You’ve probably seen the book. It’s a massive, black-spined brick called The Power Broker by Robert Caro. It sits on the shelves of every aspiring politician and urbanist, basically serving as the "Bible" of New York City history. But if you think Robert Moses was just a "racist guy who liked highways," you’re missing the weird, sprawling reality of how your daily life was actually built.
Honestly, Moses is the reason you can drive to Jones Beach or walk through Lincoln Center. He’s also the reason thousands of families were kicked out of their homes to make way for the Cross Bronx Expressway. He was a man of absolute contradictions. He never even learned how to drive. Think about that: the man who paved New York lived his entire life in the back of a chauffeured limousine.
The Myth of the "Master Builder"
People call him the Master Builder like it’s a compliment, but for many, it was a threat. He wasn't an architect. He wasn't an engineer. He was a lawyer who figured out how to use "public authorities" to bypass the messy parts of democracy. Basically, he created a fourth branch of government that nobody could vote for.
His career started with an almost romantic idealism. In the 1920s, he wanted to give the "average Joe" a place to breathe. At the time, Long Island was mostly private estates for the ultra-wealthy. Moses fought the "robber barons" to build Jones Beach, a public masterpiece. He used high-quality materials—Ohio sandstone and Barbary brick—because he believed the public deserved the best.
But power is a hell of a drug.
By the time he was running the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, he wasn't just building parks. He was moving mountains. And people. Between 1945 and 1970, he oversaw the construction of 13 bridges, 416 miles of parkways, and 658 playgrounds. That's a lot of concrete. It's also a lot of displacement.
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Why the "Power Broker" Tag Matters
The term "power broker" isn't just a catchy title Caro came up with. It describes how Moses operated. He didn't ask for permission; he created "facts on the ground."
If he wanted a highway, he’d start by building a bridge in the middle of a neighborhood. Once the bridge was there, the city had to build the highway to connect to it. It was a brilliant, ruthless strategy of "fait accompli." You couldn't stop him because he was already halfway done before you even knew there was a plan.
The War with Jane Jacobs
If Robert Moses was the unstoppable force, Jane Jacobs was the immovable object. Their 1960s battle over the proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway (LOMEX) is the stuff of legend. Moses wanted to run a massive elevated highway right through Washington Square Park and what is now SoHo. He called it "slum clearance."
Jacobs, a journalist with no formal training in planning, looked at the same neighborhood and saw a community. She saw kids playing on sidewalks and "eyes on the street." She basically invented modern urbanism by telling him no.
She won.
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This was the beginning of the end for Moses. The public was tired of being treated like pieces on a chessboard. They started to realize that "progress" shouldn't mean destroying the very soul of the city.
The Fall from Grace
It wasn't a hero's exit. Nelson Rockefeller, the Governor of New York, eventually outmaneuvered him in 1968. Rockefeller was just as hungry for power as Moses, but he was younger and had better political instincts. He merged Moses’s beloved Triborough Authority into the MTA, stripping the old man of his checkbook.
Moses spent his final years in a sort of bitter exile in West Islip. He’d write long, angry letters to newspapers, defending his legacy. He died in 1981 at age 92.
What We Get Wrong Today
We love to point at Moses and say "he was the villain." It's easy. But the truth is more uncomfortable. Moses did what the middle class wanted him to do for decades. They wanted the car culture. They wanted the suburbs. They wanted the "order" he promised.
He wasn't a lone rogue; he was a tool for a society that valued speed and modernization over community.
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Practical Takeaways from the Moses Era
If you're interested in how cities actually work, you have to look at the "Moses footprint" in your own town. Here is how you can spot his influence and what you can do about it:
- Look at your local highways. Do they cut through low-income neighborhoods while curving around wealthy ones? That’s the Moses playbook. You can advocate for "highway capping" projects that turn those concrete scars back into parkland.
- Support transit-oriented development. Moses hated public transit. To undo his legacy, we have to prioritize trains and buses over car-centric sprawl.
- Read the fine print on "Authorities." Many cities still have non-elected boards making huge infrastructure decisions. Attend those meetings. Transparency is the only thing that would have stopped Moses in the 1940s.
- Pick up the book. Honestly, read The Power Broker. It's 1,200 pages, but it’ll teach you more about how power actually works than any political science degree ever could.
The legacy of Robert Moses is still under our tires every time we drive the BQE or the Long Island Expressway. We live in his world. But we don't have to keep building it.
The most important thing to remember is that infrastructure isn't neutral. Every bridge and every road is a choice about who matters and who doesn't. Next time you're stuck in traffic on a Moses-built parkway, look at the neighborhoods on either side. Those people are still living with the choices made by a man who never once sat behind a steering wheel.
Next Steps for Deepening Your Knowledge
To truly grasp the scale of what Moses did, take a weekend trip to Jones Beach State Park. Look at the water towers and the bathhouses. Notice the height of the stone bridges over the parkways—legend has it they were built low specifically to keep public buses (and the people who rode them) out. Whether that's 100% fact or partly myth, seeing the physical reality of his "Master Building" is the only way to understand the sheer weight of his influence on New York.