OCTOBER 2007 » book review

Of His Time

Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York
edited by Hilary Ballon and Kenneth T. Jackson
W. W. Norton & Co., New York, N.Y.; 2007
336 pp; hardcover; 165 photos or drawings, $50
ISBN 978-0-393-73206-1

Reviewed by Norman Crowe

Robert Moses (1888-1981), as described in the introduction to Robert Moses and the Modern City, "had a greater impact on the physical character of New York City than any other individual." The book is the first major work on Moses to appear since Robert Caro's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, published in 1974. Robert Moses and the Modern City includes essays on Moses' works and their impact from the perspectives of scholars of urban history, architectural history, planning history and African-American history; plus there is an extensively annotated and illustrated catalog of Moses' built work and projects from 1934 through 1968, as well as a portfolio of color photographs by Andrew Moore of many of those built works as they are today, some 50 years or more after their inception. This is to say that this book is focused on public works accomplished under Moses' administration, rather than on his life or a detailed account of how he operated in the public realm – as was pursued in Caro's biography.

The editors point out that Moses' works are so much a part of the city today that "we cannot imagine New York without them: the Triborough, Whitestone, and Verrazano bridges; the Henry Hudson Parkway, Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, Cross-Bronx Expressway to name a few." In addition, there are those projects for which Moses was responsible either fully or in part, but are so much a part of the fabric that we take them for granted: the many pools, parks, and playgrounds, the large housing projects, beaches, Lincoln Center, the United Nations complex, and the New York Aquarium among them.

He is of course thanked for some and blamed for others. He was a ruthlessly effective "power broker," as Caro called him, a remarkably effective administrator whose consistent message was that he could get things done. He came to the fore at a time suited to his skills and temperament, with Title I funds from the federal government available for cities, after the advent of a climate of public prowess handed down by the New Deal and the Roosevelt Administration's efforts to get economies started again after the crash of 1929 and the ensuing depression.

The editors and the authors of the essays in Robert Moses and the Modern City seek to set the record straight, especially in contrast to the consistently negative characterization from the point of view of Moses' often ruthless methods as described in The Power Broker. Ballon and Jackson go so far as to suggest that, taken in the aggregate, the works created under Moses' direction comprise an infrastructure necessary for the success of the city in the post-World War II era; thus the title of this book, which refers not just to New York City, but to "the modern city" that we are familiar with and that can be found across the country today. A thorough reading might suggest, however, that not all the authors included in the volume reflect such a positive view of Moses' accomplishments as those of the two editors, and by extension, not such a positive view of the "modern city" as inherited by the present.

The background to basic urban-planning policies fostered by Moses was, for the most part, the conventional wisdom of the times. For instance, there is Moses' assumption that the private automobile would largely replace public transportation, and therefore the relationship of the suburbs to the city they surround would be a supportive one so long as those suburbs are connected to the city by the continuous and easy flow of vehicular traffic. This is to say that the bridges and highways built under Moses' administration were seen as necessary to the long-term viability of the central city, while the new parks, playgrounds, beaches and swimming pools were to provide relief and recreational escape from the denser urban fabric for those citizens who did not flee to the suburbs.

In this the editors challenge the position that Moses is responsible for the city's decline, as reflected in Caro's subtitle: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. Fortunately, while Moses built expressways, parkways and bridges for vehicular traffic, he did not reduce the city's public-transportation infrastructure at the same time, even though he seems to have regarded it as appropriately diminishing in importance. New York City remains the least car-dependent city in the country today. The argument that such measures as expanding the peripheral transportation infrastructure are necessary and important to the life of the city in the second half of the 20th century is, of course, a complex and inconclusive one. The necessity for a balance of transportation needs is undeniable, but the extent to which private-automobile access and trucking are accommodated versus mass-transit systems, or the intrusion of above-ground transportation arterials into the existing urban fabric, is an ongoing debate.

Owen D. Gutfreund, one of the essayists in this volume, tackles these concerns in his chapter, "Rebuilding New York in the Auto Age." While I do not wish to get into the complexities of those issues here, it will suffice to say that, under Moses, the parkways, which sought to humanize the experience of highway travel (the Henry Hudson Parkway for instance), may be set against destructive intrusions such as his Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Cross-Bronx Expressway proposals. Consistent with the assumption of the day, Moses saw rail-based transit as "associated with the over crowded and dysfunctional cities of the past," and therefore he too "encouraged the dispersal of the huddled masses across the open countryside." In sum, according to the editors, "Moses the visionary was second rate; Moses the builder was in a class by himself."

Robert Moses was, of course, no friend of architectural conservation. "Progress" during his years often meant the removal of any buildings regarded as substandard, and their replacement by the new. Title I money made available for the cities stated that "Patching up hopelessly worn-out buildings on a temporary or minimum basis presents the possible result of slum preservation rather than slum clearance."

One can only assume that among all the buildings that Moses' plans removed – though suffering from lack of maintenance on the heels of the Great Depression – there were plenty that could have been restored and renovated to a second life to remain as part of the city's rich and varied architectural patrimony. Instead of surgical replacement of the truly obsolete, Moses rode roughshod over existing neighborhoods, clearing them to make way for elevated expressways and leveling whole blocks of housing and commercial establishments to produce "mega blocks," interruptions in the normative grid of streets to provide settings for mid-rise slabs and high-rise housing, set back from the edge of the block and spaced out across an otherwise featureless grassy plain. In this, he was of course simply following the conventional wisdom of the day, inspired by CIAM's Athens Charter and Le Corbusier's schemes for Modernist towers-in-the-park to replace much of the traditional fabric of Paris. In theory this would provide a safe haven for the inner city's poor and it would return sanitary living conditions to the traditional city. In reality, however, it overlooked the importance of the relationship of traditional urban fabric to social patterns that makes neighborhoods possible.

In fact, Moses seemed oblivious to the importance of neighborhoods altogether, often regarding existing neighborhood associations as annoying impediments to his large-scale planning proposals. This is especially clear in his unsuccessful insistence on extending Fifth Avenue through Washington Square Park. He was successfully resisted by a group of local "park mothers," as he referred to them, a situation described in Robert Fishman's chapter, "Revolt of the Urbs." The historical importance of this late defeat of an important Moses initiative is notable. Among those "mothers" was Jane Jacobs, with her daughter Mary. It was not only Jacob's foresight and leadership that saved the day, but the whole affair served as part of the basis for her writing The Death and Life of Great American Cities, now regarded as perhaps the most seminal comprehensive explication of urban theory to emerge in the 20th century, as well as a large part of the basis for today's New Urbanism and the economic and social principles behind Smart Growth.

In marked contrast to his perfunctory disregard for existing social patterns and historic buildings, Moses directed the creation of numerous parks, beaches, playgrounds, community centers and swimming pools throughout the city. In this he may be seen to have established a new architectural patrimony in place of what he destroyed. Concrete evidence of his contribution is beautifully illustrated in the opening section of Robert Moses and the Modern City. For instance, Sunset Pool in Brooklyn, a WPA project by architect Herbert Magoon, is a remarkable exercise in brick, with its iconic round entry pavilion anchored by an octagonal central brick column. Astoria Pool in Queens, mostly by architect John Matthews Hatton, although of a rather stern industrially inspired Art Deco architecture, is beautifully landscaped, with an intimate view of the nearby Triborough Bridge, the East River and the Manhattan skyline.

Crotona Pool in the Bronx, also by Herbert Magoon, and Jackie Robinson Recreation Center in Harlem (originally named Colonial Park Pool), designed by architect Aymar Embury, are exemplary celebrations of brick masonry, with repetitive arches and arched lintels and delicate arched balcony balustrades. Each complex is an eclectic combination of Romanesque and Art Deco-inspired architecture. The Jackie Robinson Recreation Center in particular is especially well integrated into a larger landscaped park, with its bandshell and broad stairs and exterior brick walks through arching trees. Especially important, of course, is that these and the other recreation projects built under Moses' aegis continue to provide inspiring places for public recreation, as well as to – somewhat ironically – provide centers of pride for the urban neighborhoods around them.

These recreation complexes are perhaps more interesting in terms of their architectural and landscape design than the many housing complexes built under Moses. However, a few of the latter remain today as nonetheless pristine and sometimes even handsome examples of medium-rise multi-family housing. Kips Bay in Manhattan, although a late progeny of an earlier much larger and very destructive proposal – the final complex, downscaled and eventually approved by bodies representing NYU, Greenwich Village and even local preservation advocates – includes an elegantly detailed and carefully proportioned example of emerging concrete-panel construction. Moses worried that New York City would become a place of only the rich and the poor, without a middle class. He believed in mixed-income housing and the importance of building "affordable housing for teachers, nurses, garment workers, municipal employees – the broad middle class." Lincoln Towers and Washington Square Village, Silver Towers and 110 Bleecker Street as well, may all be found today as well-maintained, viable and sought-after places of residence in vital sections of Manhattan.

Typical for all of these – both the recreation and the residential complexes – is the employment of durable, permanent, construction. Most projects were make-work projects, training grounds for the unskilled, ultimately part of a broader program to reinvigorate the economy and get America working again. The philosophy of their construction was the creation of low-maintenance, handsome and long-lasting embellishments to the city. Few would disagree that New York City is not the better for a great many of them. Each of these projects, and many more, are carefully described and illustrated in the section titled "Catalog of Built Work and Projects in New York City, 1934-1968," a 180-page appendix following the essays in the back of the book.

The conventional wisdom implicit in post-war urban-planning theory virtually precluded considerations for what came to be known as "historic buildings," often even militating against them as an impediment to "progress." In this, Moses was in tune with the times. The typical premise was a tabula rasa approach to urban revitalization. Even a cursory reading of Robert Moses and the Modern City cannot help but remind one of the conventional wisdom of Moses' day compared to practices and developing urban theory in the present.

What we see as the mistakes of his times – the multi-lane arterials that slashed through the delicate urban fabric of neighborhoods, or the tacit assumption that cars would make mass-transit systems obsolete or that urban-renewal programs that cleared large areas of the city would necessarily attract development and thereby renew and revitalize the city – stand in contrast to what most think is the appropriate course of action today. Still, it is humbling to remember that the mid-century planning theory we now look upon as largely mistaken was born of what was assumed by their proponents to be a flawless logic. If we have learned one thing about planning theory from that era it is that we must guard against overconfidence.

A comparison with the present reveals a plethora of opposites. Are today's emerging practices infallible or are they largely reactions to the failure of earlier ones? In Moses' time, cities sought to accommodate growing numbers of automobiles and the spreading suburbs that automobile ownership made possible, without questioning where it all would lead. Today we find ourselves searching for ways to tame the car while revitalizing, rebuilding and extending urban transit systems, and restoring neighborhoods and districts to their traditional form and, thereby, to their traditional economic and social functionality. Especially, it is this renewed concern for the delicate social fabric of neighborhoods that stands in contrast to the high-altitude view of the city by Moses and others, whose focus was all to often on large-scale transportation networks and the efficiency of traffic flow.

For Moses and other planners of his day, streets with their flanking sidewalks lined with shops at street level and housing above were signs of the obsolete traditional city waiting to be "modernized" by the example of openness provided by those towers-in-the-park public housing projects. The advent of Smart Growth, The Congress for the New Urbanism and similar methodological approaches to the restoration and recreation of urban form today is the result of a re-examination of our inheritance of traditional urbanism, especially in comparison with the results of the brave-new-world approach in the mid-20th century.

The logical conclusion is that long-evolved patterns of urban order have built into them complex and often hidden levels of subtlety that foster their sustainability. It sounds like an ecosystem as described by biological science: The more complex and varied an ecology, the more resistant it is to failure induced by unexpected and unprecedented change.

Of course, evolved traditional urban patterns, even with their wonderful complexity, are not infallible. Newly emergent racial tensions, the sweeping advent of popular preference for the private car over other forms of transportation, relocation of rural poor to cities and, consequently, sudden pockets of poverty and the like, can impact traditional urbanism no matter how varied, rendering it almost overnight as fatally diseased. But that does not necessarily mean a radical newly invented world of urban form, one that is pure, easily quantifiable and conceptually obvious, can address the new problems while at the same time accommodating long-evolved traditional social patterns such as is nurtured by the fabric of traditional neighborhoods. It seems to boil down to two distinct approaches – one that erases the past to start all over again, and the other that seeks to innovate on the edge of tradition, always open to change but never loosing sight of evolved forms that actually work.

Moses' doctoral thesis of 1914 at Columbia University reiterated Woodrow Wilson's plea for the importance of policy formation by professionals, as opposed to "the mob rule of the masses." But "mob rule," if you call it that, saved Washington Square and Greenwich Village. The "park mothers" fight to save Greenwich Village in particular finally received support from The New York Times in a piece that characterized the Village as an anachronism, a place "where time was allowed to stand still." In other words, it might remain because it serves as an example of what cities used to be like.

This is still a far cry from the notion that such places as Greenwich Village are viable settings that foster an active and satisfying urban life – places of humanism and tradition set against traffic planning and abstract theories of economic efficiency. At least the Times' museum-oriented argument helped to save Greenwich Village and, afterward, this sort of rationale eventually helped to save existing neighborhoods threatened by "Urban Renewal" programs across America. And the place-as-a-museum argument continues to be used as a rational to save "historic structures" just as it does "historic neighborhoods." But in the end, it is the intrinsic quality of the thing that counts – not because it represents a past presumably on its way out, but because it is still a viable part of the present.

The theme of Robert Moses and the Modern City, as stated in the publisher's promotional literature, stresses Moses' accomplishments as well as his mistakes. The editors and contributors point out the positive importance to New York today of Moses' aim "to strengthen the central city, recapture the middle class, and modernize the nineteenth-century road system to function in the automobile age." Hindsight allows us to see how he could have been much more effective as well as to have avoided the destructive moves we know today were so detrimental to New York City. His arrogance, while it steeled him from distractions that would have reduced his effectiveness at "getting things done," shielded him from arguments that could have humanized his understanding of cities, such as the articulate criticism hurled against him by contemporaries Lewis Mumford and William H. Whyte.

While I believe the editors tend to overstate Moses' positive accomplishments in their introductory essays, the contributors whose essays follow – Martha Biondi, Robert Fishman, Owen D. Gutfreund, Marta Gutman and Joel Schwartz – provide an effective balance for the overall perspective. For the potential reader it is important to note that Robert Moses and the Modern City, while focused on Moses and New York City, may be read as a case study of the interaction of planning and politics, architecture and urbanism, pragmatism and ideology, and especially the vicissitudes of history that assert their presence in the evolution of a city.

Without actually saying it, Fishman's chapter "Revolt of the Urbs," especially his account of the fight over Greenwich Village and Washington Square Park, says as much about the conservation and restoration of traditional architecture and traditional design for new architecture as it does about cities. Take for instance Fishman's summation of the Moses-and-mothers confrontation: "Where Moses had asserted that 'cities are created by and for traffic,' Jacobs asserted that they are created by and for neighborhoods, for the intense sociability, diversity, and complexity that only a pedestrian-oriented, densely built city can generate." He goes on to say that "In one great book [The Death and Life of Great American Cities], Jacobs completed the 'transvaluation of urban values' that a true critique of Moses demanded."

It seems to me that these values – diversity and complexity, for instance, and their long-evolved embodiment in patterns generated by the trial and refinement of tradition, speak for themselves. They apply to architecture as much as to urbanism because, ultimately, architecture and cities are part and parcel of the same thing. TB

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