Rise to power estranged Moses from his entire extended family.

Evidence

Robert Moses’ attitude toward his whole family was striking. The Moses and Cohen clans were numerous; New York City was well stocked with his aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews. During his youth, it had been a rather close family. After he came to power, it was still a rather close family. But he wasn’t part of it. With the notable exception of the cousin involved in the matter of his mother’s will, Wilfred Openhym, he generally saw them only on his own terms, in settings he controlled absolutely—at ground breakings and ribbon cuttings at which he was both host and star. He rejected invitations to their homes. Gradually he cut off relations with most of them; almost invariably they ended in acrimony. One of his cousins, Angie Fink, said that she was practically the only member of his extensive family with whom he was still on speaking terms, and that even she spoke with him seldom. It was, Mrs. Fink said, “as if he had tried to deny his father, his mother, and his whole youth.” — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 2557

Categorization

• SHARE: Angie Fink’s line that he hosted kin only at his own ribbon cuttings is a devastating precise detail — good for anyone reading about Moses.
• XREF: connects to: Moses used up and discarded the people who served his purposes. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 2545