MOSES, ROBERT

During the 1930s, Robert Moses (December 18, 1888–July 29, 1981), acting under the title commissioner of parks, not only dotted New York City with hundreds of new parks, playgrounds, and swimming pools, but also permeated much of New York state with his vision of public recreational facilities linked by parkways, causeways, and bridges. From 1933 to 1939, Moses probably exercised control over a greater amount of public funds than any unelected official ever had. And the elected officials he "served" were glad to let him do it.

Moses's strong-minded and independent mother, Isabella, gave him his most salient personality traits. He was an extraordinarily industrious student at Yale from 1905 to 1909, despite the fact that being Jewish left him at the edges of Yale society. After Yale he went to Oxford, where he decided to focus on public administration and made himself an expert on the British colonial system, which he saw as a model of efficient government.

Though he was a lifelong Republican, Moses rose to power under Democratic administrations in New York, particularly those of Al Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Having grown up during the height of the Progressive era, Moses was always to remain an idealist. Thus, he was able to maintain his early value as a public official through his judicious and successful sponsorship of reform measures, particularly in the area of banking in the first years of the Depression. It also did not hurt that the studious Moses knew more about the issues at hand than anybody else did. When federal money poured into New York City in the mid-1930s under the auspices of the Public Works Administration, Moses was given almost total freedom to build his most ambitious projects to date. These included the building of the Triborough Bridge, an expansion of the subway system, the construction of the city's first public housing project, and an extensive renovation of the city's parks.

Moses's reclamation of part of Long Island as a 118-mile-long public playground in the late 1920s set the model and tone for how he would work during the 1930s and after. First, he would think big, fitting every detail of his plan into his macrocosmic vision. Second, he would see potential in tracts of land that others had dismissed as unworthy of development. His Jones Beach project was exemplary in this regard. Third, he would overcome all opposition to his plans, even though this opposition often came in the form of powerful estate owners and politicians. Lastly, he would consolidate the authority for all of these public works under himself. This led to greater efficiency in administration, but left him open to charges of autocracy. The primary example in this regard is the Triborough Bridge Authority, over which he took complete charge when he was appointed city parks commissioner by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in 1934.

Critics of Moses have pointed out that his parks, roads, and public facilities have subsequently led to unexpected blights upon the landscape, and to greater congestion in places where he had hoped to create a free flow of movement. However, these problems might have been caused by factors of urban (and suburban) expansion that were beyond even "The Commissioner's" extensive control. Robert Moses finally left state government in 1968 when Nelson Rockefeller shuffled the cards of the New York bureaucracy and forced him out. However, by then Moses had left his indelible stamp upon the city and state, and had become the most influential environmental planner of the twentieth century.

MOSES, ROBERT

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