Moses flushed out the entire right-of-way for pennies by exploiting developers and county officials

Evidence

But no sooner had they given Moses $170,000 for Southern State right-of-way, confident that that amount would allow him to purchase no more than a mile or two, than the Nassau County Board of Supervisors, now suddenly, and mysteriously, enthusiastic over Moses’ projects, purchased additional miles and presented them to the Long Island Park Commission as a gift. Playing on the greed of real estate developers who owned land in the parkway’s path, Moses persuaded them to donate right-of-way so that the rest of their property could be opened to development. Suddenly awakened to the fact that the New York City watershed property could be used as right-of-way, Hewitt and Hutchinson realized with a shock that the land for the Southern State was almost all in Moses’ hands—all the way out to that magic point where it would trigger the start of work on the Northern State. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 931

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Relates closely to ‘Grafting & Growth: On Trees as Infrastructure’ only in the broadest sense of infrastructure assembly — not a concrete fit; skip. More apt as a mechanics-of-power anecdote for a piece on how builders assemble land without capital.
• XREF: connects to: Moses’ authority projects secretly cost taxpayers billions in hidden subsidies — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 90

Broader Connections

• Moses’ authority projects secretly cost taxpayers billions in hidden subsidies #expands (0.80) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 90