The Power Broker Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

I'm Roman Mars, and I'm here to talk about the book by former New York City planner Robert Moses. So I'm breaking it down 100 pages at a time and talking to special guests about why this book matters, like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

I actually think if it wasn't for Robert Moses, I probably wouldn't have run for Congress.

I love the book The Power Broker, the epic biography of former New York City planner Robert Moses.

I love the book, The Power Broker, the epic biography of former New York City planner, Robert Moses.

I actually think if it wasn't for Robert Moses, I probably wouldn't have run for Congress.

I actually think if it wasn't for Robert Moses, I probably wouldn't have run for Congress.

God, go read Robert Caro. Lyndon Johnson was so corrupt. He was so unbelievably, unfathomably corrupt.

Of course, the famous book by Robert Caro that depicts the life of Robert Moses.

I have so much admiration for his process and I'm always trying to feel this, get this sense of what, um, what is it about this guy that I like, I want to try and emulate.

And then finally he gets this this brother to say, you know, yeah, those are all stories I told. Wasn't really what happened. And then he gets him to go back into that room where they used to sit and have dinner. And he pushes him and pushes him and pushes him and finally gets the brother to relive that moment between Lyndon Johnson and his father.

And any of us, even if we consider ourselves perfectionists or people who care about our work, we would have signed off long ago. Absolutely. Would have said like, you know, we've got a pretty good book here. I mean, this is a pretty good book. I think we're good.

Well, how did you talk to him? Well, I talked to everybody I could find who worked at that summer camp. And as if that was just, well, why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you talk to every single person who ever worked at the place where Moses' parents used to spend their summers?

Of course, the famous book by Robert Caro that depicts the life of Robert Moses.

I mean, the story about, I still don't have it. I still don't have the full sense of Lyndon Johnson's relationship with his dad as a young man.

And then finally he gets this this brother to say, you know, yeah, those are all stories I told. Wasn't really what happened.

There's a story in The Power Broker where Robert Moses' mom reads a newspaper article that says he's been fined for breaking the law.

Well, how did you talk to him? Well, I talked to everybody I could find who worked at that summer camp.

Yeah, Robert Caro couldn't write a book to save his life. Yeah, overrated.

I'm going to be really basic and I'm going to say The Power Broker by Robert Caro. Massive tome. If it takes you two years to read it, don't feel bad. But it's Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Robert Moses, who is the guy who destroyed New York City.

the power broker, which is my book is sort of in conversation with the power broker.

my book is in conversation with Robert Caro's The Power Broker.

He's going to go after racist bridges...he's going after Robert Moses...Robert Moses was a who built most of New York...was a stone racist and...

legislation can also be changed. It's very hard to tear down a bridge once it's up and Moses found it considerably easier. In fact to tear down the homes of poor black people which he did regularly as part of his construction schemes

now and this is after people were forced out sometimes by police with weapons now East Tremont looked as London might have looked after the if after the bombs troops had fought their way through it from house to house.

during the seven years since the end of World War two there had been evicted from their homes in New York for public works mainly Robert Moses's public works some hundred and seventy thousand persons.

Robert Moses had always displayed a genius for adorning his creations with little details that made them fit in with their setting that made the people who use them feel at home in them.

The wrought iron trellises of the parks other Playhouse and Comfort stations are decorated with designs like curling waves. The wrought iron trellises of the Harlem Playhouse Comfort Station are decorated with monkeys.

This lesson Moses would often recite to associates. He would put it this way. 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 are safe.

Once they had authorized that small initial expenditure and you would spent it, they would not be able to avoid giving you the rest when you asked for it.

How could they if they refused to give you the rest of the money? What they had given you would be wasted and that would make them look bad in the eyes of the public.

And if they said you had misled them, well, they were not supposed to be misled. If they had been misled, that would mean they hadn't investigated the projects thoroughly and had therefore been derelict in their own duty.

The possibilities for a polite but effective form of political blackmail were endless.

now East Tremont looked as London might have looked after the if after the bombs troops had fought their way through it from house to house.

during the seven years since the end of World War two there had been evicted from their homes in New York for public works mainly Robert Moses's public works some hundred and seventy thousand persons.

Robert Moses had always displayed a genius for adorning his creations with little details that made them fit in with their setting that made the people who use them feel at home in them.

There was a little detail in the Playhouse Comfort Station of the Harlem section of Riverside Park that is found nowhere else in the park.

It would have been more than enough to build a long proposed and desperately needed Second Avenue subway and to build a tunnel along across the East River through which a branch of the Second Avenue line would extend out to Queens to provide adequate subway service there and to build extensions of the existing subway lines to Queens to provide service for the hundreds of thousands of residents of Eastern Queens who were miles away from the nearest subway and to extend the Nostrand Avenue subway in Brooklyn three miles along Flatbush Avenue to a new modern terminal that would serve the growing Mill Basin area that possessed no rapid transit at all and to construct a new Plaza and great elimination project at DeKalb Avenue that would eliminate switching delays which caused the most severe bottleneck and train service between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

This lesson Moses would often recite to associates. He would put it this way. 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 are safe.

Once they had authorized that small initial expenditure and you would spent it, they would not be able to avoid giving you the rest when you asked for it.

That's pages 499 to 606 in my book and later in this episode our special book club guest is Mike Shorter He is the creator behind beloved sitcoms like parks and recreation the good place Brooklyn 99

I love it's such a it's such a New York II way to say it

And then the next paragraph starts the new parkways solve the problem for about three weeks and this is I love it's such a it's such a New York II way to say it

But I mean apparently probably part of the procedure who knows anyway but the I I also just like this this part of this doesn't work on me I mean I own a couple of cars you know like a big family but I do not enjoy driving

I've gone on trips where I have to drive down Canal Street and it takes more than 26 minutes because it's so incredibly traffic jam

What struck me about this book from the beginning was I knew who Robert Caro was. I had never read his books, but like I'd known a little bit about his story.

The very first thing is just it's kind of he's realizing a dream for so many of us, you know, like the idea of turning every page is a real luxury.

It kind of has the vague shape of a conspiracy theory like instead of you know infrastructure being done by committee and through goodwill and trying to make the world better place.

The truth is that real conspiracies operate like this in sort of banal ways in paper pushing and behind the scenes meetings and you know through the New York Times and it's like it takes however many pages several hundred over a thousand something.

It's almost like you are vaccinating someone against that conspiracy theory with another conspiracy that is kind of a dead conspiracy.

I love this book.

I feel great. I do think that I mean in my sort of public persona, especially on my podcast, I do talk about my love of like, you know, city subways and urbanism and you know thing like some maybe that's.

Well, I don't know. Do you want my life story here? It's not going to be that long but so I'm the child of two New York City journalists reporters.

I've been very very just adorably listening to the stuff you guys have put out so far.

I think I made the right choice, will see what life turns out. I mean dionetics is got a got a big volcano on the cover that's pretty exciting.

If you haven't already pick up a copy of the power broker by Robert Carroll and join our Power broker book club new episodes of the 99% visible breakdown of the power broker hosted by me and Elliot Kalin.

If you haven't already done so You should pick up a copy of The Power Broker by Robert Caro And join our year-long Power Broker book club New episodes of the 99% visible breakdown of The Power Broker Hosted by me and Elliot Kalin Will drop monthly right here in this feed It is so much fun I hope you can join us

You can find us on all the usual social media And we just started up a 99PI Discord server Come join me and the rest of the staff To talk about The Power Broker You know, what you've been reading Architecture, recommendations, books, podcasts You're listening to, anything As long as it is, you know, fun and nice You can find a link to that As well as every past episode of 99PI At 99PI.org

If you haven't already, pick up your copy of The Power Broker by Robert Caro, and you can join our Power Broker discussion book club.

You can talk about architecture, you can talk about books, you can talk about movies, as long as you're nice, you can talk about whatever you want to.

I learned about the power broker when I first started to cover cities and infrastructure on the radio, this massive book that's about 1,200 pages long is the most important and complete explanation of how cities are formed, how neighborhoods are destroyed

Bridges are erected, roads are laid down, parks are designed, fortunes are made, lives are ruined, and power is amassed.

The Power Broker, which is subtitled Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, changed all that. It is a tour de force of journalism, history, and biography.

I also think it is really fun to read and is strongly in contention for the best book ever written.

He's the man behind the parks. He's the man who builds parks, he builds bridges, he builds roads and he wants to build this enormous bridge across the Long Island Sound.

Robert Caro says how did this guy get this power?

Robert Caro is the closest thing to like a geological formation, his work, his body of work feels like we're watching this eruption of lava that takes and moving of tectonic plates that's going to build something and it's gonna last as long as civilization lasts.

I've read it once before and you've read it once before we're reading again for the project of this podcast which, thank you Roman for asking me to be part of this, because for years I said I'm gonna reread the power broker someday.

It's an amazing story about how power works and what one person can do to completely change the face of an American city, and I'm telling you it's riveting and it's powerful.

pages 703 to 806 in my book and later in this episode our special guest is Shiloh Frederick

pages 703 to 806 in my book

I think this is where I'm getting off the train. We're getting out of the car

I'm gonna take you talk to you about bank finances

the city section of

I've read it. It's so good. It's daunting but power through it. It really is worth it.

He has a voracious appetite for power and a voracious appetite for work

loves it like he wants it. He wants to be doing this

They did not have to evict from their homes tens of thousands of protesting voters... demolish those homes...tunnel under or cut across subways and elevated railroads...sewers and water mains and gas mains and telephone and electric conduits and cables...

You have to hack your way with a meat axe.

The only consideration that mattered was Robert Moses's will

So on the show last year as a project, we read The Power Broker over a year. That is a person in Robert Moses who both built things and bragged about them quite a lot.

This is a special bonus episode of the 99% Invisible Breakdown of The Power Broker.

One of the questions we want to start with was just about our impressions of the book. We've each read it three times... what is your favorite part of The Power Broker?

I think the end is more fun for me than previous... because I was looking for plot details of his fall and not relishing the details of it.

It's the robber caro. It's the power broker

Is that even possible to do?

Well, I would say if you've been to New York City and you look at a bridge or you look at a highway or you look at a particular park, chances are it was built by this one guy, Robert Moses who was his urban planner and public official in New York City in the 20th century.

And this book highlighted his rise to power and also some of the seedier things, some of the more controversial things he did to get those projects through like pushing a highway through a minority neighborhood.

But and it's just a very interesting exploration of power as Caro does it but he does it in more than 1,000 pages in very meticulous detail.

Not only do I have to read a thousand page book, now you're telling me I gotta watch a documentary about the editing process?

that Robert Caro book have you read it that trilogy my dad loves it oh it's so well done one of the best nonfiction works ever

Not only because Robert Moses is one of the most fascinating figures in American history, I do not want to read that book.

It's too big.

Can you please just make it a movie that I can read?

It's infinite just size for sure, right?

It's just, it's too big and I understand it's significance but I'm just not, I'm not going to do it.

The third one I think would be better than Hillbilly LG is the Power Broker by Robert Carroll. Not only because Robert Moses is one of the most fascinating figures in American history, I do not want to read that book. It's too big.

and when i was interviewing Robert Caro who is that right he basically spent a good chunk of his life research in linden b johnson and writing these tomes i think basically this guy's life is divided into books there's a size of phone books

When I was interviewing Robert Caro... he basically spent a good chunk of his life researching Lyndon B. Johnson and writing these tomes... I think basically this guy's life is divided into books. There's a size of phone books.

as i was thinking about this i remembered this little thing that i'd read about robert Moses in robert caros book the power broker and i wrote down my note card and and i just boom the chapter just unlocked itself

it's one of the greatest books I think it's a feat of literary achievement for a couple reasons one that it's even interesting to the message of it is fascinating

he cut a quarter of a million words out of the book

it reads like a thriller and it's angel he did that what he does it's not even like a wonderful person it's about a monster unlikable male protagonist

I remembered this little thing that I'd read about Robert Moses in Robert Carlos book The Power Broker and I wrote down my note card and and I just boom the chapter just unlocked itself

I never had the faintest interest in writing a book just to tell the life of a great man.

I said, if you pick the right man, you can use the life of a man to show what you want to show about political power.

Now, Moses did something that no one else has done before.

He was a guy who was never elected. He had more power than anyone who was elected, more than any governor, more than any mayor and governor combined, and he held that power, think of this, for 44 years, and with it, he shaped the whole metropolitan area.

I said, oh, I have to show this just like I showed how he wielded power. I have to show the effect of power on the powerless. I have to really write about this neighborhood.

I never had the faintest interest in writing a book just to tell the life of a great man.

He was never elected to anything that had so much power, where did he get it?

If you can figure out how and why he did it, then you will be getting to the essence of power.

He had more power than anyone who was elected, more than any governor, more than any mayor and governor combined, and he held that power, think of this, for 44 years, and with it, he shaped the whole metropolitan area.

He goes, there was an alternate route just two blocks away that paralleled this route. He tore down 54 six- and seven-story apartment houses for this one mile. If he took the other route two blocks away, parallel, exactly the same, it would require, as I recall, him to tear down just six little tenements.