A builder’s name can invert from symbol of good to symbol of evil

Evidence

And what roused him most to fury was the attempt of Lindsay and his bright young men to paint him as responsible for all the city’s ills. Some of that criticism was unfair—predicated upon the ignorance of the new administration about the city it was supposed to be governing. Once, for example, the Mayor criticized Moses for laying concrete through Alley Pond Park, which he implied had been a wonderful rustic nature spot before Moses came along and ruined it. Moses had ruined a hundred rustic nature spots in New York City, but Alley Pond Park wasn’t one of them. There hadn’t been an Alley Pond Park until Moses came along and built it up out of an inaccessible, reeking marsh … But it was the reason Lindsay kept using his name that hurt Moses most; in some way he was totally unable to comprehend, his name, which had once been a symbol of the good in urban life, had become a symbol of the bad; when Lindsay’s Housing Administrator, Jason R. Nathan, wanted to blast some new housing proposal, he simply said it was an example of “The Moses Approach.” Of all things, his reputation was now dearest to him—and it was his reputation that this incompetent Mayor was destroying. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 4684

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Being stripped of power freed Moses’s imagination but left it with nowhere to act — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 4666; Thirty years of reputation cracked irreparably in a single day — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 4085; Reputation built protecting one estate can be converted into mafia standing — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 236 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Reputation built protecting one estate can be converted into mafia standing #corroborates (0.85) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 236
• The same person can be good and evil simultaneously while preserving moral self-image #complicates (0.80)
• The name Louverture may have been self-chosen with hidden meaning #responds-to (0.75)