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> 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 some

> 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.

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.