The New Death of Robert Moses

On a particularly warm summer day in July of 1981, Robert Moses died in a Long Island hospital. He was 92 years-old.

The next day, his obituary appeared on the front page of The New York Times. “Robert Moses, Master Builder, Is Dead at 92,” the paper declared. It turned out, the Times headline was only partially correct.

The obituary noted that before Moses took power in the 1920’s, New York State did not have much by way of parkland. 44 years later, when his days in power ended, there were over 2.5 million acres of state parks. Moses built 13 bridges — the Triborough (now RFK) Bridge being most important to his power base — along with 416 miles of roadways, 658 playgrounds, Shea Stadium, the NY Coliseum, The 1964 World’s Fair, Jones Beach, two massive upstate power porjects, and just about every major parkways and highway that’s in use in New York.

At the peak of his power Moses held 12 positions — all appointed — at the same time. As the City Planning Commissioner he could propose public works and as the head of the city construction authority he could then build the works that he proposed. His appointments were mixed between the State and City which prevented any one Mayor or Governor from removing him. So popular was Moses in his day that no elected official dared to cross him or diminish is portfolio of power.