Chapter 37 – One Mile

Robert Moses built six hundred and twenty-seven miles of roads in and around New York City. This is the story of one mile. It was part of the Cross Bronx Expressway and unlike most of Moses’s roads which carved straight lines through the city, it swerves and bulges. The key to why is in the apartment houses that are located in the route. By going straight on, the road would only have demolished a handful of apartments. By taking the route it eventually did, it destroyed a whole neighbourhood.

This was a poor area called East Tremont with a large, integrated immigrant community. There were few open spaces but there was a large popular park nearby, as well as the Bronx Zoo. There were bustling streets of shops full of small businesses. Many people worked in the garment industry. There were good schools with high standards. The apartments were old but roomy and the rent was low. There was a sense of community; of belonging.

Black and Hispanic residents started to appear after the war and by 1952 they represented ten per cent of the neighbourhood. They were also integrated with few problems. People with decent housing and low rents are more likely to adapt than move out.

In December 1952, letters started to arrive at the apartments, signed by Robert Moses, telling the residents that their home was to be demolished to make way for a new highway and giving them ninety days to vacate. The result was panic. When the residents found out about rent rates in other parts of the city, local committees began to form. They visited other sites where the highway had driven through apartments and saw the chaos it left behind. The city housing department had done little in terms of relocation. This was to be the future of East Tremont.

There was still hope in the form of the mystique of Robert Moses. The committee was sure that they could persuade Moses to change the route. They hired one of Moses’s engineers to plan a new route. By running the expressway through the nearby park, many of the apartments would be saved. But neither Moses or any of his aides would consider a change.

The committee formed into the East Tremont Neighbours Association (ETNA) and appointed a local housewife, Lillian Edelstein, as their head. They tried their arguments with other members of the city authority. They received support from their congressman and city officials. The borough president approved of the new plan, but Moses angrily threatened to remove funds and resign. At the first board hearing, Moses’s plans were denied, partly due to pressure exerted by one hundred East Tremont housewives including Lillian Edelstein. However, in the following board meeting Moses got his way and his destructive plans were waved through. Edelstein needed ten thousand dollars to mount a legal challenge and she worked tirelessly to raise it. Engineers worked on detailed plans for an alternative route which were sent to the press, but the press were of little help.

However, elections were due and the Association directly challenged the politicians. They had positive reactions from Mayor Wagner, who promised to vote for ETNA’s plan. After an intervention from Moses however, where he again threatened to withdraw funds, Wagner broke his promise. At the final board meeting, Moses assembled a group of his own engineers. The tenants had their own engineers and a reporter, who was ejected. ETNA walked out and in their absence Moses’s plans were approved.

So why didn’t Moses change the route? One story is that one of Moses’s connections had property in the area and the curve on the route was in order to avoid it. It could have been merely of whim. More likely, it was to avoid pulling down a bus terminal in which local politicians had an interest. Whatever the reason, once Moses had made a decision, any attempt to overturn it would be seen by Moses as a personal affront.

The final struggle for the residents was relocation. Despite promises from the Mayor, there was little or no provision for relocation and at best, residents were offered properties that were much smaller, much dirtier and much more expensive. Utilities were switched off at the condemned tenements. In mid-1953, the residents were sent letters giving them a month’s notice. By June, have the residents had left. Workers began tearing down the tenements while the remaining people were still living there. Vandals moved in and stripped the vacant properties. Fear would be the greatest relocator of all.

Analysis & Key Takeaways

• Eminent domain is a contractual weapon Robert Moses used to exact his vision….
• Wagner had a change of heart and the project goes forward as the community goes up against Moses contra the Cross-Bronx Expressway and there was no reason to go through the East Treamont, Robert Moses didn’t care about the small people; Moses’ slum clearance committee didn’t help him out;
• Robert Moses believes that if you build a park then you are on the side of angels. So of course the parks are the organic part of the project and the inorganic side was the infrastructure revenue generating tactic.

Chapter 1	Chapter 2	Chapter 3
Chapter 4	Chapter 5	Chapter 6
Chapter 7	Chapter 8	Chapter 9
Chapter 10	Chapter 11	Chapter 12
Chapter 13	Chapter 14	Chapter 15
Chapter 16	Chapter 17	Chapter 18
Chapter 19	Chapter 20	Chapter 21
Chapter 22	Chapter 23	Chapter 24
Chapter 25	Chapter 26	Chapter 27
Chapter 28	Chapter 29	Chapter 30
Chapter 31	Chapter 32	Chapter 33
Chapter 35	Chapter 36	Chapter 37
Chapter 38	Chapter 39	Chapter 40
Chapter 41	Chapter 42	Chapter 43
Chapter 44	Chapter 45	Chapter 46
Chapter 47	Chapter 48	Chapter 49
Chapter 50

Chapter 38 – One Mile – Afterwards

The Cross-Bronx Expressway was not to complete development until 1960, five years after the residents had been evicted. To keep the Expressway level, the engineers had to blast through solid rock. Tenements nearby began to crumble. The noise was deafening from the constant drilling and the dirt and dust got everywhere. There were ten thousand people living near the development. They began to move out. New impoverished people, many of them poor blacks, moved in.

After completion, the Expressway caused new problems. The rise of carbon-monoxide from the six-lane expressway below was visible. The noise was constant. Most of the new residents shopped at their old neighbourhood. East Tremont began to die. The park became dangerous. People left faster and faster, and the decay became worse.

The remaining residents tried to work with the city to develop new housing projects. Robert Moses seemed to offer support, but delay followed delay. When they tried to protest, nobody listened. After a while only the very old still lived there. Everybody else had gone.

Analysis & Key Takeaways

• Cross-Bronx Expressway seems discrimination motivated but there are other factors at play, namely getting what Robert Moses wants done;
• He used eminent domain to direct the bridge traffic through the Bronx. The controversy was massive, there had been urban renewal projects that hadn’t helped; the people who were cleared from an area had no where else to go, so Moses was the embodiment of this controversial strategy for clearing.

Chapter 1	Chapter 2	Chapter 3
Chapter 4	Chapter 5	Chapter 6
Chapter 7	Chapter 8	Chapter 9
Chapter 10	Chapter 11	Chapter 12
Chapter 13	Chapter 14	Chapter 15
Chapter 16	Chapter 17	Chapter 18
Chapter 19	Chapter 20	Chapter 21
Chapter 22	Chapter 23	Chapter 24
Chapter 25	Chapter 26	Chapter 27
Chapter 28	Chapter 29	Chapter 30
Chapter 31	Chapter 32	Chapter 33
Chapter 35	Chapter 36	Chapter 37
Chapter 38	Chapter 39	Chapter 40
Chapter 41	Chapter 42	Chapter 43
Chapter 44	Chapter 45	Chapter 46
Chapter 47	Chapter 48	Chapter 49
Chapter 50

Chapter 35 – RM

Age had not slaked the appetite of Moses for work and power. Every morning a vanilla envelope would be ready to be picked up, bursting with Moses’s orders. He was still working long hours, many of them in his Cadillac cum office. Nothing seemed to deflect him.  His impatience was legendary. He would pace his office like a caged tiger and his treatment of anybody who displeased him was brutal.

His physical strength was awesome. He would swim daily, often for hours. He wrote a full-length novel at the same time as running eight departments. Work seemed to make him stronger. This work made him a lot of money, but he spent this money in an attempt to make more by buying influence. His bank account was often nearly empty.

He did however, divert enough Triborough funds to entertain on an epic scale. He had a number of dining rooms, fifty feet long, at a number of his properties. He entertained around one hundred and fifty times a year, with guests numbering between ten and fifty diners. All of the guests were people Moses needed something from.

As for his employees, all were on tenterhooks in case Moses needed their services. His aides referred to him almost as if he were a god. They nodded when he wanted them to nod. They laughed when he wanted them to laugh. They acted as functionaries for his many banquets and entertainments for clients, including lavish shows at the Long Beach Stadium.

For opening ceremonies for large projects, the feast provided, both of food and entertainment, were of a scale rarely seen in a democracy. Attendees were often in the thousands, including Moses’s own court, often flown out of town in a specially chartered plane if it was required. Moses used his hospitality as a subtle reward for services rendered.

Robert Moses held shaping power in New York for forty-four years. He changed the course of rivers. He reshaped the hills surrounding the city and the beaches. He created the parks and parkways. He altered the region’s skylines with his civic buildings and apartment houses.

Robert Moses believed his works would make his name immortal. Barring catastrophe, the works of Robert Moses will be part of New York for centuries to come.

But as well as being an elemental force, he was a blind force. His arrogance, gorged with power, became absolute. As he was above rules, he was above the law. His ego became as titanic as his imagination. His detractors compared him to Hitler. His supporters compared him to Lincoln. His most frequent pose was one of lofty indifference, his arms crossed with hands gripping the opposite bicep, his head tilted back, like an emperor surveying all his works. He surrounded himself with sycophants, the only opinions sought being confirmations of his own opinion.

Three aspects helped to sustain his myopia. Robert Moses had never driven a car, even though his mobile office was in one. His work however was devoted to highways and transportation. These plans had no basis in a lived reality. His work ethic forced him to create projects, not always for the benefit of the city, but to fuel his desire for work and power. And Robert Moses was going deaf. This deafness was partly symbolic, an inability to listen to anybody else. However later that deafness became a physical disability. Then, he couldn’t listen even if he wanted to.

Analysis & Key Takeaways

• Moses was a highly social animal. He would entertain guests 150 times per year;
• He pushed for projects because he enjoyed it, the project would strengthen his power rather than the city needed it.

Chapter 1	Chapter 2	Chapter 3
Chapter 4	Chapter 5	Chapter 6
Chapter 7	Chapter 8	Chapter 9
Chapter 10	Chapter 11	Chapter 12
Chapter 13	Chapter 14	Chapter 15
Chapter 16	Chapter 17	Chapter 18
Chapter 19	Chapter 20	Chapter 21
Chapter 22	Chapter 23	Chapter 24
Chapter 25	Chapter 26	Chapter 27
Chapter 28	Chapter 29	Chapter 30
Chapter 31	Chapter 32	Chapter 33
Chapter 35	Chapter 36	Chapter 37
Chapter 38	Chapter 39	Chapter 40
Chapter 41	Chapter 42	Chapter 43
Chapter 44	Chapter 45	Chapter 46
Chapter 47	Chapter 48	Chapter 49
Chapter 50

Chapter 10 – The Best Bill-Drafter in Albany

Moses had learned the lessons of power. As a Reformer, he had advocated that only the legislature could approve budgets. The Heads of Departments could only recommend. However, as he was now a Head of Department, this would restrict his liberty. Therefore, Parks was to be an exception. Parks would therefore be an independent body with its own authority. The President’s term would be six years, three times the length of the Governor’s, and the Governor would be unable to dismiss him unless there was proven misconduct. His previous support for free and open debate. However, now, with the exception of Al Smith, nobody else would know what was in the enabling bill.

Hidden in the bill was the ability to acquire land by appropriation, i.e. by walking on the land and simply asking for it without redress or automatic compensation. Also, the naming of the main service roads as parkways rather than highways got around building restrictions as parkways were not previously mentioned in any highway laws. If the bill was passed, the Parks Commission, with Moses as its President, would have as much power as was contained in the New York City Charter.

There was not much interest in the bill when it went to the House in early 1924 and when it went up for vote it was nodded through unopposed. Moses and Smith ensured that the Commissioners elected would allow Moses to get on with the job, and at their first meeting, Moses was elected as Chairman.

  Analysis & Key Takeaways

• If you do create a new authority, be sure to design it to your advantage. With any luck, no one will take the authority seriously at the start so that you can package it for maximum appeal. That’s precisely what Robert Moses did;
• Parkways were not mentioned in any highway laws; therefore you can simply skip around a technicality to gain more influence.
• Taking credit for other people’s work? Moses didn’t give credit to the employees who had done a lot of work to map out a restructuring of the bureaucracy in the Parks system. Moses was hilariously open to stealing another person’s idea; Moses actually claimed a guy who had written the vast majority of the plan for reorganizing the civil service actually plagiarized from Moses…Moses wanted to reorganize the civil service; creating state agencies;

Chapter 1	Chapter 2	Chapter 3
Chapter 4	Chapter 5	Chapter 6
Chapter 7	Chapter 8	Chapter 9
Chapter 10	Chapter 11	Chapter 12
Chapter 13	Chapter 14	Chapter 15
Chapter 16	Chapter 17	Chapter 18
Chapter 19	Chapter 20	Chapter 21
Chapter 22	Chapter 23	Chapter 24
Chapter 25	Chapter 26	Chapter 27
Chapter 28	Chapter 29	Chapter 30
Chapter 31	Chapter 32	Chapter 33
Chapter 35	Chapter 36	Chapter 37
Chapter 38	Chapter 39	Chapter 40
Chapter 41	Chapter 42	Chapter 43
Chapter 44	Chapter 45	Chapter 46
Chapter 47	Chapter 48	Chapter 49
Chapter 50