A personal grudge cost taxpayers eleven million dollars in aquarium costs

Evidence

If the reformers had scored a victory over Robert Moses, however, its dimensions were rather narrow. Fort Clinton had been saved, but not the Aquarium. And the city therefore had to pay dearly for Robert Moses’ revenge. It had to pay dearly even in dollars and cents. To persuade the Board of Estimate to let him demolish the old Aquarium, Moses had guaranteed that a new one could be built for 2,000,000, and that the New York Zoological Society could and would foot the entire bill. In truth, however, there was never any real chance that the Zoological Society could raise 2,000,000—not that 2,000,000 was the amount that really had to be raised, anyway; the Zoological Society would later disclose that the real figure was 6,500,000. After La Guardia had vetoed the Bronx Zoo site, Moses picked one at Coney Island—and persuaded the Mayor to spend 1,000,000 additional in public funds to acquire it. The Zoological Society still could not raise the cash. When a new Aquarium was finally built, the cost of its construction had risen to 10,000,000—and every cent was paid by the city, so that satisfying Moses’ private grudge with the reformers cost the city’s taxpayers $11,000,000. Since he placed high admission fees on the new Aquarium—the old one was free, of course—and there seemed no prospect that these would ever be removed, the people of the city would actually be paying for Moses’ revenge forever—or at least for as much of forever as the eye could, in 1974, reasonably foresee. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 2912

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Supports the sacrifice/power theme — an expensive public gesture whose true function is wounding opponents, echoing the manuscript’s interest in ruthless power.