Moses collected park land piecemeal through charm and personal persuasion.

Evidence

While being chauffeured around Harlem, he noticed two tennis courts belonging to a Roman Catholic church on 138th Street. Telling his chauffeur to stop, he jumped out, ran into the church, found the pastor and asked if the courts were much used. When the pastor said they were not, Moses asked him to give them to the city for a playground, and when the pastor told him that such a gift could be arranged only through Cardinal Hayes’s office, Moses sent a representative to see a representative of the Cardinal, and the gift was arranged. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 1658

Categorization

• CANDY: Moses jumping out of a chauffeur-driven car to run into a church and talk the pastor out of tennis courts is wonderfully vivid.
• XREF: connects to: Moses used personal charm to win over even a community he had devastated — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 3724; Robert Moses acquired parkland options through calculated charm and sociability in 1924 — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 794; Moses used publicity tours to recast seized land as public park — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 942

Broader Connections

• Moses used personal charm to win over even a community he had devastated #corroborates (0.90) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 3724