Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
Arts & Entertainment
Big Snub as Robert Moses Gets a Second Look
By
Jill Priluck
Published Jan 25, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
By
Jill Priluck
Published Jan 25, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Robert Moses’ legacy may be getting tweaked if organizers of three upcoming exhibitions have their way.
The NY Times’ Robin Pogrebin is reporting that the Museum of the City of New York, the Queens Museum of Art and Columbia’s Wallach Art Gallery will unveil a three-parter over the next month on the master builder. Columbia University architectural historian Hilary Ballon says that Moses’ achievements have been overlooked.
From the Times:
Living in New York, one is aware there has been no evident successor or successors to Moses,” she said. “There aren’t master builders. Who is looking after the city? How do we build for the future?” All around New York State, she suggests, people tend to take for granted the parks, playgrounds and housing Moses built, now generally binding forces in those areas, even if the old-style New York neighborhood was of no interest to Moses himself. And were it not for Moses’ public infrastructure and his resolve to carve out more space, she argues, New York might not have been able to recover from the blight and flight of the 1970s and ’80s and become the economic magnet it is today.
The definitive account of Moses, of course, is Robert Caro’s The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, a 700,000-word, 1,286-page tome on the man who redefined 20th century New York. Caro tracks Moses’ tenure as parks commissioner and Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority chairman, concluding that Moses not only destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes in the Bronx, Upper West Side, Sunset Park and Long Island in the name of new highways and “slum clearance,” but also rebuilt parks and playgrounds for “the rich and the comfortable.”
The three exhibitions tackle different aspects of Moses’ reign, according to the Times. “Robert Moses and the Modern City: Remaking the Metropolis” at the Museum of the City of New York is an overview of the roads (Henry Hudson Parkway and Cross Bronx Expressway, among others), buildings and monuments (Lincoln Center and the UN) and parks (the expansion of Riverside Park, East River Park and Central Park) created by Moses. “Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Road to Recreation” at the Queens Museum of Art (housed in a building that Moses conceived for the 1939 World’s Fair) looks at the 416 miles of road and 658 playgrounds he expanded in the 1930s. And “Robert Moses and the Modern City: Slum Clearance and the Superblock Solution” at Columbia’s Wallach Art Gallery examines Moses’ urban renewal-gone-amok phase of the 1950s.
All three seek to supplement – and, yes, modify – Caro’s story, given Caro’s focus on Moses’ destructive and diabolical side. Caro’s view was so unwelcome that he even was left out of the exhibitions until a sponsor of the Columbia show called and asked Caro to speak.
This is what Caro told the Times:
When I am writing a book, I try always to give all sides a chance to express their viewpoint. I guess they didn’t want my viewpoint expressed, and not inviting me is certainly an effective means of accomplishing that.
That snub has set off a strange smackdown between Caro and Columbia historian Kenneth T. Jackson, the editor of the amazing Encyclopedia of New York City and Crabgrass Frontiers: The Suburbanization of the United States. Jackson, who, bizarrely, told the NY Observer that he wished his name - instead of Caro's - were on Caro's book, wrote four pages in the exhibition’s 336-page catalog, taking an alternate approach to Caro's. Caro’s book exaggerates Moses’ influence on American life and his role as an “evil genius,” Jackson told the Observer's Matthew Schuerman, adding that the city’s renaissance since 1974, the year the book was written, would not have been possible without Moses. “Had he not lived … Gotham would have lacked the wherewithal to adjust to the demands of the modern world,” said Jackson.
Even Caro’s editor, Robert Gottlieb, who read those four pages, weighed in on the dust-up:
I got this impression that Mr. Jackson, even if he didn’t have a direct animus toward Caro, was suffering from some kind of Moses envy, as if he wanted to own Moses himself.
In addition to Ballon and Caro, the Times has interviews with Jackson, Hertog (the sponsor who called to invite Caro), the executive director of the Queens Art Museum Tom Finkelpearl, Northwestern University African-American history professor Martha Biondi (who addresses Moses’ racism) and deputy mayor Daniel Doctoroff.
The Observer has a detailed account of the Caro-Jackson feud featuring an in-one-corner analysis of the dueling writer-thinkers. Aside from Jackson and Gottlieb, it also features interviews with Ballon and Caro.
Both are good reads.
Tagged
art
Art Gallery
arts
bronx
central park
city
columbia university
cross bronx expressway
design
east river
east river park
Henry Hudson
henry hudson parkway
housing
lincoln center
long island
museum
new york
new york state
ny times
parks
people
queens
queens museum
recreation
riverside park
robert caro
robert moses
Robin Pogrebin
sunset
sunset park
the city
the future
The Power
the power broker
the road
Triborough Bridge
university
Upper West
Upper West Side
west side
Jill Priluck
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE arts-entertainment
At the Museum at FIT, an argument for dolls as the ultimate fashion influencers
There’s a lot to think about in the doll-verse.
By
Quinn Moreland
Published Sep 30, 2026
Immanuel Wilkins is upholding NYC's jazz history. He's also dreaming up its future.
The saxophonist performs this week at the Village Vanguard.
By
Sonia Rao
Arts & Entertainment
Immanuel Wilkins is upholding NYC's jazz history. He's also dreaming up its future.
The saxophonist performs this week at the Village Vanguard.
By
Sonia Rao
Ever wish you could get paid to walk through a stranger’s house? ‘The Scout’ is for you.
By
Sonia Rao
There are 100s of places to visit during Open House New York. Here's 5 of our favorites.
By
Hannah Frishberg
A massive MTA archive ended up in a Virginia warehouse. A Brooklyn man brought it home.
By
Hannah Frishberg
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .