The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

Moses had an estranged brother named Paul. Robert Caro interviews Paul to discern the nature of the estrangement. Moses cut Paul out of their mother’s will, ensuring that Paul would only receive a small sum each year at Moses’s discretion. The two brothers were very similar, both possessing the same “Moses charm” (577). Unlike Moses, however, Paul defied their mother and clung to his idealism. Whereas Moses looked down on those he considered beneath him, Paul was stridently egalitarian. He was very intelligent and studied electrical engineering, refusing to follow the career path his mother had laid out for him. When he tried to find civic jobs, however, he discovered that he was blacklisted. He suspected that his brother was responsible for this.

Paul was often desperate for money but too proud to beg for help from his brother. He resented Moses for the change in their mother’s will, which left Paul with practically nothing. In middle age, he found himself trapped in a “net of debts” (588) and he often goes without food. He felt as though he was the “victim of a monstrous injustice” perpetrated by his brother (593). Paul struggled for years, working dead-end jobs and living in squalid conditions. He retained his “remarkable intellect” (597) but could not find work as an electrical engineer. He blamed Moses. Finally, when Paul was struggling at age 75, Moses intervened and found him a small position as “little more than an errand boy” (598). Paul, desperate and sick, was forced to swallow his pride.

Moses’s attitude toward his brother was demonstrative of his attitude toward much of his family. He avoided them at all costs. Even his beloved wife, Mary Moses, was gradually alienated by him. Over his decades in power, Moses had many affairs outside his marriage. As “he grew louder, [Mary] grew quieter” (603). She never tolerated any criticism from her husband, though she began spending more and more time alone at home. She aged quickly and developed an alcohol addiction. In her old age, she was hospitalized numerous times for “nervous trouble” (606).

Caro notes that Moses became increasingly susceptible to “the addiction of power” (607). The creation of the New York City Tunnel Authority shows this. The authority was created by La Guardia, and Moses demanded that he be placed in charge. When La Guardia refused, Moses tried to “destroy” the rival authority. He was foiled, ultimately, but still craved more power. He saw an opportunity in the Wagner-Steagall Act, which provided funds for urban renewal and slum removal. Moses did not care about poor people, but he recognized the potential of such funds to reshape the city in his image. La Guardia, realizing that he was in a power struggle, employed devious techniques to prevent Moses from wrestling away control of the project for himself. He kept Moses’s power limited to within his “traditional spheres” and began to worry about how much power Moses had, even within these spheres.

Public authorities such as the Port Authority typically exist to accomplish a single, distinct project and then are dissolved. Moses recognized that such authorities have powers more like a private corporation than a government. Since authorities are created using bonds, Moses realized that the person in charge of the authorities could raise and use a vast amount of money so long as the bonds were never repaid in full. A public authority that sold bonds based on earnings from future bridge tolls, for example, would typically be dissolved once those bonds were repaid (with interest) from the toll earnings. If Moses simply reinvested this money, however, he could maintain the authority’s power over several projects and raise vast sums while being immune from public scrutiny. Since Moses was interested in building public works, the authorities made it so that “the more public works he built, the more money he would have to build still more public works” (619). The authority would give him money and power while insulating him from accountability. He could spend this money as he saw fit, not limited by the mayor or the governor. He wrote a law so that the only people who could challenge the power of the authority would be the bondholder or the bond provider, meaning either himself (as the head of the authority) or the bank (which would never challenge him). By changing the law, he gave himself “the powers of a sovereign state” (623).

He introduced legislation to make himself the head of the Triborough Bridge Authority and told no one about the subtle changes in the law, which turned this into one of the most powerful positions in the United States. He was no longer beholden to the authorities; they were beholden to him. He no longer needed public support, as there was no legal way to remove him from his position. Since his public image was that of “the man who Got Things Done” (633), however, no one thought to question his position until he already attained his power. He began to build an empire, and when La Guardia tried to check his power, he told the mayor to “read the agreements and contracts” (635). After this, Moses no longer needed to treat La Guardia as “his superior but as an equal” (636).