Moses

Lore & Background

Robert Moses was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on December 18, 1888, to Isabella and Emanuel Moses. His parents were of German Jewish descent, but Moses always insisted he was not Jewish. He spent the first nine years of his life living at 83 Dwight Street in New Haven, two blocks from Yale University. In 1897, the Moses family moved to New York City, where they lived on East 46th Street off Fifth Avenue.

Moses's father was a successful department store owner and real estate speculator in New Haven. Moses' mother was active in the settlement movement, with her own love of buildings. After graduating from Yale College (B.A., 1909) and Wadham College, Oxford (B.A., Jurisprudence, 1911; M.A., 1913), and earning a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University in 1914, Moses became attracted to New York City reform politics. In 1918, via his mother's association with the Madison House settlement house, Moses drew the attention of Belle Moskowitz, a friend and trusted advisor to Governor-elect Al Smith.

When the office of secretary of state of New York became appointive rather than elective, Smith appointed Moses, who served in the post from 1927 to 1929. Moses himself ran for governor in 1934 as the Republican nominee against Democratic incumbent Herbert H. Lehman, but was defeated in a landslide. After his loss to Lehman, Moses never ran for public office again. Moses rose to power with Smith, who was elected as governor in 1918, and then again in 1922.

With Smith's support, Moses set in motion a sweeping consolidation of the New York State government. In 1924, Governor Smith appointed Moses chairman of the State Council of Parks and president of the Long Island State Park Commission. Displaying a strong command of law as well as matters of engineering, Moses became known for his skill in drafting legislation, and was called 'the best bill drafter in Albany'. At a time when the public was accustomed to Tammany Hall corruption and incompetence, Moses was seen as a savior of government.

Reader's Guide

Over four decades, Moses conceived, funded, and built a network of highways and parkways that reoriented the region around the car, connecting New York's outer boroughs, opening Long Island to mass suburbanization, and establishing the template for urban highway design that cities across the country would follow. His earliest and most enduring contribution was the Long Island parkway system, begun in the 1920s under Governor Al Smith. The Northern State Parkway, Southern State Parkway, and Wantagh State Parkway were among the first limited-access roadways in the United States, designed not merely as transportation corridors but as landscaped recreational drives intended to carry New York City residents to the beaches and parks Moses was simultaneously building at their terminus points.

The Cross Bronx Expressway, completed in 1963, was among the most consequential and controversial public works projects in American history, cutting a mile-wide swath through the densely populated neighborhoods of the South Bronx. The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway carved through established neighborhoods in Brooklyn, its notorious cantilevered section running along the Brooklyn waterfront. The Long Island Expressway extended automobile access deep into Nassau and Suffolk counties, accelerating the postwar suburban boom.

The Staten Island Expressway and the Bruckner Expressway completed the city grid. Moses also built or significantly expanded the Henry Hudson Parkway along the Hudson River from lower Manhattan to the Bronx, the Belt Parkway, encircling the southern edge of Brooklyn and Queens, and the Meadowbrook and Bethpage State Parkways extending Moses's original Long Island system. Although Moses had power over the construction of all New York City Housing Authority public housing projects and headed many other entities, it was his chairmanship of the Triborough Bridge Authority that gave him the most power.

His bridges and tunnels created an economic engine whereby bridge revenues, collected through the Triborough Bridge Authority, became the financial engine that would fund much of the broader overall construction program.

Did You Know?

• He was never elected to any office, but served as New York City Parks Commissioner from January 18, 1934, to May 23, 1960.
• Robert Caro's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography The Power Broker (1974) characterized Moses' practices as controlling and overly focused on car dependency.