Throughout this course we learned about a lot of things, but in almost all our weekly discussions, we always seem to talk about a dictator or a conquest of either a group of people or a whole civilization. In the beginning we talked about the Spanish talking over South America, than Lincoln becoming president, Emmeline Pankhurst starting the women’s moment and the big three during WWII. I read a very fascinating book prior to talking this class, “Forever Blue”; it goes more into detail of the Brooklyn Dodgers and their controversial owner Walter O’Malley. Many people blamed Walter O’Malley for taking their beloved Bums to Los Angeles, however after reading the book; it seems he had to because he was pretty much forced out. After reading the book and doing some research, I got really intrigued by Robert Moses and he reminds me so much of what we have studied throughout this semester. Robert Moses was the "master builder" of the early 20th century throughout metro New York City. He changed the landscape by changing shorelines, building bridges, tunnels and roadways, and transformed many neighborhoods. He favored parkways and highways over public transit and helped create Long Island.

Robert Moses conquered New York politics and did both good and bad things. To me, I think Robert Moses as a dictator that used his wording and all his building plans to gain power and change the map of metro New York. In the beginning he seemed to have done well with building parkways, beaches, long Island, however he got too big and used his power for the bad. Was he considered an evil dictator that used his own greed and power not for the good of New York? Many people today blame him for the lack of public transportation and destruction of the Bronx to name a few. Some people even state that he was a racist and built many low income housing for the poor to keep them within the city while building Long Island for the privilege. Parkways and highways were built for the sole purpose of people that drive cars (did you know he didn’t have a license), so low income people that lived in the city had no means to get there since subways didn’t reach Long Island to places like Jones Beach. Many also blame him for the destruction of the original Penn Station and forcing the Dodgers/Giants to bolt NY. He gained power in the early 1930’s, but really exploded with his ideas throughout WW II till the 1960’s.

 While doing my research on Robert Moses, an interesting topic came up about Moses being racist towards Black people. However, was it because of the era he was in (1920’s to 1960s), or was it he didn’t care for them? Moses built housing projects in The Rockaways for tens of thousands of poor people, “The Rockaways are the most remote part of New York City. On the weekend, it can take no less than 2 hours to reach Far Rockaway from Midtown Manhattan by subway.” (http://theageofnepotism.com/2010/04/robert-moses-and-the-rise-of-new-york-part-2/) I found this article to be a tad bit weird with the title it was given, because a lot of the article talks about the good of the housing projects that Moses built in New York, but when Black people wanted to visit Jones beach, Moses didn’t want them there. In the beginning of the article, “Robert Moses did not want Black people going to Jones Beach in the 1920s and the parkway police would harass Black drivers. When Blacks arrived at Jones Beach, they were directed to the far end of the Beach. They were kept far apart from white swimmers.” Same thing was happening at city pools which were under the control of the Parks Department and Blacks were not allowed to go to the pools in white neighborhoods, but remember it was the 1920’s, where segregation was common. I actually don’t think Moses was racist; it was just that time that certain things had to be done because it was accepted. Moses actually built some good and some bad housing projects. Moses envisioned and built Co-Op City in the Bronx and it became home to thousands of middle-class New Yorkers, countering the suburban migration. At the time of its construction, Co-Op City was the largest apartment complex in the United States. (http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/X251/highlights) However housing projects like this and others around the city lead to the White Flight of the 1960s, “Whites were stunned to find Black people suddenly around them. Many of the Blacks were recent migrants from the south who were really poor. Robert Moses initiated a plan of forced integration throughout the city. This was part of one of the causes of the so-called “white flight” to the suburbs in the early 1960s.” (http://theageofnepotism.com/2010/04/robert-moses-and-the-rise-of-new-york-part-2/) So as I stated before, I truly don’t think he was racist at all, but with all these housing projects he built, lead to many fleeing the city to places like Westchester and Long Island due to the era it was and people being scared of segregation.

The whole reason I decided to write this paper was due to a certain book I read, “Forever Blue”, which is a great book for people of fans of New York baseball. It shows a different side of Walter O’Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers. O’Malley during the 1950’s wanted to build a new stadium, due to the fact that Ebbets Field was small and outdated for the growing Brooklyn fans. Unlike the New York Giant, which was losing money, the Dodgers were making money. O’Malley wanted to build a new domed stadium at the now Atlantic Yards area of Brooklyn with his own funding to build it. Moses however, wanted the Dodgers to move to Queens and play in a city owned stadium (which ended up being Shea for the Mets) so he can pocket all the profits. O’Malley wanted to stay in NY and they went back and forth and we all know the outcome of that. However, the New York Giants were being forced out of their home, The Polo Grounds via Emmitt domain per Moses, so he can build low-income housing project on the property. While Moses “tried” to keep the Dodgers, he didn’t care what happen to the Giants and he didn’t offer the same Queens deal to them. Two baseball teams with long and rich history ended up leaving and many state that baseball died in 1957 with the departure of the Giants and Dodgers due to Moses wanted to make money and build his own projects and didn’t care about others. Another project that Dictator Moses created because of his own greed was the destruction of Penn Station, which many state was the start of his downfall. Projects like this, the World’s Fairs (which was a financial disaster for New York), was when Moses really didn’t care whom he stepped on and he was starting to crack, “The turning point for Moses was in the 1960s, when he was blamed by many for the destruction of Penn Station and accused by people such as author and activist Jane Jacobs of destroying the heart of the city by running superhighways through it. Another black mark was the 1964 New York World’s Fair, which he helped bring to being amid major cost overruns and unrealistic attendance expectations.” (www.suite101.com...

 Another book I think everyone should read regarding Robert Moses, “The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York”. It is a really interesting book about his life and impact he had on the city.  Robert Caro, whom is the author of the book, really blames Moses on the downfall of the city. What I came away from reading the book, was about how so many of the roads, bridges, and landmarks that currently shape New York came to existence. He created many projects, however he wrote legislation that no one else could understand, but gave him power beyond anything that any public official had ever seen. His means of doing things did not include any other wants, needs or values besides his own. The book talks about how he destroyed people's careers, was prejudiced against people whom weren’t privilege and completely destroyed neighborhoods. The books talks about how he butted heads with other political officials that included New York City’s mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Moses intellect and talent for coercion allowed him to carve out an impregnable position in New York's power structure for almost 50 years; through the two public authorities he built (The Triborough Authority and the Long Island State Parks Commission).  Moses gained control of millions of dollars in toll money (Tolls were used with the failure of the 1964 Worlds Fairs, a project of his) and used those to finance his own projects and ignore agencies like MTA that really needed the money.
            

 While Moses started out in the beginning as a great innovator/leader, he gained popularity as a builder of many projects around New York City and throughout the state.  Caro talks about Moses turning to the dark side after tasting real power as an assistant to Governor Al Smith. As his power continue to grow, his major obsession was with large public work, as he planned and built many bridges, the Lincoln Center, the World’s Fair/Flushing Corona Park, Jones Beach, and the UN building, just to name a few. All these projects came at the expense of the city and people who often stood in his way and spent public money without regard to the people of the city and saw himself as a public servant in his mind and changed the lives of so many to satisfy his own ego and power trip. Some may think (I assume the Moses supporters), that Cano was bias and only wrote this book to destroy the image of Moses, but it really shows a different side of the story of the man that took control of New York.

As I stated before, Moses displaced many families out of their homes, so he could build he projects. The Cross Bronx Expressway, I-95, was projects that he created, that essentially destroyed the South Bronx. Many people blame Moses for ruining the South Bronx and other areas when he wanted to build a highway or new bridge. All he seemed to care about was money, power, and greed, “No matter that in his early good government career Moses was a legitimate reformer, no matter how noble one thinks Moses was because he amassed only unbridled power and not bags of money for himself, no matter how wonderful one might judge Moses’s parks, he was probably the most undemocratic, arrogant, ruthless, and racist unelected government official of the twentieth century.” (http://idiommag.com/2010/03/who%E2%80%99s-afraid-of-robert-moses/) Many people consider him a super-villain, because he did displace many people out of their homes to build his projects. He wanted to destroy Soho by building a highway through it, but was turned down when his power trip started to collapse and people really start to go against him. Remember we was listening to car and not to people, “Robert Moses' focus on the car as the primary means of transportation steered him away from hearing the residents of the communities in which he was planning construction, effectively destroying those communities with displacement and destruction”. (http://skillshares.interactivist.net/transportation/moses_01.html) With building of these highways and off ramps, he also ruined small business to add lanes and create shoulders. With all his growth of the city, he wasn’t thinking of the long term effects of his actions and no overall plan for the future.

While reading articles, reading books like “Forever Blue”, and “The Power Broker”, my personal views of him are that he was a dictator. He didn’t take over nations like the Roman Empire or like the Spanish did in South America, but he had a huge cultural impact that will last for decades to come and know seem to be fixing. While he did create many parkways and highways (which during this time was a must) with the expansion of the automobile, he neglected public transportation. In today’s society, public transportation is a major key to the city and millions use the subway each and every day, but it’s in need of some major reconstruction and expansion. Many stations are in despair and Moses should have focused on it as well, but didn’t. Last semester, I had to visit Hempstead to visit a Latino community and the trip was tedious, due to the fact I had to stop in Jamaica and take a bus to Hempstead.  It was a long and annoying trip without using a car to get there and issues like this could have been resolved during Moses era. He also built many parks, creating acres of land of beautiful parks for children and adults to hang out and have fun; however he also forced many people to vacate their homes and neighborhoods to build highways and bridges.

While Moses doesn’t fit in the same category as Hitler or Mussolini, he had a different impact on a society in whole. He used his own greed and power to do what he felt was right for him and not for the right of the people living in the city. He changed the landscape and displaced hundreds of people to build his projects, as he convinced city officials this was the right fit for the city. His power, changing the history, stepping all over people, really made him out to be an evil dictator that wanted total control.  While he didn’t use violence or that millions of people didn’t die during his reign, his actions and outcome of his actions to me, him who he was, and the Rockefellers pretty much stopped Moses and really caused his decline in New York politics. If it weren’t for them, Moses would have built a highway through lower Manhattan and a bridge from Rye to Oyster Bay and who knows what else as they stood up against him and his power. So, while this report isn’t like the rest, I thought since Moses really fit into many of our weekly discussions, so I decided to write about the man that took over New York and changed its landscape forever and is considered one of the greatest “master builders” of all time!