Robert Moses Sucked
The mayor seems to have lost traction in his attempt to impose congestion pricing, so now East River tolls are on the table once again. The central problem underlying both the massive cost of living in Manhattan and all the traffic and congestion problems is the fact that only Manhattan has anything close to a decent mass transit infrastructure. Let’s imagine Manhattan as a part with a round hole–its current form is only compatible with transit oriented transportation. Unfortunately, the outer boroughs and New Jersey, never built out the transit infrastructure that would make them fully compatible with Manhattan. These areas were still being born when the age of the auto began. This leaves far too many people trying to ram their square car pegs into a place that wasn’t built for them.
Nothing bothers me more than the sick myth that Robert Moses was the father of New York. It’s far more accurate to describe him as the father of New Jersey and Long Island sprawl and the mortal enemy of the city. The defining parts in New York’s infrastructure that make it great are its subway and commuter rail systems. Without them we might be Detroit.
I HATE HIM!
Good God, do I ever agree with you. This dark wizard who lived like Saruman atop his tower and surveyed the city he essentially ruled for some four decades, never did a single thing that proved to be beneficial to New York. His heavy-handed racism, his callousness toward the little people, his blatant disregard for urban life in favor of the suburbs, his ultimately destructive view that the automobile was the future of NYC, and his hand in the creation of the city’s numerous housing projects, condemn him utterly and irrevocably.
May justice be served by remembering this man with scorn rather than admiration.
He didn’t want to build a subway to Idlewild ( JFK ) because the types of people who flew would never take the subway. Now, 50 years later there is a train that goes HALF way to Manhattan. Maybe in 50 more it will go all the way. Another thing he did was build the overpasses on roads leading to Jones Beach too low for buses to get there - keeping out all the "undesireables" who didn’t have their own car. Also, if he had lived long enough, Soho and Tribeca would have been torn down to make way way for spaghetti style highway interchanges.