alexist

(For The Power Broker, by Robert A. Caro)

Caro's biography of Robert Moses is an engrossing tale of a man who accumulated an extraordinary amount of power and was unafraid to use every bit of it. It's incredibly detailed and researched and is invaluable to anyone trying to learn about 20th Century New York.

However, the book is flawed. Perhaps it's because Caro was writing 30 years ago, when Moses was still alive and people knew only the good he'd done, but he seems to have focused entirely on the negative side of Moses' legacy. Moses loved power, but he acquired it not only for its own sake, but to use it. He was no corrupt Tammany boss, lining his own pockets. Moses had a vision. For better or worse, his dream was nothing short of breathtaking. He wanted to reshape New York. And he did it. To me, that's the most interesting thing about Robert Moses, and Caro doesn't explain it. He explains Moses' lust for power and his sharp mind, but not why he chose to channel his energies in this direction. There are some family clues, but that's all. It still doesn't explain the desire of a man to remake a city and a state.

I also think Caro was too close to the events to be able to evaluate the consequences of Moses' decisions. As another reviewer said, it's quite likely that East Tremont would have changed at some point. The Jewish lower-middle class has mostly left the Bronx. There's also the question of how much Moses was influenced by national trends--the building of roads to the exclusion of public transit, the problematic idea of urban renewal, and the endless sprawl of the postwar suburbs.

As a lifelong resident of Long Island, I continue to be awed by Moses' legacy. Jones Beach, the parkways, bridges and tunnels--these form part of the fabric of my daily life. Moses' influence extended far beyond the projects themselves. Without the parkways and then the LIE extending to Long Island, it would still be estates and potato fields. My suburban homeland, filled with its 1950s houses on their 60' lots and tree lined streets, would never have been so much as a dream.

Caro has made me aware of the immense costs, financial and political, of Moses' projects. But I don't know if he truly appreciated them. He writes nice words about Jones Beach and other park projects, but I don't get the sense that he really felt anything. Driving down the Northern State, with its stone bridges, trees, and absence of billboards, I can and do appreciate what Moses did. Perhaps true greatness can only come at a great cost.

Despite focusing on the flaws in this review, I'm not trying to denigrate the book. It's truly a monumental achievement. However, I think it's important to be able to look at it with some perspective, which I don't think Caro was able to do.
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It's funny. I'm from Long Island, and in my teens I hated it. I left for college for a year and came back. And in the years since, I've come to appreciate it more. It's hardly perfect, but at the same time when I hear Lou Reed say "asshole Long Island, armpit of the earth" (he's from Freeport) I'm offended. It is suburban and maybe a little dull sometimes. But it gets in your blood. There's something about it. I can't look at the Great South Bay going towards Jones Beach, or the hills around Cold Spring Harbor, and not feel like I'm home.