Eleanor Randolph: Robert Moses, Builder, Left Behind His Power Tool
A series of splendid museum events across New York City has recharged the 50-year debate about the legacy of Robert Moses. Did this powerful planner, who died in 1981, make today’s thriving New York possible? Or did he arrogantly destroy neighborhoods, often the poor and black ones, that got in his way of a grand metropolitan vision?
The latest response is that he did both, as these three exhibitions — at the Museum of the City of New York, the Queens Museum of Art and Columbia University — prove with great depth and intelligence. But as urban thinkers attempt to lend more balance to Moses’ tarnished legacy, city and state officials often ask a more concrete question: Without the vision and the muscle of a Robert Moses, is it possible to build anything big in a city like New York?
Even though Moses has been out of power for a long time, the governmental apparatus that he wielded is still mostly intact. That weapon is usually called an authority, a public-private hybrid that can collect fees, take on debt and build things with little government interference. At last count, New York had about 640 such authorities, some that are bizarrely innocuous, like the state Overcoat Development Corporation, but many that are enormously powerful.
Few dictators exert as much control over public policy as Moses did over his authorities. These quasi corporations made it possible for him to route federal funds into public parks and pools, bulldozing what he called “slums” to make way for the superhighways of his era. Despite efforts to reform the authority system after Moses was pushed out of power in the 1960s, most New York authorities worked in relative secrecy until very recently. When it became apparent a few years ago that the state’s authority system was a way to hide 90 percent of the state debt — or simply to hide, period — state legislators like Assemblyman Richard Brodsky of Westchester started pushing important reforms.
Despite these recent improvements, some authorities still retain the kind of clout Moses would have recognized....
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The latest response is that he did both, as these three exhibitions — at the Museum of the City of New York, the Queens Museum of Art and Columbia University — prove with great depth and intelligence. But as urban thinkers attempt to lend more balance to Moses’ tarnished legacy, city and state officials often ask a more concrete question: Without the vision and the muscle of a Robert Moses, is it possible to build anything big in a city like New York?
Even though Moses has been out of power for a long time, the governmental apparatus that he wielded is still mostly intact. That weapon is usually called an authority, a public-private hybrid that can collect fees, take on debt and build things with little government interference. At last count, New York had about 640 such authorities, some that are bizarrely innocuous, like the state Overcoat Development Corporation, but many that are enormously powerful.
Few dictators exert as much control over public policy as Moses did over his authorities. These quasi corporations made it possible for him to route federal funds into public parks and pools, bulldozing what he called “slums” to make way for the superhighways of his era. Despite efforts to reform the authority system after Moses was pushed out of power in the 1960s, most New York authorities worked in relative secrecy until very recently. When it became apparent a few years ago that the state’s authority system was a way to hide 90 percent of the state debt — or simply to hide, period — state legislators like Assemblyman Richard Brodsky of Westchester started pushing important reforms.
Despite these recent improvements, some authorities still retain the kind of clout Moses would have recognized....