Robert Moses

Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid-20th century. Moses is regarded as one of the most powerful and influential people in the history of New York City and New York state. The grand scale of his infrastructure projects and his philosophy of urban development influenced a generation of engineers, architects, and urban planners across the United States.

Never elected to any public office, Moses held various positions throughout his more-than-40-year career. He held as many as 12 titles at once, including New York City Parks Commissioner and chairman of the Long Island State Park Commission. By working closely with New York governor Al Smith early in his career, he became an expert in writing laws and navigating and manipulating the workings of state government. He created and led numerous semi-autonomous public authorities, through which he controlled millions of dollars in revenue and directly issued bonds to fund new ventures with little outside input or oversight.

Moses's projects transformed the New York area and revolutionized the way cities in the U.S. were designed and built. As Long Island State Park Commissioner, Moses oversaw the construction of Jones Beach State Park, the most visited public beach in the United States, and was the primary architect of the New York State Parkway System. As head of the Triborough Bridge Authority, Moses had near-complete control over bridges and tunnels in New York City as well as the tolls collected from them; he was responsible for, among others, the Triborough Bridge, the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel, and the Throgs Neck Bridge, as well as several major highways. These roadways and bridges, alongside urban renewal efforts that destroyed huge swaths of tenement housing and replaced them with large public housing projects, transformed the physical fabric of New York and inspired other cities to undertake similar development endeavors.

Moses's reputation declined after the publication of Robert Caro's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography The Power Broker (1974), which cast doubt on the purported benefits of many of Moses's projects and further cast Moses as racist. In large part because of The Power Broker, Moses came to be considered a controversial figure in the history of New York City as well as New York State.

Moses was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on December 18, 1888, to parents of German Jewish descent, Isabella "Bella" (née Cohen; Yiddish: איזאַבעלאַ כהן משה) and Emanuel Moses (Yiddish: עמנואל משה). He spent the first nine years of his life living at 83 Dwight Street in New Haven, two blocks from Yale University. In 1897, the Moses family moved to New York City, where they lived on East 46th Street off Fifth Avenue. Moses's father was a successful department store owner and real estate speculator in New Haven. In order for the family to move to New York City, he sold his real estate holdings and store, then retired. Moses's mother was active in the settlement movement, with her own love of building. Robert Moses and his brother Paul attended several schools for their elementary and secondary education, the Dwight School and the Mohegan Lake School, a military academy near Peekskill.

After graduating from Yale College (B.A., 1909) and Wadham College, Oxford (B.A., Jurisprudence, 1911; M.A., 1913), and earning a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University in 1914, Moses became attracted to New York City reform politics.

In 1915, Moses married Mary Louise Sims of Dodgeville, Wisconsin. They had two daughters, Mrs. Richard J. Olds (Barbara) of Greenwich, Conn., and Jane Rose Moses Collins. Mary Sims Moses, who had remained virtually bedridden in their home from 1952–1966 with arthritis, died on September 6, 1966. Moses subsequently married his secretary Mary Alicia Grady on October 4, 1966. Newsday reported on Grady's death in 1993, Grady had accompanied Moses on numerous vacations, prior to their marriage. They lived in Manhattan's Gracie Terrace.

Moses developed several plans to rid New York of patronage hiring practices, including authoring a 1919 proposal to reorganize the New York state government, which was ultimately not adopted but drew the attention of Belle Moskowitz, a friend and trusted advisor to Governor Al Smith. When the state Secretary of State's position became appointive rather than elective, Smith named Moses. He served from 1927 to 1929.