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New York History: Historians Tell Tales Lunch with Robert Moses; or, Hope Springs Eternal

2016; Volume: 97; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/nyh.2016.0005

2328-8132

Jameson W. Doig,

American Environmental and Regional History

New York History:Historians Tell Tales Lunch with Robert Moses; or, Hope Springs Eternal Jameson W. Doig Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Proposed Long Island Sound crossing from Bayville, Long Island to Rye in Westchester. From Robert Moses, Public Works: A Dangerous Trade (1970). Image courtesy McGraw-Hill. [End Page 82] In January 2016, Governor Cuomo proposed that New York State spend 5 million dollars to study whether a tunnel should be constructed under Long Island Sound, connecting Long Island and Westchester County. This would permit travelers to avoid the congested bridges in New York City2. His announcement brought to mind Robert Moses's proposal several decades ago to "solve" this traffic problem with a nine-mile bridge, and a meeting I had with Moses in 1978 The telephone call came early in the afternoon of October 6, 1978. Robert Moses's secretary inquired if I would have lunch with Moses in the week ahead. I had been trying to reach Moses to obtain his views on a new highway project in Manhattan, so I readily agreed to see him. This was not my first contact with Moses. He had called me a few months before. The subject of that call was to ask if I could send him information on a debate between Moses and Frank Lloyd Wright; as he recalled, the debate had taken place in 1939 at Princeton University, and he thought the article had then appeared in a local publication. I agreed to look in the University's files, I soon found a copy, and I mailed it to his Randall's Island office. In return, Moses sent me his 1970 book, Public Works: A Dangerous Trade, and in the accompanying note he suggested we have lunch at his office after Labor Day.3 The luncheon meeting was set for mid-October, and I drove to Randall's Island, a small oasis near upper Manhattan. A security guard let me into the building, and as I walked down the hallway toward his office, I saw a visibly angry Moses heading in my direction, shouting, "Have you [End Page 83] seen this book? Do you know this author?" As he closed on me, I could see that he was waving a copy of Annmarie Walsh's new book, The Public's Business, which contains some unfavorable comments on the great man.4 Not wishing to be marked as sympathetic to Walsh's concerns, and thereby perhaps missing my lunch, I replied, "I haven't read the book. What do you think of it?" Rather than responding to my question, Moses invited me into his office, thanked me for sending him the Moses-Wright article, and ordered lunch. I was struck by the change in the man, who had been a powerful six-foot swimmer at Yale University and still an imposing figure fifty years later; but now he was nearly ninety-years-old and it appeared that he had shrunk to about 5 foot 6 inches. Until 1968, when he was eighty-years-old, he had retained much of the political influence described in Robert Caro's book, The Power Broker. However, Governor Nelson Rockefeller had then outfoxed Moses, stripping him of his power and all but a few staff members. In return, Governor Rockefeller promised that Moses would be placed in charge of building a great bridge across Long Island Sound as soon as it was feasible.5 During our luncheon session, I asked Moses for his opinion on Westway, a roadway tunnel along the west side of Manhattan proposed by New York State's Urban Development Corporation; it would cost more than a billion dollars a mile. I had a particular interest in the Westway project since I expected to include it in a book on transportation and urban development in the New York region. Moses argued that the project was [End Page 84] a bad idea and certainly not worth the money.6 I then tried to explore his reasons for opposing the Port Authority when it proposed in 1949 that a gigantic bus terminal be constructed in Manhattan. Moses was not eager to discuss this project, which he...