New York’s highest court rejected Moses’ peremptory appropriation claims outright

Evidence

On May 25, State Supreme Court Justice Selah B. Strong received word from Albany that the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, had thrown out the last of Moses’ appeals, in a decision which supported every one of Macy’s contentions, even to the point of saying that if the commission’s right to peremptory appropriation was upheld, “the conclusion logically follows that it has a charter wide as the wind, withal, and might seize for park purposes all the lands in Nassau and Suffolk counties.” Scheduling the trial for June 4, Justice Strong told Walter H. Pollack, who was heading the team of five attorneys handling the case for the commission, that he would not postpone it again for any reason. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 938

Categorization

• CANDY: The judicial phrase that the commission’s charter was ‘wide as the wind’ is a colorful quotable line about how unchecked condemnation powers could swallow whole counties.