Robert Moses

Robert Moses was the creator of New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County, NY throughout the 1 1930s and 1950s. He had transformed neighborhoods into shorelines and highways/roadways. He was very successful and changed NYC forever. However, some believed that he had removed lower-class residents from their homes to benefit the rich. I believe that he had helped the people of the future by making their life easier and untroublesome. But he was also very inconsiderate with the people who he had displaced to create a better future for the working society today. He had ignored the people of New York City, who had made the city up. Streets, playgrounds, and pools do not make a city, but the people who live within it do. Michael Powell wrote an article in the New York Times called “A Tale of Two Cities”. In his article he discussed the two view points of what Robert Moses had built. He uses Robert Caro’s article, “The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York”, to show that he had disregarded public input to overcome his desire for power. Powell tells us that Caro believed that Moses neglected public transit and destroyed many neighborhoods to build his renewal projects. Powell quotes Caro, “We don’t need a new Robert Moses because he ignored the values of New York”. In other words, Caro thinks that the city would have been a different place (a better place) if Moses never existed. His 1,200 page article also includes that he was racist not only to the poor but to the black people as well. This opened the eyes of many people. People started to look outside the box and not only at these “acres if sterile public housing towers, parks and playgrounds for the rich and comfortable, and highways” that he built. They realized that he ignored the voices of the people whose houses he ruptured. He forced them out of the homes and only gave them a 90 day notice. Everyone was clueless as to why this was happening and they did not have enough time to leave.