. They were communities. 00:23:41.339 --> 00:23:44.099 He didn't see that. He saw blight. He saw inefficiency. 00:23:44.279 --> 00:23:47.200 He saw congestion. The Cross Bronx Expressway 00:23:47.200 --> 00:23:49.160 is the ultimate example of this. It just sliced 00:23:49.160 --> 00:23:50.859 through the heart of the Bronx like a knife. 00:23:50.980 --> 00:23:52.859 Not around neighborhoods. Through them. Straight 00:23:52.859 --> 00:23:55.819 through them. Yeah. He displaced roughly 60 ,000 00:23:55.819 --> 00:23:58.200 people for just one seven -mile stretch of that 00:23:58.200 --> 00:24:01.380 highway. Vibrant, tight -knit neighborhoods, 00:24:01.759 --> 00:24:04.539 mostly working class, Jewish, Irish, Italian, 00:24:04.720 --> 00:24:07.619 and later his demographic shifted, African -American 00:24:07.619 --> 00:24:09.940 and Puerto Rican. He didn't see the value of 00:24:09.940 --> 00:24:11.980 the street life, the shops, the social fabric. 00:24:12.180 --> 00:24:14.900 He just saw a line on a map. He just saw a line 00:24:14.900 --> 00:24:17.759 on a map that needed to be cleared. And this 00:24:17.759 --> 00:24:20.359 is where we get that famous quote of his. When 00:24:20.359 --> 00:24:22.359 challenged on the human cost of his projects, 00:24:22.599 --> 00:24:25.299 he said, I raise my stein to the builder who 00:24:25.299 --> 00:24:27.619 can remove ghettos without moving people as I 00:24:27.619 --> 00:24:29.920 hail the chef who can make omelets without breaking 00:24:29.920 --> 00:24:33.400 eggs. That quote just chills me. Make omelets 00:24:33.400 --> 00:24:36.380 without breaking eggs. He is explicitly saying 00:24:36.380 --> 00:24:39.460 that people, entire communities, are just raw 00:24:39.460 --> 00:24:42.299 material to be broken for the greater good. And 00:24:42.299 --> 00:24:44.880 he was the only one with the power and the appetite 00:24:44.880 --> 00:24:47.799 to break them. This is where the bully really 00:24:47.799 --> 00:24:51.099 comes out. If you opposed him, he didn't just 00:24:51.099 --> 00:24:53.559 defeat you in a debate. He tried to destroy you 00:24:53.559 --> 00:24:56.200 personally and professionally. The aquarium story. 00:24:56.779 --> 00:24:59.059 This is one of the craziest, most vindictive 00:24:59.059 --> 00:25:01.019 anecdotes in his whole career. We have to tell 00:25:01.019 --> 00:25:03.339 this properly. This is the Battle of the Brooklyn 00:25:03.339 --> 00:25:06.779 Battery Crossing. We're in the late 1930s. Moses 00:25:06.779 --> 00:25:08.799 wants to build a bridge from the tip of Manhattan 00:25:08.799 --> 00:25:11.680 at the battery to Brooklyn. A massive suspension 00:25:11.680 --> 00:25:14.750 bridge. A huge one. which would have completely, 00:25:14.990 --> 00:25:17.789 utterly ruined the iconic view of the harbor 00:25:17.789 --> 00:25:20.109 and the Statue of Liberty. It would have put 00:25:20.109 --> 00:25:22.930 a giant concrete anchorage right in the middle 00:25:22.930 --> 00:25:26.349 of Battery Park. So, understandably, people were 00:25:26.349 --> 00:25:29.089 opposed. Everyone hated the idea. Civic groups, 00:25:29.289 --> 00:25:31.750 preservationists, the business community, even 00:25:31.750 --> 00:25:34.859 the War Department. And Eleanor Roosevelt, the 00:25:34.859 --> 00:25:36.980 first lady, was leading the charge against it. 00:25:37.019 --> 00:25:39.460 They all said, build a tunnel. A tunnel is invisible. 00:25:39.619 --> 00:25:42.059 It works better for traffic. But Moses hated 00:25:42.059 --> 00:25:44.819 tunnels. You can't see a tunnel. There's no monument 00:25:44.819 --> 00:25:46.980 to put your name on. Exactly. He wanted the glory 00:25:46.980 --> 00:25:49.619 of the bridge. But the old New York Aquarium 00:25:49.619 --> 00:25:52.700 was in his way. It was located inside Castle 00:25:52.700 --> 00:25:55.519 Clinton, a historic fort from the War of 1812, 00:25:55.619 --> 00:25:59.440 right in Battery Park. It was beloved. Millions 00:25:59.440 --> 00:26:01.859 of visitors a year. So he uses that as leverage. 00:26:02.099 --> 00:26:04.359 He claims that building the tunnel would undermine 00:26:04.359 --> 00:26:06.559 the fort's foundations, so the aquarium had to 00:26:06.559 --> 00:26:09.059 be torn down anyway. This was a complete lie. 00:26:09.400 --> 00:26:11.920 His own engineers told him the fort was perfectly 00:26:11.920 --> 00:26:14.539 stable. So what did he do when he met this opposition? 00:26:14.900 --> 00:26:17.400 He decided to punish the public for disagreeing 00:26:17.400 --> 00:26:20.579 with him. In the middle of the dispute, he sent 00:26:20.579 --> 00:26:23.480 his parks department crews into Battery Park. 00:26:23.799 --> 00:26:26.059 They put up fences. They shut out the public. 00:26:26.240 --> 00:26:29.579 And essentially, he held the fish hostage. You're 00:26:29.579 --> 00:26:32.079 kidding. He stripped the interior of the aquarium. 00:26:32.420 --> 00:26:35.440 He moved the animals, the beluga whales, the 00:26:35.440 --> 00:26:39.160 seals, to the Bronx Zoo and to a temporary facility 00:26:39.160 --> 00:26:42.079 in Coney Island. He tore the roof off the historic 00:26:42.079 --> 00:26:45.079 fort. He deliberately tried to make it a ruin 00:26:45.079 --> 00:26:47.460 so that there was nothing left to save. He destroyed 00:26:47.460 --> 00:26:49.680 a beloved city institution just out of spite. 00:26:49.859 --> 00:26:52.920 Pure spite and leverage. He figured if the aquarium 00:26:53.099 --> 00:26:55.319 was gone, there was no reason not to build his 00:26:55.319 --> 00:26:58.420 bridge anchorage there. It was unbelievably vindictive. 00:26:58.500 --> 00:27:00.819 In the end, President Roosevelt and the War Department 00:27:00.819 --> 00:27:03.039 stepped in and blocked the bridge on national 00:27:03.039 --> 00:27:05.220 defense rounds. They argued a bridge could be 00:27:05.220 --> 00:27:07.700 bombed in wartime and block the Navy yard. So 00:27:07.700 --> 00:27:10.460 Moses lost. He lost the battle. We got the Brooklyn 00:27:10.460 --> 00:27:13.039 Battery Tunnel. But he won the war on the aquarium. 00:27:13.220 --> 00:27:15.240 It was gone from Manhattan forever. He left a 00:27:15.240 --> 00:27:17.579 permanent scar just to prove a point. That same 00:27:17.579 --> 00:27:20.880 scubbornness, that refusal to compromise, it 00:27:20.880 --> 00:27:23.359 happened again with the Brooklyn Dodge. I feel 00:27:23.359 --> 00:27:26.019 like every Brooklynite over a certain age knows 00:27:26.019 --> 00:27:28.039 this story, but maybe they don't know it was 00:27:28.039 --> 00:27:30.849 Moses' fault. It was almost entirely Robert Moses' 00:27:31.069 --> 00:27:34.109 fault. The team's owner, Walter O'Malley, saw 00:27:34.109 --> 00:27:36.910 the writing on the wall in the 1950s. Ebbets 00:27:36.910 --> 00:27:39.630 Field was old, it was tiny, and it had basically 00:27:39.630 --> 00:27:41.930 no parking. And the age of the automobile was 00:27:41.930 --> 00:27:44.730 here. Right. O'Malley wanted to build a new, 00:27:44.829 --> 00:27:48.250 modern -domed stadium. And he had the perfect 00:27:48.250 --> 00:27:50.970 spot, the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush 00:27:50.970 --> 00:27:52.549 Avenues. Which is where the Berkeley Center is 00:27:52.549 --> 00:27:54.900 now. It's a huge transit hub. It's the perfect 00:27:54.900 --> 00:27:57.539 location. It was the logical place. All the subway 00:27:57.539 --> 00:28:00.180 lines meet there. The Long Island Railroad is 00:28:00.180 --> 00:28:02.440 right there. It was accessible to everyone. O'Malley 00:28:02.440 --> 00:28:05.220 had financing. He just needed the city to use 00:28:05.220 --> 00:28:07.700 its power of eminent domain to help him assemble 00:28:07.700 --> 00:28:09.799 the last few parcels of land. So he went to the 00:28:09.799 --> 00:28:12.200 most powerful man in the city, Robert Moses. 00:28:12.420 --> 00:28:16.079 And Moses said no. Flat out no. Why? Why would 00:28:16.079 --> 00:28:17.700 he say no to keeping the Dodgers in Brooklyn? 00:28:17.960 --> 00:28:20.440 Because Moses didn't care about subways or trains. 00:28:20.680 --> 00:28:24.759 He cared about cars. And he had his own vision. 00:28:24.880 --> 00:28:27.539 He wanted the new stadium to be built in Flushing 00:28:27.539 --> 00:28:29.819 Meadows, Queens, next to one of his highways. 00:28:30.480 --> 00:28:33.119 He had this obsession with turning the old world's 00:28:33.119 --> 00:28:35.279 fairgrounds in Flushing Meadows into a great 00:28:35.279 --> 00:28:37.740 park with sports facilities. So he was trying 00:28:37.740 --> 00:28:40.160 to force his vision on the team. He told O'Malley, 00:28:40.279 --> 00:28:43.289 you go to Queens or you get nothing. He refused 00:28:43.289 --> 00:28:46.430 to use eminent domain for what he called a private 00:28:46.430 --> 00:28:48.910 enterprise in Brooklyn, even though he'd used 00:28:48.910 --> 00:28:52.390 it for countless other projects. I'm not going 00:28:52.390 --> 00:28:54.130 to Queens. We're the Brooklyn Dodgers. And he 00:28:54.130 --> 00:28:56.250 also said, if I can't build in Brooklyn, I'm 00:28:56.250 --> 00:28:58.890 going to Los Angeles. And Robert Moses, in his 00:28:58.890 --> 00:29:01.470 supreme arrogance, called his bluff. He refused 00:29:01.470 --> 00:29:03.890 to budge an inch. He thought O'Malley would come 00:29:03.890 --> 00:29:06.529 crawling back. But he didn't. Instead, O'Malley 00:29:06.529 --> 00:29:08.670 packed up the team and left for the West Coast. 00:29:08.910 --> 00:29:11.589 The hearts of an entire borough were broken because 00:29:11.589 --> 00:29:14.049 Robert Moses refused to compromise on a stadium 00:29:14.049 --> 00:29:17.029 location. He eventually got his way, building 00:29:17.029 --> 00:29:19.950 Shea Stadium in Queens, but he lost the Dodgers 00:29:19.950 --> 00:29:23.250 forever. irony of all of this. The low bridges, 00:29:23.490 --> 00:29:26.190 the parkways, the obsession with parking lots, 00:29:26.470 --> 00:29:28.789 driving the Dodgers out because of a car -centric 00:29:28.789 --> 00:29:31.970 vision is the car thing. The ultimate staggering 00:29:31.970 --> 00:29:35.250 irony, Robert Moses, the man who built the city 00:29:35.250 --> 00:29:38.710 for the car, did not drive. He never had a license, 00:29:38.910 --> 00:29:41.470 ever. Never. The story goes he tried to take 00:29:41.470 --> 00:29:44.269 a driving lesson once in the 1920s, almost crashed 00:29:44.269 --> 00:29:46.329 and killed the instructor and gave up on the 00:29:46.329 --> 00:29:49.119 spot. He was chauffeured everywhere for the rest 00:29:49.119 --> 00:29:51.500 of his life in a custom limousine with a desk 00:29:51.500 --> 00:29:53.880 in the back. So he experienced the city from 00:29:53.880 --> 00:29:56.940 the backseat of a luxury car. Always. And I think 00:29:56.940 --> 00:29:59.589 this is profound. To him, a highway wasn't a 00:29:59.589 --> 00:30:01.990 place of stress and traffic jams and angry drivers. 00:30:02.190 --> 00:30:04.829 It was a smooth, flowing ribbon of concrete through 00:30:04.829 --> 00:30:06.990 the countryside. It was a cinematic experience. 00:30:07.470 --> 00:30:10.410 He saw the flow of traffic on a map, not the 00:30:10.410 --> 00:30:12.509 lived reality of the commute. He was completely 00:30:12.509 --> 00:30:14.670 detached from the user experience of his own 00:30:14.670 --> 00:30:17.170 product. And that detachment, I think, eventually 00:30:17.170 --> 00:30:18.809 had to catch up with him. You can only push people 00:30:18.809 --> 00:30:21.450 around for so long before they push back. But 00:30:21.450 --> 00:30:24.650 it took decades. Why did the tide finally turn 00:30:24.650 --> 00:30:27.450 against him in the 1960s? What changed? It was 00:30:27.450 --> 00:30:29.609 a perfect storm, really. The culture was changing. 00:30:29.750 --> 00:30:31.690 You had the rise of the civil rights movement, 00:30:31.910 --> 00:30:34.789 the anti -war movement, and a new era of community 00:30:34.789 --> 00:30:37.950 activism. People were no longer willing to just 00:30:37.950 --> 00:30:41.289 accept that father knows best from a government 00:30:41.289 --> 00:30:43.490 official. And Moses himself was getting older. 00:30:43.650 --> 00:30:46.849 He was getting older, more rigid, and even more 00:30:46.849 --> 00:30:49.130 arrogant, if that's possible. He started picking 00:30:49.130 --> 00:30:51.029 battles that just made him look like a bully. 00:30:51.559 --> 00:30:53.420 battles he couldn't win. Like the fight over 00:30:53.420 --> 00:30:55.640 the tavern on the green parking lot. That was 00:30:55.640 --> 00:30:58.619 a public relations disaster for him. He wanted 00:30:58.619 --> 00:31:01.240 to expand a parking lot for an expensive restaurant 00:31:01.240 --> 00:31:04.900 in Central Park. To do it, he had to bulldoze 00:31:04.900 --> 00:31:07.819 a shaded playground that was beloved by local 00:31:07.819 --> 00:31:09.839 mothers and their children. And the mothers fought 00:31:09.839 --> 00:31:12.240 back. They linked arms in front of the bulldozers. 00:31:12.319 --> 00:31:15.240 It became a huge media story. And Moses handled 00:31:15.240 --> 00:31:18.359 it terribly. He sent in work crews at dawn to 00:31:18.359 --> 00:31:20.680 try and cut down the trees before the press and 00:31:20.680 --> 00:31:22.579 the protesters could get there. That is just 00:31:22.579 --> 00:31:26.319 awful. It backfired spectacularly. The newspapers 00:31:26.319 --> 00:31:29.799 painted him as a monster destroying a children's 00:31:29.799 --> 00:31:33.190 playground for a parking lot. rich it completely 00:31:33.190 --> 00:31:35.869 shattered that old image of the benevolent public 00:31:35.869 --> 00:31:38.470 servant and around the same time an ideological 00:31:38.470 --> 00:31:42.170 challenger emerges jane jacobs We have to spend 00:31:42.170 --> 00:31:44.470 some time on Jane Jacobs because she wasn't just 00:31:44.470 --> 00:31:47.329 another protester. She was the intellectual counterweight 00:31:47.329 --> 00:31:49.609 to everything Robert Moses stood for. He was 00:31:49.609 --> 00:31:51.670 the top -down planner. He was the top -down planner. 00:31:51.809 --> 00:31:54.630 He believed in the towers in the park model of 00:31:54.630 --> 00:31:56.950 urban renewal. You separate the cars from the 00:31:56.950 --> 00:31:59.329 people. You clear the messy, crowded streets. 00:31:59.670 --> 00:32:03.029 You build tall, orderly, identical towers surrounded 00:32:03.029 --> 00:32:06.609 by grass, clean, efficient, and ultimately sterile. 00:32:06.650 --> 00:32:08.930 And Jacobs had the opposite view. Jane Jacobs 00:32:08.930 --> 00:32:11.029 looked at that and said, This is the death of 00:32:11.029 --> 00:32:13.630 the city. She wasn't a planner. She was a journalist, 00:32:13.730 --> 00:32:15.769 an observer. She wrote The Death and Life of 00:32:15.769 --> 00:32:18.289 Great American Cities. And she argued that the 00:32:18.289 --> 00:32:20.910 mess of the city, the crowded sidewalks, the 00:32:20.910 --> 00:32:23.130 shopkeepers keeping an eye on the street, the 00:32:23.130 --> 00:32:25.950 mixture of old and new buildings, that was what 00:32:25.950 --> 00:32:28.650 made a city safe and vibrant. She called it the 00:32:28.650 --> 00:32:31.349 intricate ballet of the sidewalk. So you have 00:32:31.349 --> 00:32:33.609 Moses the planner versus Jacobs the observer. 00:32:33.950 --> 00:32:36.910 Exactly. And they collided head on over the proposal 00:32:36.910 --> 00:32:41.059 for the lower Manhattan Expressway. Lomax. Lomax. 00:32:41.299 --> 00:32:44.400 Moses wanted to run a massive 10 -lane elevated 00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:47.000 highway right through the heart of what we now 00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:50.019 call Soho, Little Italy, and Greenwich Village. 00:32:50.259 --> 00:32:52.500 It would have leveled hundreds of buildings and 00:32:52.500 --> 00:32:54.940 displaced thousands of people. It's hard to even 00:32:54.940 --> 00:32:57.819 imagine Soho today, the beautiful cast iron buildings 00:32:57.819 --> 00:33:00.819 and the art galleries being just a highway overpass. 00:33:01.099 --> 00:33:03.079 It would have been gone, wiped off the map. And 00:33:03.079 --> 00:33:05.200 for years, people assumed it was inevitable because 00:33:05.200 --> 00:33:08.559 Moses always won. But Jane Jacobs organized the 00:33:08.559 --> 00:33:11.140 community. She didn't just protest. She outsmarted 00:33:11.140 --> 00:33:13.799 him. She understood the bureaucracy, too. She 00:33:13.799 --> 00:33:15.660 attacked his traffic studies, proving they were 00:33:15.660 --> 00:33:18.380 flawed. She mobilized voters. She turned public 00:33:18.380 --> 00:33:20.740 hearings into circuses. Damn, it worked. For 00:33:20.740 --> 00:33:22.819 the first time, the politicians, Mayor Wagner 00:33:22.819 --> 00:33:24.700 and others, realized that siding with Robert 00:33:24.700 --> 00:33:27.720 Moses was now political suicide. The community 00:33:27.720 --> 00:33:30.519 was too organized, too loud. They voted the project 00:33:30.519 --> 00:33:34.019 down. The dragon had finally - But he still had 00:33:34.019 --> 00:33:36.460 his jobs. Right. He still had the triber authority. 00:33:36.839 --> 00:33:39.579 How did he actually lose the power? Because he 00:33:39.579 --> 00:33:41.700 never resigned. No, he was forced out. He was 00:33:41.700 --> 00:33:44.210 outmaneuvered. And it took a Rockefeller to do 00:33:44.210 --> 00:33:46.349 it, Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Another giant 00:33:46.349 --> 00:33:50.089 ego on the New York stage. An ego as big as Moses's, 00:33:50.089 --> 00:33:52.529 but with an even bigger bank account. By the 00:33:52.529 --> 00:33:56.109 late 1960s, the New York City subway system was 00:33:56.109 --> 00:33:59.470 collapsing. It was dirty, dangerous, and bleeding 00:33:59.470 --> 00:34:02.430 money. The fare was being kept artificially low 00:34:02.430 --> 00:34:04.950 for political reasons, and the whole system was 00:34:04.950 --> 00:34:07.509 nearing bankruptcy. So Rockefeller needed cash. 00:34:08.139 --> 00:34:10.099 Rockefeller looked at the Triborough Bridge Authority. 00:34:10.340 --> 00:34:12.739 It was sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars 00:34:12.739 --> 00:34:14.900 of surplus toll revenue. It was a mountain of 00:34:14.900 --> 00:34:17.519 cash. And Rockefeller said, we need that money 00:34:17.519 --> 00:34:20.380 for the subways. And Moses must have said, over 00:34:20.380 --> 00:34:23.079 my dead body, that's my money for my bridges 00:34:23.079 --> 00:34:26.820 and highways. Exactly. Moses cited the bond contracts. 00:34:26.900 --> 00:34:28.820 He said, you can't touch it. The law protects 00:34:28.820 --> 00:34:31.559 me. But Nelson Rockefeller had a team of lawyers, 00:34:31.679 --> 00:34:34.159 too. And his brother, David Rockefeller, was 00:34:34.159 --> 00:34:36.599 the head of Chase Manhattan Bank. They came up 00:34:36.599 --> 00:34:38.619 with a plan to merge the Triborough Authority 00:34:38.619 --> 00:34:42.320 into a new super agency, the Metropolitan Transportation 00:34:42.320 --> 00:34:45.139 Authority, the MTA. The MTA that we know today. 00:34:45.260 --> 00:34:48.019 So by merging it, he could legally access the 00:34:48.019 --> 00:34:51.019 funds. Yes. The new MTA charter would specifically 00:34:51.019 --> 00:34:53.719 allow the bridge tolls to subsidize the subway. 00:34:54.059 --> 00:34:57.090 But to do that. He needed Moses to agree to the 00:34:57.090 --> 00:34:59.690 merger. And to get him to agree, Rockefeller 00:34:59.690 --> 00:35:02.150 played on his ego. He flattered him. He stroked 00:35:02.150 --> 00:35:04.869 his ego. He told Moses, Bob, you're a legend. 00:35:04.929 --> 00:35:06.849 We need your expertise. You'll be a consultant 00:35:06.849 --> 00:35:08.989 to the new MTA. You'll have a seat at the table. 00:35:09.150 --> 00:35:11.469 Your legacy will be preserved. And Moses, who 00:35:11.469 --> 00:35:14.110 was nearly 80 by this point, fell for it. He 00:35:14.110 --> 00:35:16.530 fell for it. He agreed to the merger. He thought 00:35:16.530 --> 00:35:18.329 he could still control things from the inside. 00:35:18.630 --> 00:35:20.389 And once the ink was dry on the legislation? 00:35:20.769 --> 00:35:23.130 The trap sprung. The consultant role turned out 00:35:23.130 --> 00:35:25.480 to be nothing. It was an empty title. He had 00:35:25.480 --> 00:35:29.360 no power, no staff, no car. The new board members 00:35:29.360 --> 00:35:31.719 appointed by Rockefeller politely ignored him. 00:35:32.420 --> 00:35:34.320 Rockefeller and his brother essentially froze 00:35:34.320 --> 00:35:38.400 him out completely. In 1968, Robert Moses found 00:35:38.400 --> 00:35:40.300 himself sitting in an office where the phone 00:35:40.300 --> 00:35:43.500 didn't ring. The money machine now belonged to 00:35:43.500 --> 00:35:46.159 the MTA. That is a truly Shakespearean ending. 00:35:46.320 --> 00:35:49.099 The powerful king, stripped of his crown, left 00:35:49.099 --> 00:35:51.659 to wander the heath. It really was. He lived 00:35:51.659 --> 00:35:54.099 for another 13 years, mostly in bitterness and 00:35:54.099 --> 00:35:56.880 anger, writing long, furious letters to newspapers 00:35:56.880 --> 00:35:59.840 that no one read. But the final blow to his public 00:35:59.840 --> 00:36:02.599 image wasn't the firing. It was the book. The 00:36:02.599 --> 00:36:04.940 Power Broker. The Power Broker by Robert Caro. 00:36:05.139 --> 00:36:07.440 He was a young, incredibly dogged investigative 00:36:07.440 --> 00:36:10.199 reporter from Newsday who decided to take a look 00:36:10.199 --> 00:36:12.519 at the career of Robert Moses. At first, Moses 00:36:12.519 --> 00:36:15.219 thought he could charm Caro or bully him. He 00:36:15.219 --> 00:36:17.500 granted him a few interviews. Big mistake. Huge 00:36:17.500 --> 00:36:21.260 mistake. Caro spent seven years digging. He conducted 00:36:21.260 --> 00:36:23.860 over 500 interviews. He went through mountains 00:36:23.860 --> 00:36:26.159 of documents. He found the evidence of the racism. 00:36:26.480 --> 00:36:28.860 He found the financial trickery. He found the 00:36:28.860 --> 00:36:30.820 ruined lives of the people who were displaced. 00:36:31.179 --> 00:36:33.920 And the book came out in 1974. It came out. It 00:36:33.920 --> 00:36:37.139 was over 1 ,200 pages long. And it was a devastating 00:36:37.139 --> 00:36:40.119 indictment. It won the Pulitzer Prize. And it 00:36:40.119 --> 00:36:42.960 completely destroyed Moses's public reputation 00:36:42.960 --> 00:36:45.260 forever. He went from being widely known as the 00:36:45.260 --> 00:36:47.760 master builder. To the master villain. Overnight. 00:36:48.139 --> 00:36:50.940 The book was that powerful. Moses himself wrote 00:36:50.940 --> 00:36:54.039 a 23 -page rebuttal, but it was useless. The 00:36:54.039 --> 00:36:56.380 damage was done. It's amazing how a single book 00:36:56.380 --> 00:36:58.980 can so completely rewrite the public understanding 00:36:58.980 --> 00:37:02.159 of history. Before that, people grumbled, but 00:37:02.159 --> 00:37:04.500 Caro gave them the receipts. He showed the mechanism. 00:37:04.699 --> 00:37:07.079 He showed how power really worked, not how we 00:37:07.079 --> 00:37:09.440 pretend it works in civics class. But now, here 00:37:09.440 --> 00:37:12.239 we are, decades later. The power broker is almost 00:37:12.239 --> 00:37:14.880 50 years old. And I feel like the conversation 00:37:14.880 --> 00:37:17.480 is shifting again. I hear people whispering almost 00:37:17.480 --> 00:37:20.300 secretly, man, I wish we had a Robert Moses today. 00:37:20.760 --> 00:37:23.420 That's the at least he got things done argument. 00:37:23.980 --> 00:37:26.980 And you hear it a lot. We live in an era of analysis, 00:37:27.099 --> 00:37:29.719 paralysis and gridlock. Right. The Second Avenue 00:37:29.719 --> 00:37:33.099 subway took basically 90 years to build three 00:37:33.099 --> 00:37:35.480 stops. Congestion pricing in Manhattan has been 00:37:35.480 --> 00:37:38.440 debated for decades. Environmental reviews for 00:37:38.440 --> 00:37:41.079 a new bridge can take years, even before a shovel 00:37:41.079 --> 00:37:43.380 hits the ground. People look at something like 00:37:43.380 --> 00:37:45.880 the Whitestone Bridge, which Moses built in just 00:37:45.880 --> 00:37:48.780 two years, ahead of schedule and under budget, 00:37:48.840 --> 00:37:51.929 and they think. Maybe we need a dictator. It's 00:37:51.929 --> 00:37:54.190 the temptation of efficiency over democracy. 00:37:54.570 --> 00:37:57.210 It is. And there's a serious argument to be made 00:37:57.210 --> 00:37:59.070 that New York City might not have survived the 00:37:59.070 --> 00:38:01.670 economic collapse of the 1970s and 80s without 00:38:01.670 --> 00:38:04.670 the vast infrastructure that Mo just built. The 00:38:04.670 --> 00:38:06.550 highways kept the city connected to the regional 00:38:06.550 --> 00:38:08.610 economy when the port and manufacturing died. 00:38:08.869 --> 00:38:11.690 The housing projects, as grim as they often were, 00:38:11.889 --> 00:38:14.110 provided homes when the private sector wasn't 00:38:14.110 --> 00:38:15.849 building anything. So we're still living off 00:38:15.849 --> 00:38:18.800 the capital he vanked, in a way. In many ways, 00:38:18.900 --> 00:38:20.940 yes. So it's a tradeoff. It's the fundamental 00:38:20.940 --> 00:38:24.500 question. Do we want the messy, slow, frustrating, 00:38:24.699 --> 00:38:27.440 but inclusive process of democracy where everyone 00:38:27.440 --> 00:38:30.320 gets a say? Or do we want the brutal efficiency 00:38:30.320 --> 00:38:34.280 of a guy who points at a map and says, I don't 00:38:34.280 --> 00:38:36.119 care about your house or your neighborhood. I'm 00:38:36.119 --> 00:38:38.320 building a bridge there. That is the central 00:38:38.320 --> 00:38:41.820 question of modern governance, isn't it? Moses 00:38:41.820 --> 00:38:44.340 proved that you can achieve monumental things 00:38:44.340 --> 00:38:47.969 if you remove the friction of democracy. but 00:38:47.969 --> 00:38:49.590 he also proved that the friction of democracy 00:38:49.590 --> 00:38:51.949 is there for a reason it's there to protect the 00:38:51.949 --> 00:38:54.210 vulnerable it's there to stop the eggs from being 00:38:54.210 --> 00:38:57.199 broken without a second thought So as we wrap 00:38:57.199 --> 00:38:58.900 up, I want to ask you about the physical legacy. 00:38:59.000 --> 00:39:00.619 We talked about the satellite map at the beginning. 00:39:00.960 --> 00:39:02.900 If I want to go see Robert Moses today, where 00:39:02.900 --> 00:39:04.619 do I go? You go everywhere. You're already there. 00:39:04.739 --> 00:39:06.659 You drive over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, 00:39:06.860 --> 00:39:08.699 the longest suspension bridge in the Americas 00:39:08.699 --> 00:39:10.960 when it was built. You go to a concert at Lincoln 00:39:10.960 --> 00:39:13.559 Center. He assembled the land for that. You visit 00:39:13.559 --> 00:39:15.599 the UN headquarters. He cleared the land for 00:39:15.599 --> 00:39:18.800 that, too. So his work is unavoidable. But what 00:39:18.800 --> 00:39:22.440 about him? Where is he memorialized? That's the 00:39:22.440 --> 00:39:24.880 fascinating part. His name is on a state park, 00:39:25.039 --> 00:39:27.960 a causeway, a power dam. But if you want to see 00:39:27.960 --> 00:39:31.360 a statue of Robert Moses, you have to go to his 00:39:31.360 --> 00:39:34.019 hometown of Babylon on Long Island. There's a 00:39:34.019 --> 00:39:36.579 statue of him there. Not in Central Park. Not 00:39:36.579 --> 00:39:39.320 in Times Square. Not in front of the UN. No. 00:39:39.400 --> 00:39:42.260 New York City has a deeply complicated, almost 00:39:42.260 --> 00:39:44.940 schizophrenic relationship with him. We use his 00:39:44.940 --> 00:39:48.139 creations... every single day, but we don't celebrate 00:39:48.139 --> 00:39:50.880 the creator. We can't. It's like we're living 00:39:50.880 --> 00:39:53.059 in a beautiful, functional house that was built 00:39:53.059 --> 00:39:55.280 by a brilliant architect who also happened to 00:39:55.280 --> 00:39:58.099 be a tyrant. We love the roof over our heads, 00:39:58.159 --> 00:40:00.179 but we hate remembering how it got there. That 00:40:00.179 --> 00:40:02.059 is a perfect way to put it. We live in Moses' 00:40:02.260 --> 00:40:04.960 house. So, to our listener, the next time you 00:40:04.960 --> 00:40:07.599 are stuck in traffic on the Cross Bronx Expressway, 00:40:07.699 --> 00:40:10.300 or you're lying on the sand at Jones Beach, or 00:40:10.300 --> 00:40:13.139 you're swimming in the Astoria Pool, just take 00:40:13.139 --> 00:40:14.900 a second. Look at the concrete. Look at the steel. 00:40:15.400 --> 00:40:17.900 And ask yourself, who decided this should be 00:40:17.900 --> 00:40:20.199 here? And what used to be here before? Because 00:40:20.199 --> 00:40:22.139 the city isn't an accident. It's a series of 00:40:22.139 --> 00:40:25.619 decisions. And for 44 years, the decider -in 00:40:25.619 --> 00:40:28.860 -chief was Robert Moses. And understanding that, 00:40:28.960 --> 00:40:32.219 I think, changes how you see the entire built 00:40:32.219 --> 00:40:35.000 world around you. It really does. Thank you for 00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:37.559 walking us through all of this. This was a heavy 00:40:37.559 --> 00:40:40.489 one. but absolutely necessary. My pleasure. It's 00:40:40.489 --> 00:40:42.269 an incredible story. And thank you for listening 00:40:42.269 --> 00:40:44.969 to this deep dive. And seriously, go read The 00:40:44.969 --> 00:40:46.849 Power Broker if you have a spare month in your 00:40:46.849 --> 00:40:49.449 life. It's worth every single page. We'll see 00:40:49.449 --> 00:40:49.869 you next time.