Moses left monumental works that failed to solve the city’s problems
Evidence
“One must wait until the evening…” In the evening of Robert Moses’ forty-four years of power, New York, so bright with promise forty-four years before, was a city in chaos and despair. His highways and bridges and tunnels were awesome—taken as a whole the most awesome urban improvement in the history of mankind—but no aspect of those highways and bridges and tunnels was as awesome as the congestion on them. He had built more housing than any public official in history, but the city was starved for housing, more starved, if possible, than when he had started building, and the people who lived in that housing hated it—hated it, James Baldwin could write, “almost as much as the policemen, and this is saying a great deal.” He had built great monuments and great parks, but people were afraid to travel to or walk around them. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 106
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Moses built no parks for the neighborhoods that needed them most — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 2110; Moses would destroy a needed public work rather than let others build it — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 2595; Moses cleared homes for an expressway he had no funds to build — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 3703 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Moses built no parks for the neighborhoods that needed them most
#exemplifies(0.85) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 2110 - Moses cleared homes for an expressway he had no funds to build
#exemplifies(0.85) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 3703 - Moses would destroy a needed public work rather than let others build it
#exemplifies(0.80) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 2595 - Robert Moses justified mass displacement of residents as necessary for urban renewal
#complicates(0.72) — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 113