Hi Friends!
Ever wonder why for a hundred years there were no additional NYC subway lines created - even as the population in the outer boroughs exploded? Or why maintenance on the existing train lines virtually stopped between 1940 and 1970 so that by the early 80s the number of delays and derailments - not to mention lack of adequate air-conditioning and/or heating facilities - had reached epidemic proportions? Or why the Grand Central/Northern State Parkways make lengthy curves to the south before resuming their routes out to Long Island….thereby condemning thousands of commuters to unnecessary traveling time every time they go to - and from -work? Or why neighborhoods such as Bay Ridge, South Brooklyn and the South Bronx were practically decimated because of the routes chosen for the Gowanus Expressway/Brooklyn-Queens Expressway/Cross Bronx Expressways arbitrarily divided previously cohesive communities? Or - finally - why the bridges built over the "parkways" leading out to the Long island beaches were built low, so that most buses could not pass underneath them?
In every case there's a simple answer: Robert Moses, the man responsible for the creation of the New York city area highway system - served as the head of multiple quasi-public agencies...responsible for transportation and parks... between the mid-1920s and 1962. He was never elected to any position nut rather a political appointee who used his knowledge of the law to craft certain bills for his titular bosses - people who HAD been elected - bills that usually contained somewhere in an obscure passage legislative authority that essentially gave Moses - again, never elected to any political office - the ultimate power in New York City. Combining patronage and good-old-fashioned favoritism to businesses, politicians and organizations who supported him - Moses consolidated his power by making his reputation as "The Man Who Created Parks". And in fact he did create quite a few (including Jones Beach) thereby gaining the trust and gratitude of the bulk of the population…making Moses so popular that whenever a NYC Mayor (think LaGuardia) or NYS Governor (Dewey) treated to fire him over a disagreement, Moses would simply craft a resignation letter and threaten to release it to the press, essentially frightening the political official into falling into line. After all - you couldn't cause Robert Moses to leave - to the public Moses was the man in their corner, the man who had saved the parks - or created new ones - despite political opposition. Robert Moses was their hero. And the Mayor or Governor or Borough President would ultimately capitulate. Other public officials were forced to give in to Moses, who was not above spreading un-founded rumors regarding an opponent's supposed corrupt activities, Communist sympathies - or even sexual behavior.
Moses did whatever he wanted for decades. And he was a genius for organization. Much good occurred. His considerable accomplishments are indisputable. The Triborough, Whitestone and Throggs Neck bridges for example, connecting NYC and Long Island to the rest of the country. The highway system which allowed a driver to circumnavigate Brooklyn and Queens and get out to Long Island without hitting a single traffic signal. Dozens of parks -large and small were renovated; many new parks created. Jones Beach and the park that would be named after Moses - Robert Moses State Park - were practically manufactured out of a narrow strip of barrier beach off the Great South Bay of Long island. Later on he built the Verrazano Bridge, connecting Brooklyn and Staten Island, making vehicular travel easier to get from NYC to Southern New Jersey.
It is also incontrovertible that Moses:
- was a bigot who renovated or built most of his parks in middle class or upper-middle class neighborhoods.
- arranged for his parkways to have low bridges so that buses of poor people (i.e. minorities) couldn't be bused out to his pristine, new beaches on Long island. (As I think about it, that's also why he neglected to renovate the waterfronts located in New York City. There is a marvelous 4 mile beach and boardwalk out on Staten island for example - neglected and left to rot for decades until the early 90s.)
- chose the routes for his NYC highways due to considerations of wealth - he would condemn apartment houses full of poorer people but spare areas more affluent (even if the affluent area made more sense from an economic or transportation-oriented perspective). Out in Queens and Long island his highways avoided the more affluent areas as well, making additional miles of highway/parkway and added unnecessary and burdensome travel time for millions of average people over the ensuing decades.
- diverted most transportation funds to his highway, bridge and parkway projects, leaving the mass transportation without necessary funds. And completely ignored shifts in population which required existing subway lines be extended and/or new ones built. Moses was so stubborn that when opponents literally begged him to make his highways and parkways wider to allow for future expansion of mass transit, he not only ignored his advice but often made sure the parkways would be built in such a way as to preclude the possibility. (The existence of the right-of-way alongside the parkways would have made later expansion/construction so much cheaper.)
The reasons for Moses' stubbornness and behavior are too complicated to go into here. (Read the 1500 hundred page book "The Power Broker" by Robert Caro. Starts slow, then I couldn't put the book down.) Moses enjoyed his power. Being "The Man In Charge. Being able to wield this power despite his lack of political office. And he was a man was in love with automobile, a mostly luxury vehicle in the early 1920s and never came to grips with the fact that his new highways, parkways, and bridges had made the suburbs more accessible, ushering in a suburban population explosion that resulted in automobiles being utilized for daily transportation to and fro work - and to-and-from New York City. The change didn't effect Moses as he traveled throughout the NYC metropolitan in his air-conditioned and chauffeured limousine.
Since Robert Moses' departure from the scene NYC and Long island have struggled to remedy the effects of some of the bad decisions. Anyone who has sat in traffic on the Northern State Parkway - or has to walk through the antiquated and disgusting subway stations like the one at 14th street - a transportation hub - or who has to walk under the dark and dangerous underbelly of the Gowanus expressway to reach the neighborhood deli - can attest to this fact.
Or to paraphrase the famous line used by the Pakinstini restauranteur in the Seinfeld finale: Robert Moses was a baaad man - a very baaad man."
Bye for now, be safe!
Stevenn
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