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TL;DR: Private startups built subways rapidly in the 1910s and 20s. Government took over in the 1930s as startups lost steam, declined to invest via bond issue

TL;DR: Private startups built subways rapidly in the 1910s and 20s. Government took over in the 1930s as startups lost steam, declined to invest via bond issues, plowed money into autos, and the long gaps in capital projects meant private expertise was repurposed and no longer available when needed.

echion 7y ago
Appreciated. Is there a tldr for hacker news front page submissions? Because someone should make that, if not.
smogcutter 7y ago
> plowed money into autos Part of the reason for this: building roads extended Robert Moses’ personal power, building subways didn’t. If you can think of something fucked up about NYC, odds are good it finds its way back to Moses somehow.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  Robert Moses acquired power because people wanted to GTFO of the city, either for the weekend or for good. I’m a little older than the average HN person. I remember as a kid growing up in Queens, my dad sweeping the ash from the Greenpoint Incinerator off of his car in the mornings when the wind blew the right way. The city was filthy, polluted and overcrowded. The subways were no exception.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    And driving cars out of the city and back made that problem worse, not better.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      It arguably made the problem tolerable for the people who worked in the city but lived in the suburbs which is certainly better for the city than those people both living and working elsewhere.
  - smogcutter 7y ago
    100%! And that’s a desire he exploited to build his empire at all costs. With the city so polluted and crowded, who can argue against a park (or a “parkway”)?
  - jacques_chester 7y ago
    > Robert Moses acquired power because people wanted to GTFO of the city, either for the weekend or for good. Well, no, he acquired power by (a) having a massive independent river of cash to spend and (b) using the state's power to insulate him from the city's power.
    - smogcutter 7y ago
      Yes, but before the triboro he used public opinion around parks and easy trips out of the city to force his building projects through. That’s what put him in position to build and run the triboro in the first place. But yes you’re right, the TBA and the fact that he wasn’t a city employee is what gave him the power to really go off the reservation.
- alexhutcheson 7y ago
  The Robert Moses explanation makes a great narrative, but it doesn't explain why every other major city in the US made the same choices at around the same time.
  - smogcutter 7y ago
    It doesn’t need to, NYC really is different. Very few other major US cities had the density, space constraints, or existing transit infrastructure of NY. None of them had a Bob Moses, but they built roads for different reasons - in LA a cabal of auto and gas companies dismantled the streetcar. Also I’m not sure about “at the same time” - for example when Moses was at the height of his power in the 30s and 40s the interstate system didn’t even exist yet.
- Tokkemon 7y ago
  Not really, he was just following the trends of the time. If anything, New York is in a far better place with him than without. Sure, he did some bad things, but New York wouldn't be able to cope without his expressways and bridges.
  - smogcutter 7y ago
    Yes and no! For one thing he was creating the trends of the time, not following them. Carving up the city with expressways was a proactive choice, done specifically because Moses 1) could control them and 2) favored the needs of automobile owners over the city’s working class. Trains just smelled too much like communism. Building the expressways did an incredible amount of harm and destroyed neighborhoods at a stroke. But they also made it practical to get around the city in a car. Bob Moses is an extremely complicated figure - he was corrupt, power hungry, a servant of the wealthy, a monster in his personal life, would destroy anything or anyone in the name of personal power, but also he built a lot of parks and was genuinely loyal to Al Smith. He’s the reason the city is dotted with playgrounds, and also the reason that thousands of people were displaced from their homes or saw their neighborhoods cut off and destroyed.
asveikau 7y ago
Your summary misses an important point: I don't think you can totally discount the effect of "white flight" and the late 20th century perception of cities as being crime ridden places to avoid. The article references this indirectly as growth of car-centric suburbs, shrinking urban population, and the city's 1970s fiscal problems (caused in part by the loss of tax base from suburbanization).
- ghaff 7y ago
  >the late 20th century perception of cities as being crime ridden places to avoid Of course, a lot of cities really were, to at least some degree, crime-ridden places to avoid. The reality is complicated and varies by city of course, but it's still pretty accurate as a sweeping generalization to say that a lot of cities in the 70s and 80s wouldn't have looked all that appealing to the sort of college-educated professional class who want to live in cities today. As I was saying to someone the other day, with the exception of people in finance moving to Manhattan, very few of the people in my class in grad school went to live in a city when they graduated.
  - asveikau 7y ago
    Violent crime was higher than today and there are theories as to the reason I am sure you are aware. However, I still say this was largely a matter of perception. The perceived issues can also be made closer to reality in a self a fulfilling sort of way when it is reenforced by the affluent avoiding the place, taking their tax base with them and leaving behind a higher concentration of less wealthy people in an area. But as you also no doubt are aware, the trend reversed itself in the current century with cities being desirable again. Part of this is reduced crime. But part is that perception, which kept newly educated people away as you say, simply being lifted.
- drtillberg 7y ago
  People go where transportation takes them; we built highways and they went. It's not easy to untangle cause from effect.

echion 7y ago

Appreciated. Is there a tldr for hacker news front page submissions? Because someone should make that, if not.

smogcutter 7y ago

> plowed money into autos Part of the reason for this: building roads extended Robert Moses’ personal power, building subways didn’t. If you can think of something fucked up about NYC, odds are good it finds its way back to Moses somehow.

Spooky23 7y ago
Robert Moses acquired power because people wanted to GTFO of the city, either for the weekend or for good. I’m a little older than the average HN person. I remember as a kid growing up in Queens, my dad sweeping the ash from the Greenpoint Incinerator off of his car in the mornings when the wind blew the right way. The city was filthy, polluted and overcrowded. The subways were no exception.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  And driving cars out of the city and back made that problem worse, not better.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    It arguably made the problem tolerable for the people who worked in the city but lived in the suburbs which is certainly better for the city than those people both living and working elsewhere.
- smogcutter 7y ago
  100%! And that’s a desire he exploited to build his empire at all costs. With the city so polluted and crowded, who can argue against a park (or a “parkway”)?
- jacques_chester 7y ago
  > Robert Moses acquired power because people wanted to GTFO of the city, either for the weekend or for good. Well, no, he acquired power by (a) having a massive independent river of cash to spend and (b) using the state's power to insulate him from the city's power.
  - smogcutter 7y ago
    Yes, but before the triboro he used public opinion around parks and easy trips out of the city to force his building projects through. That’s what put him in position to build and run the triboro in the first place. But yes you’re right, the TBA and the fact that he wasn’t a city employee is what gave him the power to really go off the reservation.
alexhutcheson 7y ago
The Robert Moses explanation makes a great narrative, but it doesn't explain why every other major city in the US made the same choices at around the same time.
- smogcutter 7y ago
  It doesn’t need to, NYC really is different. Very few other major US cities had the density, space constraints, or existing transit infrastructure of NY. None of them had a Bob Moses, but they built roads for different reasons - in LA a cabal of auto and gas companies dismantled the streetcar. Also I’m not sure about “at the same time” - for example when Moses was at the height of his power in the 30s and 40s the interstate system didn’t even exist yet.
Tokkemon 7y ago
Not really, he was just following the trends of the time. If anything, New York is in a far better place with him than without. Sure, he did some bad things, but New York wouldn't be able to cope without his expressways and bridges.
- smogcutter 7y ago
  Yes and no! For one thing he was creating the trends of the time, not following them. Carving up the city with expressways was a proactive choice, done specifically because Moses 1) could control them and 2) favored the needs of automobile owners over the city’s working class. Trains just smelled too much like communism. Building the expressways did an incredible amount of harm and destroyed neighborhoods at a stroke. But they also made it practical to get around the city in a car. Bob Moses is an extremely complicated figure - he was corrupt, power hungry, a servant of the wealthy, a monster in his personal life, would destroy anything or anyone in the name of personal power, but also he built a lot of parks and was genuinely loyal to Al Smith. He’s the reason the city is dotted with playgrounds, and also the reason that thousands of people were displaced from their homes or saw their neighborhoods cut off and destroyed.

asveikau 7y ago

Your summary misses an important point: I don't think you can totally discount the effect of "white flight" and the late 20th century perception of cities as being crime ridden places to avoid. The article references this indirectly as growth of car-centric suburbs, shrinking urban population, and the city's 1970s fiscal problems (caused in part by the loss of tax base from suburbanization).

ghaff 7y ago
>the late 20th century perception of cities as being crime ridden places to avoid Of course, a lot of cities really were, to at least some degree, crime-ridden places to avoid. The reality is complicated and varies by city of course, but it's still pretty accurate as a sweeping generalization to say that a lot of cities in the 70s and 80s wouldn't have looked all that appealing to the sort of college-educated professional class who want to live in cities today. As I was saying to someone the other day, with the exception of people in finance moving to Manhattan, very few of the people in my class in grad school went to live in a city when they graduated.
- asveikau 7y ago
  Violent crime was higher than today and there are theories as to the reason I am sure you are aware. However, I still say this was largely a matter of perception. The perceived issues can also be made closer to reality in a self a fulfilling sort of way when it is reenforced by the affluent avoiding the place, taking their tax base with them and leaving behind a higher concentration of less wealthy people in an area. But as you also no doubt are aware, the trend reversed itself in the current century with cities being desirable again. Part of this is reduced crime. But part is that perception, which kept newly educated people away as you say, simply being lifted.
drtillberg 7y ago
People go where transportation takes them; we built highways and they went. It's not easy to untangle cause from effect.