Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York

by Hilary Ballon Ph.D., Kenneth T. Jackson

Overview

A fresh look at the greatest builder in the history of New York City and one of its most controversial figures.

“We are rebuilding New York, not dispersing and abandoning it”: Robert Moses saw himself on a rescue mission to save the city from obsolescence, decentralization, and decline. His vast building program aimed to modernize urban infrastructure, expand the public realm with extensive recreational facilities, remove blight, and make the city more livable for the middle class. This book offers a fresh look at the physical transformation of New York during Moses’s nearly forty-year reign over city building from 1934 to 1968.It is hard to imagine that anyone will ever have the same impact on New York as did Robert Moses. In his various roles in city and state government, he reshaped the fabric of the city, and his legacy continues to touch the lives of all New Yorkers. Revered for most of his life, he is now one of the most controversial figures in the city’s history. Robert Moses and the Modern City is the first major publication devoted to him since Robert Caro’s damning 1974 biography, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.In these pages eight short essays by leading scholars of urban history provide a revised perspective; stunning new photographs offer the first visual record of Moses’s far-reaching building program as it stands today; and a comprehensive catalog of his works is illustrated with a wealth of archival records: photographs of buildings, neighborhoods, and landscapes, of parks, pools, and playgrounds, of demolished neighborhoods and replacement housing and urban renewal projects, of bridges and highways; renderings of rejected designs and controversial projects that were defeated; and views of spectacular models that have not been seen since Moses made them for promotional purposes.Robert Moses and the Modern City captures research undertaken in the last three decades and will stimulate a new round of debate.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393732436
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	09/17/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	516,862
Product dimensions:	9.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Hilary Ballon is an architectural historian and professor at Columbia University. She is the curator of “Robert Moses and the Modern City,” the 2007 exhibition concurrently at the Queens Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York, and the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery of Columbia University. She is the editor of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. Her previous books include New York’s Pennsylvania Stations; The Paris of Henri IV: Architecture and Urbanism, which won the Alice Davis Hitchcock Award for the Most Distinguished Scholarship in the History of Architecture; and Louis Le Vau: Mazarin’s Collège, Colbert’s Revenge, which received a medal from the Académie Française.

Kenneth T. Jackson is the Jacques Barzun Professor of History at Columbia University and a former president of the Urban History Association, the Society of American Historians, the Organization of American Historians, and the New-York Historical Society. His many books include Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States; The Encyclopedia of New York City; Empire City: New York Through the Centuries; and The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915–1930. In addition to the Francis Parkman and Bancroft Prizes and four honorary degrees, he is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2001 he served as New York State Scholar of the Year. His famous all-night bicycle ride through the city has been an annual event at Columbia since 1975.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     6
Robert Moses Projects: A Portfolio     7
Introduction     65
Robert Moses and the Rise of New York: The Power Broker in Perspective     67
Equipping the Public Realm: Rethinking Robert Moses and Recreation     72
Rebuilding New York in the Auto Age: Robert Moses and His Highways     86
Robert Moses and Urban Renewal: The Title I Program     94
Robert Moses, Race, and the Limits of an Activist State     716
Revolt of the URBS: Robert Moses and His Critics     122
Robert Moses and City Planning     130
Catalog of Built Work and Projects in New York City, 1934-1968     134
Pools     135
Beaches     158
Neighborhood Playgrounds and Parks     174
City Parks     190
Roads and Crossings     204
Housing and Urban Renewal     242
Miscellaneous Projects     308
Selected Bibliography     324
Contributors to the Catalog     327
Photograph Credits     328
Index     330

Editorial Reviews

"[A] wonderfully insightful new book."

The City Weekly Desk The New York Times

"[E]xcellent."

New York Daily News - Howard Kissel

"[E]xcellent book of essays."

Wall Street Journal

"[A] stunning portfolio of over 50 pages of large color photographs….seven excellent essays on various aspects of the Moses legacy....an extensive catalog of specific Moses projects, a few never built, including photographs and detailed text focused on site planning, architectural design, and construction history. Urban scholars will be well served by the extensive reference notes, bibliography, and index….This important book deserves a wide audience among urbanists."

Journal of Design History

"[A] responsible effort to place Moses in his time, to record all of his work in New York City carefully and critically."

The New Republic

"[S]uccinct, well-illustrated essays, an impressive catalog of projects, a bibliography, and a series of newly commissioned photographs…"

ART Bulletin - Sandy Isenstadt

"The considerable research that has gone into producing this book pays dividends in the fascinating detail and images."

Urban Design - Alastair Donald

"Those who care about urban life and its American history will find [this book] an essential source of…information and pleasure."

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Bob Hoover