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

Moses (1888-1981) is the central figure in The Power Broker. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Moses was a highly influential urban planner and public official who played a significant role in shaping the landscape of New York City and the surrounding region. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Moses held multiple positions in New York state and city government, including Commissioner of Parks and president of the Long Island State Park Commission. He was a driving force behind the development of numerous public works projects, including the Triborough Bridge, the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which dramatically expanded the city’s transportation infrastructure. Key to these many achievements was the famous Moses arrogance, a trait that he inherited from his mother and grandmother (and which he shared with his brother). Moses did not just have a dream for how he wished New York to look; he had the hubris to assure himself that he was simply correct. As a young man, this egotism drove him forward. As an older professional, it made him immune to criticism. Once he was free to implement his model of city planning, he could not be stopped or made to change his mind, and he simply would not accept that anyone else’s ideas could be as good as his own.

Moses’s identity was split into two distinct parts. Moses was a Jewish man who rejected his roots. He disliked being reminded of his family background, even though he was close to his mother. Since he was forced to watch his mentor, Al Smith, lose a presidential election due to his Catholic identity, Moses hated to think of himself as something other than the white, protestant ruling elite of New York. He denied his Jewishness, cutting ties with family members and becoming baptized as a Christian. This private identity was kept hidden from the public. Instead, he presented a carefully cultivated view of himself. In the press, he sculpted an image of himself as a relentless champion of the working class. Long after he made peace with the Long Island elites and even after spending decades at the top of New York society, the press presented Moses as a defender of the working class and a man who could “Get Things Done” (571). This public persona was false (especially as Moses became increasingly corrupt and discriminatory) but it protected him from criticism. Moses’s public image was so powerful that no one was willing to criticize him. Only after a series of public relations missteps did the press begin to challenge the idea of Moses, looking behind the meticulously crafted veneer of the public servant and uncovering the vain, cruel, tyrannical, and corrupt truth.

The fall of Moses occurred because of his crumbling public image. For years, he shaped New York in his image, for better and worse. He constructed many public parks and playgrounds, which won him public acclaim. He built many bridges and tunnels, which prompted engineers from around the world to visit him to find out how he could achieve so much. At the same time, however, he deliberately created a version of New York City that discriminated against people of color and people from lower socioeconomic classes. Each swimming pool kept cold because he believed that African Americans disliked cold water, each bridge built too low to accommodate public buses, and each community destroyed in his urban renewal programs was evidence of the ruthlessness with which he imposed his particular vision on New York City.

Ironically, Moses was brought down by the same system that gave him so much power. The Triborough Authority’s bonds and the complex legal mechanisms he designed were challenged by Governor Rockefeller, stripping him of his power and leaving him increasingly lonely and bitter. In The Power Broker, his swift downfall is presented as a hubristic collapse, in which the brash and arrogant man is made to reckon with the same kind of power he loves to impose on others.

Alfred Emanuel Smith was born on December 30, 1873, in New York City. He was a prominent American politician and the first Catholic to be nominated as a major party candidate for president of the United States. Raised in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Smith grew up in a working-class Irish American family and left school at a young age to help support them. Smith’s strong desire to fight on behalf of the working classes of his hometown is evident throughout The Power Broker. Smith’s political career began in the late 19th century when he became involved in local Democratic politics in New York City. He rose through the ranks, serving as a state assemblyman from 1904 to 1915, where he championed progressive causes such as workers’ rights, women’s suffrage, and social welfare reform. In Moses, he found someone who could help him achieve his goals while also acting as a protégé. Though they were from very different backgrounds, Moses and Smith struck up a lifelong friendship. When Smith left the role of governor, however, Moses quickly showed that his support for Smith was focused on the man rather than his politics. Smith helped shape Moses’s life, but Moses quickly outgrew these lessons in his pursuit of power.

In 1928, Smith became the first Catholic to be nominated as a major party candidate for president of the United States, running as the Democratic nominee against Republican Herbert Hoover. Although he lost the election in a landslide, Smith’s candidacy marked a significant milestone in American political history and paved the way for future Catholic politicians like John F. Kennedy. In The Power Broker, Smith’s failed campaign is both tragic and trailblazing. Smith was made to reckon with a fundamental inequality in the United States at the time, as his Catholic background was more important than any of his achievements. He was not permitted to run for election as a politician; he was forced to run as a Catholic and be judged on this basis by a prejudiced electorate, which was not demanded of his protestant, middle-class opponent.

After his presidential bid, Smith remained active in public life, serving as president of the Empire State, Inc., a business promotion organization, and as chairman of the board of the United States Olympic Committee. He also continued to be involved in Democratic politics, supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt’s successful campaign for president in 1932. Despite his various positions, The Power Broker presents Smith’s later life in tragic circumstances. Abandoned by his colleagues and allies, his several attempts to reassert his power were weak and ineffectual. He watched as the Tammany Hall corruption he drove out of the Democratic Party was slowly allowed to return, particularly with the aid of his former protegee, Moses. In his advice to Moses, Smith warned not to rely too heavily on fragile public support for protection. This warning, delivered by an old, tired man is a warning that Moses ignores and that foreshadows Moses’s own fall from grace. Al Smith died on October 4, 1944, at the age of 70, leaving behind a legacy as one of the most influential politicians of his era.