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

A cautionary tale, 1200 pages and worth the effort
Robert Caro’s elegant prose and his obvious affection for New York are reason enough to invest one’s time and effort in this book. I learned much about New York in the several decades during the 1920’s and thereafter, about the workings of government that can be evaded through the genius and craft of a single person. Caro brings us a love/hate relationship with a reformer turned power broker, accountable to almost no one, whose massive vision and remarkable energy changed New York forever, often for the better, sometimes for the worse, and usually at a high cost in dollars and anguish. At its 50th anniversary, the story is still fresh and is a warning about unlimited power without checks and balances.

Power in America
This is the best non-fiction book I have ever read. Seriously. It is probably the best biography, the best urban history, and the best study of power written in the latter half of the 20th century (though Caro’s still-unfinished LBJ saga may top “Broker;” I haven’t read those yet).Essentially, for 40+ years Robert Moses was the most powerful man in the entire state of New York. A large portion of his power was derived from his chairmanship of the Triborough Bridge Authority. Typically, a public authority shuts down after its bonds have been repaid and its construction projects have been finished. But Moses, called by Caro “the best bill drafter in Albany,” set up the Authority in a way that allowed him to continually issue bonds year after year after year. And since the Constitution states that “No states shall…impair the obligations of contracts,” no one could do anything about it. Triborough became a small empire for Moses…at its homebase on Randall’s Island, the TBA was the supreme law of the land, and it was enforced by some 200 TBA police officers. Moses often used them to escort his big limousine around NYC and Long Island.One big factor in Moses’ power was the press. For four decades he maintained the image of a totally non-political and selfless public servant (he famously refused to take a salary for most of his positions). The sometimes-willful ignorance of the press to Moses’ abuses of power is amazing to read. Caro painstakingly documents so many of them.His genius and his impact are absolutely inimitable. Name a major bridge, parkway, expressway, thruway, park, or beach in the New York metropolitan area, Long Island, or New York State, and the MAJORITY of them will have been built by Robert Moses. This was a guy who almost never slept, who swam out into the middle of the ocean alone when he was in his 80s, who fell into absolutely horrifying bouts of rage when someone dared to disagree with him. He may have been one of the greatest abusers of power in recent history but, as Caro says, he “Got Things Done.”I loved reading about the absolute control he exercised over various New York mayors, governors, and other officials. He would routinely ignore requests to meet with mayors; if they wanted to meet with Moses, they had to come to him. Every time a new mayor was sworn in, Moses would grab the slips on which mayoral appointments were written and write his own name and position on them. The mayor would then meekly sign it, knowing that he couldn’t possibly deny Moses any of those positions.I could say so much more but the other reviewers have already covered the book’s strengths. I’ll end with this: Moses was one of the most fascinating politicians in the history of this country. But so many have already forgotten him. I hope people will read this book to learn not only about Moses, bu about New York, Washington, and most importantly the use of political power in this country.

The thing that really stands out to me on this book is how beautifully it is written. The words jump off the page.

I’m going to return the book because it’s missing the first pages.

In a peculiar fashion, this magnum opus of a nonfiction is never in any manner less than a fiction. What Mr. Caro does to the characters and events in this book can ever be surpassed in the quality of prose by none but a countable few. The book speaks on the various manifestations of the character of a power wielding human being which have a profound impact on the lives of millions of lesser endowed people in a political setup. The personality of Robert Moses as portrayed in the book will leave the reader with mixed feelings of love and hate for the man who reshaped the way the greatest city in the world looks at present while at the same time trampling the ordinary man under his Commissionership’s powerful juggernaut. Moses grossly violated human rights of thousands of poor people of New York for his great projects but could those monumental works ever have been done without such unstoppable force? Could the works of such magnitude be done with the same kind of administrative Fiat in the modern times? The reader may be left to answer those questions for himself.On 27th October, 2015, Robert A. Caro made a rare appearance onstage at London in a talk moderated by William Hague. In his talk Mr. Caro talked about all the dynamics of power working in civilised democratic societies. Mr. William Hague was very much correct in suggesting the publishers to publish the original work on Robert Moses comprising about 1 mn 50 k words. Readers of the works of Mr. Caro must join together their voices for publication of the original and uncut version of “The Power Broker” as a collector’s edition. At least now, the publishers can rest assured of the commercial success of the original unabridged book. It’s my earnest request. Mr. Hague may certainly chose to lead our voices.