Robert Caro and Kurt Vonnegut interview each other (1999)

One area that appears to have come under attack is Caro's accusation that Moses deliberately lowered the bridge heights: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-mo...

I found it particularly amusing how Moses—"the best bill drafter in Albany" as Caro dubs him—was able to write bills that gave him far more power than the politicians who passed them expected. Indeed one part where he referenced a niche definition of appropriation in an old 19th century bill felt almost akin to return oriented programming!

The thing about these books is not only that they're about a famous person, but that they also are about a person that left a huge paper trail, was extremely social, and died young, leaving lots of people who remembered Johnson and were eventually willing to tell the unflattering stories of his youth. In this way it would stand alone as an incredible literary or investigative portrait of a person. The fact that it covers the central political developments of the United States in the 20th Century is just icing on the cake.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/nyregion/robert-caro-arch...

It was very important to him that they be accessible for further research:

Louise Mirrer, the president of the historical society, made a generous offer and said a few magical words that clinched the deal. At a dinner with the Caros a few nights later, she elaborated: The papers would be processed quickly, made part of a permanent, rotating Caro exhibit and be easily available to future scholars in a dedicated study area — a stipulation dear to a man who had been told too often in his research that so-and-so’s papers were unavailable.

I can't begin to imagine how much treasure there is to be found in there. Each of his mini-biographies (readers will know what I'm talking about)* probably have a book each worth of interviews and research behind them. I read once that he lamented the lack of any good books on Robert Moses's mentor, Belle Moskowitz; he might posthumously bring such a work to light. He had to cut his chapter on Jane Jacobs from the Power Broker. If that didn't make it, I can only imagine what else didn't. He's conducted thousands of interviews in his lifetime. There are large swaths of the history of government in 20th-Century America that will be preserved thanks to him.

* For the record, my personal favorite is Al Smith.

It looks too long, the first question that comes to my mind on this sleepy day is whether this is worth it. A lot of these tend to be self wound articles, but I start reading and interest develops slowly but surely. Before you know it I am through reading and starting to wonder, how did I read this as a whole and how great this was. May be this was even small and some more of it wouldn't have hurt.

Thank you for posting this. This article gives great insight into the thought and the narrative behind these great authors. I would be looking forward to reading The Power Broker and the LBJ series. As always, reading about Kurt or his work is always fascinating.

The only probem is that once you read him, you're spoiled. Nobody else really compares to his force of writing and depth of research.

I bought the paper book after reading another one of these threads on HN, but it's so large that it makes my hands sore to hold it (or my neck if I lay it on my lap to read). Since there's no ebook version, I wonder how you all manage to get through a tome like this.

Many New Yorkers know Robert Moses from Robert Caro’s book The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, which won every award it could. At over 1,000 oversized pages, I thought I’d browse it at first, but couldn’t put it down.

Robert Moses may have shaped New York City more than any other person, holding multiple offices from the 1920s to the 80s. Residents loved him early in his career when most knew him for creating public parks and reforming crony, corrupt government. Not many drove then and traffic congestion barely existed so people appreciated that he built new roads.

It made sense as highways grew to think a road becoming congested meant that demand exceeded and conclude that adding another lane or road would meet that demand. Today we know that adding roads leads people to adjust and take advantage of uncongested roads. We move, buy more cars, take more trips, and so on until we reattain a level of congestion worth complaining about. In other words, traffic congestion is often an arch problem, where building new roads is like supporting the arch from below. Eventually you reach the road version of “the bureaucracy expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy”—no longer serving people. Increasing roads also brought pollution, split communities, and distanced people.

For decades after people recognized this pattern, Robert Moses held enough political power to keep building roads. His public image suffered. Eventually the public stopped him from building a parking lot in Central Park and highways that would gut Little Italy, Soho, and Greenwich Village. If his original intent had been to serve the public, he had crossed a line to mindless growth and dated ideas whose counterproductive unintended side-effects dwarfed the intended effects.

Elon Musk is today’s Robert Moses. Reversing our environmental course means fewer cars, electric when not reducible. Musk is promoting more cars. He is pursuing growth primarily. The purported solution increases the problem, creating more perception of ruinous demand, though not among those who see the systemic problem he’s exacerbating.

Likewise, most Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and corporate initiatives promote growth first, often including self-aggrandizement for founders and ignoring unintended side-effects, that amount to stepping on the gas, thinking it’s the brake, and wanting congratulations.

A Greenwich Village resident, Jane Jacobs, came to personify the movement who saw that Moses was serving himself, ignoring his work’s actual effects, not his intent. Her book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, focused on people, what made communities livable and desirable, and how highways in cities did the opposite. Maybe you or I will become her equivalent.

Meanwhile, The Power Broker recounted Moses’s life and career, revealing his drive for growth, power, self-aggrandizement, and contempt for the people he pretended to serve, belying his claims of modesty and service. An enduring legacy results from personal integrity. Moses saw his crumble, as DiCaprio and Gore are seeing theirs, as will Musk if he continues in Moses’s erroneous path to grandeur.