The anti-Robert Moses bandwagon has been gaining steam over the last decade or so. Today he is vilified as a monster who destroyed the fabric of New York, made mega-blunders and above everything else was the boogie man incarnate because he made the overpasses at Jones Beach too small for city buses to pass under, oooo, he was racist.
Blaming Moses for all city ills is sort of akin to cursing the subway system and saying it is the worst. Both are knee-jerk reactions that fail to take into account the great things that were accomplished. The subway takes millions of people from all corners of the city to their jobs and if you even slightly remember the cars of the 70's and 80's you will realize how much better things are now. They are cleaner, they run more frequently, graffiti is gone and so are for the most part surly token dealers. Of course they could still be better. Instead of wasting time and money on a Second Avenue line so a bunch of Manhattan assholes can save 5 minute off their walks to their $7000 a month apartments, how about extending lines in the large swaths of Queens, Brooklyn, The Bronx and Staten Island that have no train service at all?
So what did Moses do? Here are some of my recent exchanges with Moses bashers.
Moses ignored rapid transt which fell into disrepair. by the way, was just in Amsterdam and Copenhagen where they have bike lanes everywhere and it seems to work out great. you dont need to take your car everywhere in a big city, I never needed too
Nice idea in small cities and places that are not spread out, but try that in Los Angeles or Montana. Bikes are a great form of exercises and recreation but this notion that they are the savior of modern man is ludicrous.
If you are a kid, into your 30's this is all very nice but then you get old, you get fat, your knees ache and you don't want to get up in the morning and go out in the rain and have a workout before you had your morning donut. Try biking from the Rockaways and then tell me how we should live like people in Copenhagen.
you must have read the same book I did, THE LAST GOOD SEASON.
Moses was insane, he wanted to put highways through the Empire State Building and CAnal Street which would have destroyed that neighborhood
historical revisionism, today's bike assholes caliming Moses was racist, Moses was pro car, blah, blah. The only thing Moses did was take a city that was stuck in the horse and buggy era and make it a modern metropolis. You want it look at that fact with modern rose colored glasses, go ahead, in my mind the man did great things.
And so what if he put a highway through C-Anal Street? how would have made it worse then what it looks like today?
4 comments:
How the hell is building a 2nd avenue line wasting time and $$?? That is ludicrous. Over 50-60 years ago there were 2 elevated lines on 2nd and 3rd avenue that were taken down and nothing was put in to replace them. Since that time, NO subway lines were put in their place, and the population grew exponentially. These are densely populated areas that are sorely in need of this, and you are making a broad brush generalization about the people that live there. What if someone made some remarks about "mooks and guidos" who live in Bay Ridge. Did it ever occur to you that the people who benefit from a 2nd avenue line contribute highly toward commerce and the economy both locally and nationally?
There is no revisionism about Moses, the Robert Caro book came out about 30 years ago. And if you had gone to the Museum of the City of New York exhibit 2 years ago, which was fair in promoting his accomplishments as well as failings, you will see what I mean.
Oh yeah, and Moses was in an unelected office with practically unchecked power, as a libertarian wouldnt you be against the idea of this?
Your defense of Moses shows that you are a failure at urban planning.
If you want highways and expressways, please move to the suburbs.
I stand by mt posting, Moses is not as bad as he is being made out to be and people who live in Manhattan are for the most part whiny little assholes.
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