Moses’ relentless drive pervaded even his summer evening recreation

Evidence

Moses’ energy seemed inexhaustible. For the summer of 1919, he and Mary, along with two other couples with small children, the Henry Bruères and Frances Perkins and her husband, Paul Wilson, rented bungalows near a beach in Douglaston, Queens. Moses never caught any train out from Manhattan but the latest available, which arrived in Douglaston about eight-thirty. Darkness would be falling, but Moses would always go for a swim. Plunging into the water, he would strike straight out Little Neck Bay, his arms windmilling rhythmically and powerfully, his head growing smaller and smaller in the distance. His friends would joke that he didn’t seem likely to stop until he had crossed Long Island Sound and reached the shore of Westchester County, which, on clear days, was a low black line on the horizon. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 447

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Moses explored Long Island’s baylands so obsessively he regularly stranded himself on sandbars — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 712