The Power Broker
Encyclopedia
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York is a Pulitzer Prize
-winning 1974 biography
of Robert Moses
, "New York City
's Master Builder", by Robert Caro
. In the years since its publication, and especially since Moses's death in 1981, it has been central to discussion of Moses and the history of 20th-century New York.
in the early 1960s, Caro covered the preparations for the World's Fair
and learned that everything involved ultimately came down to Moses. In 1966, his wife Ina changed the topic of her graduate thesis to write about the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
, while he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University taking courses in urban planning.
He found that despite the man's illustrious career, no biography had been written, save the highly propagandistic
Builder for Democracy in 1952. So he decided to undertake the task himself, beginning the seven-year process of hundreds of interviews meticulously documented as well as extensive original archival research, listed in the notes on sources in an appendix to the book.
Moses "did his best to try to keep this book from being written—as he had done, successfully, with so many previous, stillborn, biographies." After Mr. Caro had been working on the book for more than a year, Moses agreed to sit for a series of seven interviews, one lasting from 9:30 A.M. until evening, providing much material about his early life, but when Caro began asking questions ("for having interviewed others involved in the subjects in question and having examined the records—many of them secret—dealing with them, it was necessary to reconcile the sometimes striking disparity between what he told me and what they told me") the series of interviews was abruptly terminated." Moses's brother Paul was about to provide Caro with the reason behind their decades-old family feud, but died of a heart attack
hours before he could explain.
Connecticut
to his early years as an idealistic advocate for Progressive
reform of the city's corrupt civil service
system. Moses's failures there, and later experience working for future governor of New York
Al Smith
in the New York State Assembly
and future New York Mayor
Jimmy Walker
in the State Senate
, taught him how power really worked, that he needed it to make his dreams of roads and bridges for the city reality, and that ideals and principles had to be set aside if necessary to make them happen, Caro says.
By the 1930s, he had earned a reputation as a creator of beautiful parks in both the city and state, and later long-sought projects like the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
, but at the price of his earlier integrity. Caro ultimately paints a portrait of Moses as an unelected bureaucrat
who, through his reputation for getting large construction projects done, amassed so much power over the years that the many elected officials whom he was supposedly responsive to instead became dependent on him. He consistently favored automobile
traffic over mass transit, human and community needs, and while making a big deal of the fact that he served in his many public jobs (save as New York City Parks Commissioner) without compensation, lived like a king and similarly enriched those individuals in public and private life who aided him.
While Caro pays ample tribute to Moses's intelligence, political shrewdness, eloquence and hands-on, if somewhat aggressive, management style, and indeed gives full credit to Moses for his earlier achievements, it is clear from the book's introduction onward that Caro's view of Moses is ambivalent (some of the readers of The Power Broker would conclude that Caro possessed only contempt for his subject).
At 1,336 pages (only two-thirds of the original manuscript), it provides documentation of its assertions in most instances, which Moses (and his supporters after his death) have consistently attempted to refute. Because Caro's narrative includes a great deal of history about New York City itself, the book is considered by many to be a monumental scholarly work in its own right, transcending the normal style of a biography that focuses on the life of a single person.
. The chapter highlighted the difficulties in constructing one section of the Cross-Bronx Expressway
and the way Moses ran roughshod over the interests of the section of East Tremont
the road effectively destroyed.
Moses's influence on New York City was undisputed, even though his political power had been cut off, and as it was shortly after President Nixon
's unprecedented resignation
, the public was receptive to accounts of public officials absolutely corrupted by the power they had attained. It received favorable reviews, and brought a host of forgotten scandals to new light, as well as some new ones (Moses's shameful treatment of his brother, for example) though some critics felt that Caro's insinuation of an extramarital affair between Moses and Manhattan congresswoman Ruth Pratt was a bit too gossip
y and salacious for such a serious book.
It won the Pulitzer in biography in 1974, as well as the Francis Parkman Prize
awarded by the Society of American Historians to the book that best "exemplifies the union of the historian and the artist." On June 12, 1975, The New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects conferred a "Special Citation upon Robert Caro....for reminding us once again, that ends and means are inseparable." In 1986, it was recognized by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 2001 the Modern Library selected it as one of the hundred most important books of the 20th century. In 2005, Caro was awarded the Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2010, President Barack Obama
, after awarding Mr. Caro a National Humanities Medal, said "I think about Robert Caro and reading The Power Broker back when I was 22 years old and just being mesmerized, and I'm sure it helped to shape how I think about politics." In 2010, Mr. Caro was also inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame. David Klatell, dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
, has recommended the book to new students to familiarize themselves with New York City and the techniques of investigative reporting.
Moses and his supporters considered the book to be overwhelmingly biased against him, to the point that Moses put out a 23-page typed statement challenging some of its assertions (he claimed he never used the anti-Italian slurs the book attributes to him about Fiorello La Guardia, for instance) and what his supporters saw as a record of unprecedented accomplishment. However, as Mr. Caro states in the introduction to The Power Broker: "Moses himself, who feels his works will make him immortal, believes he will be justified by history, that his works will endure and be blessed by generations not yet born. Perhaps he is right. It is impossible to say that New York would have been a better city if Robert Moses had never lived. It is possible to say only that it would have been a different city."
In later years, some further criticisms have been made of the book, mainly that it overstates the extent of Moses's power in the 1960s. In the 21st century, as many have decried the inability of American public institutions to construct and maintain infrastructure
projects, a more positive view of Moses' career has emerged. In a 2006 speech to the Regional Plan Association
on downstate transportation needs, Eliot Spitzer
, who would be overwhelmingly elected governor later that year, said a biography of Moses written today might be called At Least He Got It Built. "That's what we need today. A real commitment to get things done."
Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography
The Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished biography or autobiography by an American author.-1910s:* 1917: Julia Ward Howe by Laura E...
-winning 1974 biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
of Robert Moses
Robert Moses
Robert Moses was the "master builder" of mid-20th century New York City, Long Island, Rockland County, and Westchester County, New York. As the shaper of a modern city, he is sometimes compared to Baron Haussmann of Second Empire Paris, and is one of the most polarizing figures in the history of...
, "New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Master Builder", by Robert Caro
Robert Caro
Robert Allan Caro is an American journalist and author known for his celebrated biographies of United States political figures Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson...
. In the years since its publication, and especially since Moses's death in 1981, it has been central to discussion of Moses and the history of 20th-century New York.
Origins
As a reporter for NewsdayNewsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
in the early 1960s, Caro covered the preparations for the World's Fair
1964 New York World's Fair
The 1964/1965 New York World's Fair was the third major world's fair to be held in New York City. Hailing itself as a "universal and international" exposition, the fair's theme was "Peace Through Understanding," dedicated to "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe";...
and learned that everything involved ultimately came down to Moses. In 1966, his wife Ina changed the topic of her graduate thesis to write about the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is a double-decked suspension bridge that connects the boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn in New York City at the Narrows, the reach connecting the relatively protected upper bay with the larger lower bay....
, while he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University taking courses in urban planning.
He found that despite the man's illustrious career, no biography had been written, save the highly propagandistic
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
Builder for Democracy in 1952. So he decided to undertake the task himself, beginning the seven-year process of hundreds of interviews meticulously documented as well as extensive original archival research, listed in the notes on sources in an appendix to the book.
Moses "did his best to try to keep this book from being written—as he had done, successfully, with so many previous, stillborn, biographies." After Mr. Caro had been working on the book for more than a year, Moses agreed to sit for a series of seven interviews, one lasting from 9:30 A.M. until evening, providing much material about his early life, but when Caro began asking questions ("for having interviewed others involved in the subjects in question and having examined the records—many of them secret—dealing with them, it was necessary to reconcile the sometimes striking disparity between what he told me and what they told me") the series of interviews was abruptly terminated." Moses's brother Paul was about to provide Caro with the reason behind their decades-old family feud, but died of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
hours before he could explain.
Synopsis
Caro traces Moses's life from his childhood in Gay NinetiesGay Nineties
Gay Nineties is an American nostalgic term that refers to the decade of the 1890s. It is known in the UK as the Naughty Nineties, and refers there to the decade of supposedly decadent art by Aubrey Beardsley, the witty plays and trial of Oscar Wilde, society scandals and the beginning of the...
Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
to his early years as an idealistic advocate for Progressive
Progressive Era
The Progressive Era in the United States was a period of social activism and political reform that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s. One main goal of the Progressive movement was purification of government, as Progressives tried to eliminate corruption by exposing and undercutting political...
reform of the city's corrupt civil service
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
system. Moses's failures there, and later experience working for future governor of New York
Governor of New York
The Governor of the State of New York is the chief executive of the State of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military and naval forces. The officeholder is afforded the courtesy title of His/Her...
Al Smith
Al Smith
Alfred Emanuel Smith. , known in private and public life as Al Smith, was an American statesman who was elected the 42nd Governor of New York three times, and was the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate in 1928...
in the New York State Assembly
New York State Assembly
The New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York State Legislature. The Assembly is composed of 150 members representing an equal number of districts, with each district having an average population of 128,652...
and future New York Mayor
Mayor of New York City
The Mayor of the City of New York is head of the executive branch of New York City's government. The mayor's office administers all city services, public property, police and fire protection, most public agencies, and enforces all city and state laws within New York City.The budget overseen by the...
Jimmy Walker
Jimmy Walker
James John Walker, often known as Jimmy Walker and colloquially as Beau James , was the mayor of New York City from 1926 to 1932...
in the State Senate
New York State Senate
The New York State Senate is one of two houses in the New York State Legislature and has members each elected to two-year terms. There are no limits on the number of terms one may serve...
, taught him how power really worked, that he needed it to make his dreams of roads and bridges for the city reality, and that ideals and principles had to be set aside if necessary to make them happen, Caro says.
By the 1930s, he had earned a reputation as a creator of beautiful parks in both the city and state, and later long-sought projects like the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is a double-decked suspension bridge that connects the boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn in New York City at the Narrows, the reach connecting the relatively protected upper bay with the larger lower bay....
, but at the price of his earlier integrity. Caro ultimately paints a portrait of Moses as an unelected bureaucrat
Bureaucrat
A bureaucrat is a member of a bureaucracy and can comprise the administration of any organization of any size, though the term usually connotes someone within an institution of a government or corporation...
who, through his reputation for getting large construction projects done, amassed so much power over the years that the many elected officials whom he was supposedly responsive to instead became dependent on him. He consistently favored automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
traffic over mass transit, human and community needs, and while making a big deal of the fact that he served in his many public jobs (save as New York City Parks Commissioner) without compensation, lived like a king and similarly enriched those individuals in public and private life who aided him.
While Caro pays ample tribute to Moses's intelligence, political shrewdness, eloquence and hands-on, if somewhat aggressive, management style, and indeed gives full credit to Moses for his earlier achievements, it is clear from the book's introduction onward that Caro's view of Moses is ambivalent (some of the readers of The Power Broker would conclude that Caro possessed only contempt for his subject).
At 1,336 pages (only two-thirds of the original manuscript), it provides documentation of its assertions in most instances, which Moses (and his supporters after his death) have consistently attempted to refute. Because Caro's narrative includes a great deal of history about New York City itself, the book is considered by many to be a monumental scholarly work in its own right, transcending the normal style of a biography that focuses on the life of a single person.
Commercial and critical reception
The Power Broker caused quite a stir when it was published, after the "One Mile" chapter ran as an excerpt in The New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
. The chapter highlighted the difficulties in constructing one section of the Cross-Bronx Expressway
Cross-Bronx Expressway
The Cross Bronx Expressway is a major expressway in the New York City borough of the Bronx, conceived by Robert Moses and built between 1948 and 1972. It carries traffic on Interstate 95 through the city, and serves as a portion of Interstate 295 toward Long Island; a portion is also designated U.S...
and the way Moses ran roughshod over the interests of the section of East Tremont
East Tremont, Bronx
East Tremont is a low income residential neighborhood geographically located in the west Bronx, New York City. The neighborhood is part of Bronx Community Board 6. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise are: East 183rd Street to the north, Crotona Avenue to the east, the...
the road effectively destroyed.
Moses's influence on New York City was undisputed, even though his political power had been cut off, and as it was shortly after President Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
's unprecedented resignation
Resignation
A resignation is the formal act of giving up or quitting one's office or position. It can also refer to the act of admitting defeat in a game like chess, indicated by the resigning player declaring "I resign", turning his king on its side, extending his hand, or stopping the chess clock...
, the public was receptive to accounts of public officials absolutely corrupted by the power they had attained. It received favorable reviews, and brought a host of forgotten scandals to new light, as well as some new ones (Moses's shameful treatment of his brother, for example) though some critics felt that Caro's insinuation of an extramarital affair between Moses and Manhattan congresswoman Ruth Pratt was a bit too gossip
Gossip
Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others, It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted...
y and salacious for such a serious book.
It won the Pulitzer in biography in 1974, as well as the Francis Parkman Prize
Francis Parkman Prize
The Francis Parkman Prize, named after Francis Parkman, is awarded by the Society of American Historians for the best book in American history each year. Its purpose is to promote literary distinction in historical writing...
awarded by the Society of American Historians to the book that best "exemplifies the union of the historian and the artist." On June 12, 1975, The New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects conferred a "Special Citation upon Robert Caro....for reminding us once again, that ends and means are inseparable." In 1986, it was recognized by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 2001 the Modern Library selected it as one of the hundred most important books of the 20th century. In 2005, Caro was awarded the Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2010, President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
, after awarding Mr. Caro a National Humanities Medal, said "I think about Robert Caro and reading The Power Broker back when I was 22 years old and just being mesmerized, and I'm sure it helped to shape how I think about politics." In 2010, Mr. Caro was also inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame. David Klatell, dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is one of Columbia's graduate and professional schools. It offers three degree programs: Master of Science in journalism , Master of Arts in journalism and a Ph.D. in communications...
, has recommended the book to new students to familiarize themselves with New York City and the techniques of investigative reporting.
Moses and his supporters considered the book to be overwhelmingly biased against him, to the point that Moses put out a 23-page typed statement challenging some of its assertions (he claimed he never used the anti-Italian slurs the book attributes to him about Fiorello La Guardia, for instance) and what his supporters saw as a record of unprecedented accomplishment. However, as Mr. Caro states in the introduction to The Power Broker: "Moses himself, who feels his works will make him immortal, believes he will be justified by history, that his works will endure and be blessed by generations not yet born. Perhaps he is right. It is impossible to say that New York would have been a better city if Robert Moses had never lived. It is possible to say only that it would have been a different city."
In later years, some further criticisms have been made of the book, mainly that it overstates the extent of Moses's power in the 1960s. In the 21st century, as many have decried the inability of American public institutions to construct and maintain infrastructure
Infrastructure
Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...
projects, a more positive view of Moses' career has emerged. In a 2006 speech to the Regional Plan Association
Regional Plan Association
The Regional Plan Association is an independent, not-for-profit regional planning organization, founded in 1922, that focuses on recommendations to improve the quality of life and economic competitiveness of the 31-county New York-New Jersey-Connecticut region...
on downstate transportation needs, Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Laurence Spitzer is an American lawyer, former Democratic Party politician, and political commentator. He was the co-host of In the Arena, a talk-show and punditry forum broadcast on CNN until CNN cancelled his show in July of 2011...
, who would be overwhelmingly elected governor later that year, said a biography of Moses written today might be called At Least He Got It Built. "That's what we need today. A real commitment to get things done."
External links
- Robert A. Caro's Jan. 5, 1998, New Yorker article on Robert Moses and the writing of The Power Broker
- Moses's response.
- The Power Broker at Caro's website.
- The Power Broker Revisited.
- Discussion at Gotham Gazettes Reading NYC book club.
- "The Power Book" in New York.
- Kevin R. Kosar, "Public Authorities and the Public Good," Metro Matter Newsletter, May–June 2004.
- Michael Powell, "A Tale of Two Cities," New York Times, interview with Robert Caro and reconsideration of Moses' legacy, May 6, 2007.