Moses enriched concessionaires to fund lavish parties outside the Board of Estimate’s control

Evidence

The arrangement with Schleiffer was a typical Moses arrangement, no different from scores in effect for more than twenty years with the favored concessionaires who were so integral a part of his empire—no different, in fact, from the others in effect with Schleiffer, who, unknown to Isaacs, operated half a dozen other park concessions. There was nothing illegal about it. Moses certainly was not making a dime from it; he even insisted, to Schleiffer’s voluble dismay, on paying for every meal he ate there. He favored it partly because it allowed him to circumvent the city’s budgetary requirements for capital improvements—and mainly because by giving the concessionaires huge profits he was in a position to ask them to throw huge parties, the lavish dinners and receptions that were an integral part of his way of power. At many of his most elaborate receptions—receptions for guests in the hundreds or thousands—the Tavern-on-the-Green had provided not only plates, glasses, silverware, tablecloths, napkins and the finest of food and liquor but waiters and busboys and bartenders and chefs. The Board of Estimate would never have approved the expenditures for such parties, of course. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 4091

Categorization

• XREF: Deepens ch36’s revelation that Moses’ agencies outspent elected government and bypassed normal approval processes. — connects to: Moses let a favored concessionaire pay the city half of one percent of gross — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 4089