Kenneth T. Jackson - Robert Moses, Hero of New York?

**Kenneth T. Jackson** (0:00)
Robert Moses represented a past that's, you know, a time when we wanted to build bridges and super highways and things that pretty much is going on. We're not building super highways now. We're not building vast bridges like Moses built all the time. Had Robert Moses not lived, not done what he did, New York would have followed the trail of maybe Detroit, essentially all the big roads, all the bridges, all the parks, the United Nations, Lincoln Center, the World's Fairs of 1939 and 1964, and hundreds of other things he built. And I think it was the best book I ever read. In broad strokes, it's correct. Robert Moses had more power than any urban figure in American history.
He built incredible monuments.
He was ruthless and arrogant and honest.

**Dwarkesh Patel** (0:53)
Okay, I am really, really excited about this one. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Professor Kenneth T. Jackson about the life and legacy of Robert Moses. Professor Jackson is the preeminent historian on New York City. He was the director of the Herbert H. Lehman Center for American History and the Jacques Barzun Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, where he has also chaired the Department of History.
And we will be discussing Robert Moses. Professor Jackson is the author and editor of Robert Moses and The Modern City, The Transformation of New York.
Professor Jackson, welcome to the podcast.

**Kenneth T. Jackson** (1:37)
Well, thank you for having me.

**Dwarkesh Patel** (1:39)
Okay, so many people will have heard of Robert Moses and be vaguely aware of him through the popular biography of him by Robert Caro, The Power Broker. But most people will not be aware of the extent of his influence on New York City.
Can you give a kind of a summary of the things he was able to get built in New York City?

**Kenneth T. Jackson** (2:02)
One of the best comparisons I can think of is that our caros himself, when he compared him to Christopher Wren in London, he said if you would see his monument, look around. It's almost more easier to talk about what Moses didn't do than what he did do. If you all the roads, essentially all the big roads, all the bridges, all the parks, the United Nations, Lincoln Center, the World's Fairs of 1939 and 1964, and hundreds of other things he built. I mean, he didn't actually do it with his own two hands, but he was in charge. He got it done. And Robert Caro, who wrote a really great book, I think the book was flawed because I think Caro only looked at Moses' own documents and Moses had a very narrow view of himself. I mean, he thought he was a great man, but I mean, he didn't pay any attention to what was going on in LA very much, for example. But clearly, by any standard, he's the greatest builder in American history. There's nobody really in second place. And not only did he build and spend this vast amount of money, he was in power for a long time, really a half century more or less.
And he had a singular focus. He was married, but his personal life was not important to him.
And he did it without scandal, really. Even Caro admits that he really died with less than he started with. So I mean, he wasn't, he wanted power. And he had, boy, did he have power.
He technically was subservient to governors and mayors, but since he built so much and since he had multiple jobs, that was part of his secret. And he had, you know, as many as six, eight, ten different things at once. If the mayor fired him or got rid of him, he had all these different ways, which he was in charge of, that the mayor couldn't. So you were afraid, you people were afraid of him. And they also respected him, he's very smart. And he worked for a dollar a year. So what are you going to get him for?
As Caro says, nobody is ready to be compared with Robert Moses, in fact, compares him with an act of nature. In other words, the person you can compare him with is God, you know, that's the person that he put the rivers in, he put the hills in, he put the island in. Compare that to Moses, what Moses did, no other person could compare to that. You know, that's a little bit of exaggeration. But when you really think about Robert Moses and you read The Power Broker, you are stunned by the scope of his achievement, just stunned. And even beyond New York, when we build, think of the interstate highway system, which really starts in 1954, 55, 56, and which is, you know, 40 something thousand miles of interstate highways. Those were built by Moses' men, people who had, in their young life, had worked with the parkways and expressways in and around New York City. So they were ready to go. And so Moses, and Moses also worked outside New York City, mostly inside New York City. But he achieved so much. So partly you need to understand, it's not easy to get things done in New York. It's very, very dense, much twice as dense as any place in the United States.