How Robert Moses Shaped The "Long Island," He Misunderstood

Prev Article Next Article

Robert Moses shaped Long Island more than any other public works figure in New York history. His parkways, bridges, beaches, parks, and highways changed the island’s physical landscape while also shaping its social structure, environmental future, and daily driving experience. This academic study examines Moses’ impact on Long Island through the lens of class, transportation, environmental policy, and the lasting consequences of automobile-centered suburban planning.

Photo: By Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge: The Beginning, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Without a doubt, no person in the history of New York had a more significant impact on the development of Long Island than Robert Moses. Although Robert Moses’ legacy reached far beyond the landscape of Long Island, it was the relationship between the five boroughs of New York City and Long Island’s Nassau and Suffolk counties that formulated the growth and limitations of the life of the Long Islander in both a social and environmental sense. Robert Moses is well known for the many parks he built on Long Island, but it was the roadways to those parks, and his elitist attitude, that cemented his reputation as the most important builder in Long Island history, and significantly, the most ignorant!

Historians have varying views on Moses’ true intentions for the development of Long Island. Completed in 1975, Robert Caro’s renowned book, The Power Broker, takes a harsh look at Robert Moses. In a 1988 interview with Newsday, Caro stated that Moses’ intention was to develop an Island that housed only middle- to upper-class people.[1] It was that viewpoint of Caro’s that spurred a backlash to Caro’s book in the 1980s, led by Columbia University Professor Kenneth T. Jackson. Nonetheless, no matter what the reasons were behind Moses’ development of Long Island, most people cannot live on Long Island without spending a significant amount of time in an automobile driving on one of the roadways that Robert Moses built. The lifestyle most Long Islanders live has been shaped by no one more than Robert Moses.

Understanding where, why, and how a man forms his ideals is an important step in analyzing the legacy and impact of a man such as Robert Moses. Robert Moses was born in 1888 in the town of New Haven, Connecticut.[2] Robert Moses’ father owned a department store. When Robert Moses turned nine, his family moved to a luxury apartment near Fifth Avenue in New York City.[3] Robert’s mother was a German Jew who became very involved in the settlement house movement at the turn of the century. Robert Caro made it clear in his book, The Power Broker, that Bella Moses soon became more interested in the physical construction of projects based on the settlement house movement, rather than the philanthropic issues facing poor immigrants needing help at the beginning of the twentieth century.[4] Robert Moses’ future building aspirations seem to have been deeply rooted in his family’s genes.

Photo: By C.M. Stieglitz, World Telegram staff photographer, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Robert Moses attended Yale University from 1905 to 1909. It was at Yale that Moses began to formulate small cliques of friends and colleagues in which he became the dominant leader. Caro argues that it was in those cliques that Moses developed his need for power that would later play a pivotal role in his life.[5] In 1909, Moses began studying at Oxford University in Oxford, England. In the early twentieth century, Oxford was a university attended by the wealthy and privileged.[6] Oxford was a conservative institution with a philosophy on teaching public service. The public service was founded on the British philosophy of wealth and power, with the highly educated governing over the public in a somewhat condescending fashion.[7] Moses wrote in his book Working for the People that he had great admiration for the philosophy of the British Civil Service.[8] In a film clip from Ric Burns’ documentary on New York, Robert Moses said to the camera, arrogantly, that the public did not know what was good for them.[9] It was a comment that showed Moses’ belief in the arrogant British philosophical views of the wealthy.

Robert Caro suggested in his book that Robert Moses believed American leadership should be led only by men who attended Yale, Princeton, or Harvard.[10] It is within the core values of Robert Moses’ upbringing and education, from his mother’s beliefs to his Oxford University graduate thesis, that Moses’ ideals were set in stone and would eventually lead to the development of the present-day landscape of Long Island, New York.

An important factor in the development of the Long Island parkways was the desire of many wealthy city people to take up a country residence. Wealthy people were enticed by the beauty of Long Island’s North Shore.[11] The hills of green and the blue waters of the Long Island Sound enticed the building of lavish mansions along Long Island’s North Shore. The close proximity to perhaps the most important city in the world was also an enticing factor to a Long Island resident.[12] Today, proximity to New York City is one of the most significant factors in the relationship between Long Island and New York City.

In the late nineteenth century, the growth of the country club would play a significant role in Long Island’s road development. In 1895, the Meadowbrook Country Club was built on Long Island. Along with the Meadowbrook, many other prestigious Long Island country clubs were built. The aristocrat’s sport had previously been hunting, but the new country clubs were offering more socialized forms of sport. In Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class, Veblen gave credence to the British concepts of aristocracy and superiority in defining that “sports played at elite country clubs were played by those superior to the working class.”[13] The country club movement began as a weekend retreat for rich city people. The movement would eventually become a focal point of suburban life and the catalyst for a growing number of wealthy people to move from the city to suburbia.[14] At first, the railroad brought the wealthy urban population out to Long Island. Eventually, the retreats to the country and to the country clubs of Long Island would demand a better-built system of roads connecting the streets of New York City to the majestic grasslands and ocean beaches of Long Island.

Photo: By Daniel Case, Public Domain

Robert Moses discovered Long Island after his parents gave him a house in Babylon. While living in Babylon, Moses explored the entire Island and fell in love with the beauty that the land presented.[15] In 1924, Robert Moses became head of the Fire Island State Park Commission. As commissioner, Moses developed a plan to build a seaside resort at Jones Beach. Moses argued for the development of a parkway leading to the resort. Moses wrote, “On the South Shores of Long Island, there are miles of ocean front beaches now inaccessible except by small boat. If the islands between these beaches and the mainland were bridged by an adequate state parkway, thousands of acres could be made available for public use.”[16] It was at that point in 1924 that plans for the construction of the Northern State Parkway began.

The Northern State Parkway had originally been designed by the Roosevelt Memorial Association to link a park at Oyster Bay, Long Island, to the New York City line in honor of Theodore Roosevelt.[17] Moses argued that the parkway should include a connection to the ocean at Jones Beach.[18] Moses’ plan to build the Northern State Parkway system was immediately opposed by the wealthy people who had moved out onto Long Island during the previous twenty-five years. Moses called them “the most snobbish and reactionary community in the United States.”[19] Many wealthy estate owners protested to Governor Al Smith, urging him to stop Robert Moses from building a parkway near their estates. Realizing that the Governor and New York State were behind Robert Moses’ parkway development plans, the wealthy Long Island landowners began a battle with Moses to prevent the planned Northern State Parkway from running through their estates.

Thomas Hastings formed a group of wealthy landowners to oppose Moses. The group also included Robert W. De Forest and Colonel Henry L. Stimson. Both Stimson and De Forest were men of power and influence.[20] The two men also owned land in the Wheatly Hills section of Long Island. While representing many other landowners in the area, the men argued that the planned Northern State Parkway would be significantly detrimental to their lands. De Forest attempted to pull Long Island’s regional planning director Thomas Adams onto the side of the landowners. Moses wrote to Robert De Forest and explained that it would not look good for Forest in the public eye if it seemed Forest was attempting to derail a public works project for personal gain.[21]

Years of court battles and fights for political positioning in the newspapers and public opinion continued in the parkway battle. In the New York Times, Robert Moses lectured on the reasons for building his parkways. Moses wrote:

“In its acquisition of the land on Long Island necessary to the establishment of a comprehensive system of parks and parkways, the State of New York, through the Long Island Parks Commission, has sought to look a long distance into the future and to provide for the requirements of future generations by the purchase of land at the valuations of today. These valuations in our opinions are but a fraction of the higher values of the future.”[22]

Eventually, a compromise was agreed upon between Moses and the landowners. Many of the wealthy landowners agreed to contribute large sums of money to New York State in exchange for the Northern State Parkway to use a five-mile detour around the Wheatley Hills section of Long Island.[23] Robert Moses’ official biographer, Roger Cleveland, seemed to imply in his book, Robert Moses, Builder for Democracy, that both Moses and the landowners got what they wanted in the end, even though the Northern State Parkway’s five-mile detour looked unusual from an aerial or map point of view.[24] Nonetheless, it is what Rogers left out of the book that the historian may find even more interesting.

Robert Caro argued that while Robert Moses attacked the wealthy landowners in public, it was in private that the wealthy landowners found Moses to be quite easy to deal with.[25] As Cleveland Rogers also stated, both Moses and the landowners were able to compromise on the parkway routing problem. Nonetheless, the public would have been appalled at some of the deals that Moses made with the rich landowners. Moses agreed to keep the lower-class city population away from the landowners’ estates by ensuring there would be no exits from the parkway near the owners’ lands.[26] Moses also swore that he would force state troopers to keep the city traffic moving along the parkways without letting any cars pull over to picnic or explore near the landowners’ estates.[27] Moses also had exclusive bridges built over the parkway for the use of the estate owners only, all at New York’s expense.

Landowners such as Congressman Ogden Livingston Mills, Colonel Henry Rogers Winthrop, Colonel Henry L. Stimson, Robert W. De Forest, and Moses’ own relative Otto Kahn were all able to use their power of influence and money to get the Northern State Parkway route shifted away from their estates. In the public eye, Moses appeared to be fighting for the people. Nonetheless, it was behind closed doors that Moses made deals that would forever change the Long Islander’s urban driving experience.

The farmers who owned land in the same controversial area but did not have the same amount of money and power were less successful in getting Moses to reroute the Northern State Parkway away from their farms. Many of the farmers who owned land begged for the same bridges that Moses built for the wealthy, but they were all denied. Without the bridges, the farmers could not farm their land efficiently.[28] The farmers lost a great deal of land to the actual parkway itself. Long Island farmer James Roth had fourteen acres of fertile land taken from him. Roth pleaded with Moses to move the route just a tenth of a mile so he could keep his fertile land. Roth was willing to give up the barren land he owned that was less fertile. Robert Moses told Roth there was nothing he could do to help him, and that Moses’ engineers had already determined the Northern State Parkway could not be moved an inch.[29] The construction of the Northern State Parkway had a significant impact on the farmland of Long Island.

The Northern State Parkway rerouting episodes provided an interesting glimpse into the impact of its construction on Long Island’s social and environmental landscape. The impact of class distinction is quite clear in the development of Long Island. Those with wealth and power played a strong role in shaping the environment, quite literally. Furthermore, it was land not used for the good of the general public, but rather occupied by selfish greed and personal use. Where is justice found when a rich landowner gives ten thousand dollars to the state to keep his private golf course, while struggling farmers are kicked off their land?[30] The farmers needed their land to survive. The Island lost farm land, which became part of an ongoing story of a changing Long Island environmental landscape. The demise of the Long Island farm had begun.

The detours Robert Moses utilized in the construction of the Northern State Parkway had far-reaching consequences for the Long Island commuter up until the present day. The distance of the rerouting was incomprehensible. Since the rerouting, any Long Island commuter wishing to avoid the dangerous onslaught of large industrial trucks on the Long Island Expressway will forever be bound to drive an extra twenty-two miles a day if they choose to use the Northern State Parkway for their daily commute between the city and the island.[31]

Moses’ construction of the crossing bridges on the Northern State Parkway was further evidence of Moses’ attitude towards class distinction. According to Robert Caro, Robert Moses instructed his building engineer, Sidney M. Shapiro, to build the overpasses so low over the Northern State Parkway that buses would not be able to pass under them.[32] Caro argued that Moses did this to discourage bus trips from the city to his new parks. According to Caro, Moses felt that if the buses were forced to use local roads, the trips would be too long and difficult to make.[33] Caro’s point is that Moses did not want the poor, lower-class urban population enjoying the Long Island beaches.

Robert Moses stopped the Long Island Railroad from building a line to Jones Beach. According to Caro, it was Moses’ intention to limit access to his state parks to the poor and middle-class city people by denying them access to mass transportation.[34] Another critic of Moses, Lewis Mumford, argued that by forgoing the use of public transportation, Moses was putting those who could not own a car at an extreme disadvantage compared to using Long Island’s public parks.[35] By preventing the use of public transportation on both railroads and highways across Long Island, Moses was shaping a generation of social class distinctions and biases that would last for years.

Columbia Professor Kenneth Jackson countered Caro’s allegations of Moses’ racism by arguing that the overpasses on the Long Island parkways were built low because of cost considerations only.[36] Jackson stated that raising the bridges’ height by only two feet would have doubled their cost.[37] Jackson made an interesting point, but his argument is weak in comparison to Caro’s evidence. In Robert Caro’s Newsday interview with Ridgely Ochs, Caro told Ochs that he spoke directly with Moses’ parkway engineer, Sidney Shapiro. Caro stated that Shapiro was told directly by Moses to build the bridges low to prevent public transportation from using the parkways.[38]

Photo: By Doug Kerr, Flickr: Northern State Parkway – New York, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Historian George Stevens argued that Caro was not placing Moses in the context of the times. Stevens wrote that in the early twentieth century, “It was a time in which New York City blacks were unwelcome and unseen outside of their residential neighborhoods.”[39] Stevens argued that it was during the course of Moses’ lifetime that the landscape of the United States was immersed in legal segregation and intense racism.[40] Stevens’ writing seemed to imply that Moses was indeed building his parkways within the scope of racism. Nonetheless, trying to exonerate a man of his racist policies because he is a product of his times does not make the man any less guilty of being a racist.

Beyond Moses’ social reasons for the development of the Northern State Parkway lay an environmental cause intertwined within Moses’ views of Long Island’s future. Moses built the Northern State Parkway as a limited-access road to prevent random development along the roadway.[41] Moses insisted on building a right-of-way parkway with unprecedented width.[42] Moses’ idea was to build a ribbon park in which automobile drivers would feel they were driving through a park on their way to a park.[43]

Moses’ limited-access development plans would have an even greater impact on the environment as they were employed during the construction of Long Island’s Ocean Parkway. Moses had intended to build Ocean Parkway to extend along the entire length of Jones Beach and then continue along through Fire Island all the way through to Westhampton Beach.[44] Moses’ unintended resignation as Long Island State Park Commissioner under Governor Nelson Rockefeller stopped any chance of the parkway being extended through to Westhampton Beach. Moses’ resignation led to a very different environment at Jones Beach compared to the areas of Fire Island and Westhampton Beach.

Moses’ limited access Ocean Parkway has provided protection for the beaches, marshes, and dunes at Jones Beach.[45] The limited-access parkway has prevented development in the area, thereby protecting the natural environment. The same could not be said for the beaches of Fire Island and Westhampton Beach. The lack of a limited-access highway has spurred the development of oceanfront houses on both beaches. Condominiums, bars, and tennis clubs all line the beaches along Dune Road. Without the protection of a road like Ocean Parkway, the beaches of Westhampton have been virtually destroyed by erosion and storms.[46] The use of all-terrain vehicles has also contributed to an accelerated erosion pattern along the shorelines of Fire Island.[47] If Robert Moses had been able to continue his limited-access parkway all the way through to Westhampton Beach, the environmental landscape of Fire Island and Westhampton Beach would have been preserved in the same way Ocean Parkway has protected the landscape of Jones Beach.

Innovation in the use of building materials was another key element in Robert Moses’ development of his Long Island parkways. “One of the most distinctive visual features of Long Island’s parkways is the extensive use of ashlar granite, used to construct overpasses, gas stations, and ancillary structures.”[48] Many of the parkway overpasses were landscaped with Dogwood, Azalea, and English Ivy. The influence of Moses’ Oxford experience and the English countryside was evident in the design of the gas stations, police, and maintenance buildings that were located along the parkways.[49] The majestic trees of Long Island were echoed in the design of the wooden lampposts that lined the parkways. The lights hanging from the lampposts were beautiful iron lamps reminiscent of hanging lanterns.[50] Wood salvaged from the 1938 hurricane was used to construct the fences and rails lining the Long Island parkways.[51]

Robert Moses employed landscape architect Clarence Combs to supervise the planting of trees and shrubs along the parkways. Trees and shrubs that were indigenous to Long Island played an important role in the magnificent landscaping of Moses’ parkways.[52] Combs incorporated nineteenth-century Loop Trees from Huntington into the parkway design.[53] Combs also integrated the stately pines from the mile-long former August Belmont driveway in Babylon into the parkway.[54] In the book Highways and Our Environment, landscape engineer Harold Neal writes about the importance of using indigenous materials. “The selection of native plant material instead of importations of exotic material promotes more harmonious and naturalistic roadside conditions.”[55] Interestingly, Neal was the landscape engineer for the Virginia Highway Department in 1930. His opinion provides evidence that Moses was not the only man in the United States at the time with the natural landscaped parkway idea.

Photo: Cole Kachejian 2017

Robert Moses’ parkways eventually did far more than just bring people to his parks. Moses’ parkways were the catalyst for a whole generation of city people making the move to suburban life. Moses’ fight for a land of industry, excluding zoning laws, set the stage for a landscape of single-family homes built far beyond walking distance of most local stores or businesses.[56] In the 1950s, Moses initiated the Long Island Expressway project. It was Moses’ views on mass transit and suburban life that would eventually set in stone the Long Islander’s life as forever tied to their automobile.

In Robert Caro’s book, The Power Broker, Caro argued that Moses’ prevention of a mass transit line that could have been built in the center of the Long Island Expressway was Moses’ ultimate power play that sealed the fate of Long Island’s traffic nightmare. According to Caro, a mass transit line built along the Long Island Expressway would have spurred urban development along the central corridor of Long Island.[57] Urban development would have freed thousands of Long Islanders from the confines of their automobiles. Apartment houses could have been built within walking distance of the mass transit line. Within walking distance would be places of employment, stores, doctors, dentists, schools, and so forth.[58] The urban corridor would have greatly decreased the number of automobiles on the Long Island roadways.

The development of an urban living experience along the central corridor of Long Island would actually have created more parkland and country-like living on the island’s south and north shores. The rest of Long Island would become less densely populated because demand for living space would have dropped. Less demand for land would have lowered the value of the land, thus making it easier to preserve more parkland and the beauty of Long Island’s natural landscape.[59]

Throughout Robert Moses’ building career, he consistently produced unchallenged cost estimates for his building projects. A company called Day & Zimmerman began a study on the cost of adding mass transit to the Long Island Expressway project.[60] Moses was furious and argued that building mass transit on the Long Island Expressway would never work. Day & Zimmerman argued that if the cost of adding mass transit to the Long Island Expressway was too high, at least a survey should be conducted to assess the cost of developing the Long Island Expressway. The study would survey ways in which the expressway’s structural foundation could be built so that, in the future, a mass transit line could be added to the roadway at a conservative cost.[61]

Instead of waiting for New York State to begin allocating the funding for the Long Island Expressway project, Moses used his own $20,000,000 in Triborough funds he had gotten to get the Long Island Expressway started.[62] Moses understood that once the project was started, the results of Day & Zimmerman’s study would no longer matter because of the actual construction work that had already begun on the Long Island Expressway. Moses had been able to thwart the threat of an actual study that eventually showed the cost of adding the possibility of mass transit to the Long Island Expressway. That survey showed the cost would have added only 4% to the total construction cost. Even in the face of a rigorous study that demonstrated the cost-benefit of adding mass transit, Moses believed he knew what was best for Long Island.

By 1972, the Long Island Expressway was nearly complete. The New York Times reported that the roadway was handling 150,000 cars per day.[63] The New York State Department of Transportation declared that the Long Island Expressway was the most heavily traveled six-lane highway in the world.[64] Amusingly, it was only 1972, and the Department of Transportation was declaring the Long Island Expressway was already operating at its fullest capacity.[65]

Robert Caro was late to his first interview with Robert Moses. When Robert Moses asked why Caro had been late, Caro told Moses that he had been stuck in traffic on the Long Island Expressway. Moses responded to Caro by saying, “Traffic jam on the LIE at midday? Nonsense!”[66] It was Moses’ response to Caro that provided further evidence that Moses always thought he was smarter than the common man and really had no understanding at what he had done to the Long Island driving experience. Ironically, Robert Moses had never even driven a car and was completely ignorant of the Long Island driving experience.

The growth of the Long Island Expressway not only forced Long Islanders to sit in traffic for hours at a time, but also to breathe more polluted air caused by increased, stalled traffic.

Photochemical smog is primarily a product of emissions from gasoline-burning engines. Smog, to the satisfaction of the scientific community, is the result of a chemical reaction between hydrocarbons, unburned gasoline, and other organic gases, oxides of nitrogen, and sunlight.[67]

The increase in pollution from the Long Island Expressway’s heavy automobile traffic served as another strong argument for building a mass transit system. The mass transit system would have reduced the number of cars on Long Island roadways, thereby decreasing the amount of pollution emitted into the environment. In the 1970s, studies showed that lung diseases, emphysema, and chest cancer had been increasing dramatically since the 1950s during the period of rapid roadway development.[68]

Automobile pollution affects not only the human condition but also plants and vegetation. Pollution reduces the sunlight that growing plants need.[69] Many plants suffer heavy leaf damage and stunted growth due to the onslaught of increased automobile traffic.[70] It is easy to see that the building of roadways on Long Island and the increased use of the automobile had a devastating effect on Long Island’s vegetation and plant life.

Nassau County Park Department Officials argued against plans for additional lanes as part of an expansion of the Long Island Expressway in the 1990s. The Park Department argued that the expansion would have a dramatic effect on the environment. Mark Matsi, who was head of the National Resources department, argued that clearing parkland for additional roadways would increase air pollution, which would threaten the ecological balance of some of Nassau County’s wetlands.[71] Matsi argued, “By increasing road size, you are creating potential for pollution and degrading water quality. By cutting down trees, you lessen the ability to absorb the additional pollution.”[72] The expansion plan of the Long Island Expressway was to add a fourth lane from Exit 30 to Exit 64 in both directions.[73] The HOV expansion was completed in 2005. Any Long Islander still sitting in traffic in 2010 on the Long Island Expressway would ask the question, “What was the point?”

The completion of the Long Island Expressway in 1972 was the last link in the legacy of a man that no other public works developer in the country could match. On Long Island, Moses built the Northern, Southern, Meadowbrook, Wantagh, Sagtikos, Sunken Meadow, and Ocean Parkways.[74] Moses’ development of parks and beaches on Long Island was also dramatic. The Sunken Meadow, Hither Hills, Montauk, Orient Point, Fire Island, Captree, Bethpage, Wildwood, Belmont Lake, Hempstead Lake, and Valley Stream parks and beaches were all built by Moses.[75]

Standing in the shadows of Long Island are the great bridges and roadways in the greater metropolitan area that Moses also built. The Verrazano, Throgs Neck, Henry Hudson, Cross Bay, and Bronx-Whitestone Bridges were all built by Robert Moses.[76] Incredibly, Moses also built the Major Deegan, Van Wyck, Sheridan, Bruckner, Prospect, Whitestone, Clearview, Throgs Neck, Cross Bronx, Staten Island, and Gowanus expressways.[77] In Manhattan, Moses also built the Harlem River Drive and the West Side Highway.[78] Besides roadways, parks, and bridges, Moses also built Shea Stadium, Lincoln Center, the New York Coliseum, and many other housing projects, including Co-op City in the Bronx. Moses was also responsible for the building of over 600 playgrounds in the boroughs of New York City.[79]

The preceding list of Robert Moses’ accomplishments was included because any objective analysis of Robert Moses’ impact on Long Island should include the impact Robert Moses had on the development of the New York Metropolitan area. The development of New York City is tied to the vast scale of the urban population that has moved to Long Island’s suburbs from the 1950s to the present day. It was an urban population trying to escape the noise of the city bus, the heat of the city street, and the quick hustle of the inner-borough neighborhoods. It was an escape that Moses had not planned on.

For thirty years from 1974 to 2004, my Father, who has emphysema, left his Nesconset home and headed to work in Long Island City at 6:00 am in the morning and returned home around 8:00 pm every day. Out of those fourteen hours, between four and five of them were spent driving on the Long Island Expressway. His story is an example of the lifestyle that most Long Island commuters experience. As a piano teacher who teaches in the homes of the Long Island community, I witness parents arriving home from their city jobs between 8:00 and 9:00 pm every night. The Long Island Railroad has never been much of a better alternative for Long Islanders commuting every day back and forth from the island to the city. The Long Island Railroad is not mass transit simply because of its limited schedule, limited access to most of Long Island, and, above all, the high cost of ridership.

Robert Moses’ development of Long Island through his road system gave birth to a landscape of single-family homes nestled in an environment unable to sustain a population that both worked and lived on the island. Moses did not forecast Long Island’s eventual population explosion. In his own words, he seemed to believe that Long Island’s population would remain small: “Only the city can afford the arts in their broadest and most developed sense, because it takes population to keep art centers alive and flourishing.”[80] Robert Moses’ comment illuminates his views on suburban life and further demonstrates why he built his roadways to limit public transportation on and along them. His commitment to housing projects within the city limits further demonstrates his intended separation of the classes between Long Island and the five boroughs of New York City.

The suburban dream of owning a home has come true for millions of Long Islanders. Consequently, the dream has been ruined for many by the nightmarish commute to the city that many Long Islanders make every day. That commute has been forced onto Long Islanders because of Moses’ reluctance to build a mass transit system on Long Island. The mass transit system would have developed an urban environment that would have created enough jobs on Long Island to free many Long Islanders from the never-ending hours spent in their automobiles. Most Long Islanders would argue the point that no matter what time of day, the Long Island commuter will always fight traffic on the Long Island Expressway.

Robert Moses’ dream of an Island of beauty and prosperity for only a certain class of people was shattered by his inability to understand how many people would want to share that dream. Moses seemed to believe that the dream was only meant for the wealthy. Moses’ biggest mistake was that he failed to realize that the poor, middle class, and people of all races can also dream, no matter how many bridges may stand in their way.

Written by Brian Kachejian

Works Cited

Table of Contents

Andelman David A. “L.I. Expressway Nears End of 32-Year Construction.” New York Times Jun 24, 1972. p.33.

Black, John A. Robert Caro’s Moses: Long Island’s First Environmentalist. in Joann P Krieg. Robert Moses: Single-Minded Genius. New York: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1989.

Black John A, “From Fort Tilden to Shinnecock Inlet: The Consequences of Roads and Parkways,” Long Island Forum, March 1987.

Burns, Rick. New York- A Documentary Film: Episode Four: The Power and the People (1898-1918) PBS Broadcasting. 1999.

“Captree Parkway to Supply in ’47 Long Island Roads’ ‘Missing Link’” New York Times. Apr 15, 1946. p.1.

Caro, Robert A. Power Broker. New York: Vintage Books, 1975.

“Fund for Parkway to speed last link.” New York Times. Mar 25, 1950. p.16

Jackson, Kenneth. Robert Moses and the Planned Environment: A Re-Evaluation, in Joann P Krieg. Robert Moses: Single-Minded Genius. New York: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1989.

Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Krieg, Joann P. Robert Moses: Single-Minded Genius. New York: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1989

Lewis, Eugene. Public Entrepreneurship. London: Indiana University Press, 1980

Lii, Jane H. “Neighborhood Report Douglaston; More L.I.E., Fewer Trees?” New York Times. Dec 10th. 1995. p.19.

Mallamo Lance J. Building the Roads to Greatness. in Joann P Krieg. Robert Moses: Single-Minded Genius. New York: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1989.

Moses, Robert. Working for the People. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1956.

Neagle, H.J. Highway as Parkway in John Robinson, Highways and our Environment. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing, 1972.

“New Parkway Link Opened in Nassau.” New York Times Dec 18, 1938, p. 51.

Ochs Ridgely. “Reassessing Robert Moses: The Legacy of the Power Broker.” The Newsday Magazine, Newsday. Long Island, N.Y. December 4^th 1988.

“Progress made on Long Island’s Parks and Parkways: A Traffic Solution. Secretary of State Robert Moses Discusses Present and Future Plans.” New York Times. April 29, 1928. P.RE1.

Rodgers, Cleveland. Robert Moses: Builder for Democracy. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1952.

Robinson, John. Highways and our Environment. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing, 1972.

Stevens, George. Robert Caro’s Moses: A Historian’s Critique in Joann P Krieg. Robert Moses: Single-Minded Genius. New York: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1989.

Endnotes

[1] Ridgely Ochs. “Reassessing Robert Moses: The Legacy of the Power Broker.” The Newsday Magazine Newsday. Long Island, N.Y. December 4^th 1988, p.2.

[2] Robert A Caro. Power Broker. New York: Vintage Books, 1975. p. 29.

[3] Ibid., 35.

[4] Ibid., 31-33.

[5] Ibid., 47.

[6] Ibid., 48.

[7] Caro. Power Broker, 49.

[8] Robert Moses. Working for the People. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1956. p. 7.

[9] Rick Burns. New York- A Documentary Film: Episode Four: The Power and the People (1898-1918) PBS Broadcasting. 1999.

[10] Caro, Power Broker, 55.

[11] Kenneth T Jackson. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. p. 88.

[12] Ibid., 98.

[13] Jackson, Crabgrass, 97.

[14] Ibid., 98.

[15] Cleveland Rodgers. Robert Moses: Builder for Democracy. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1952. p. 40.

[16] Rodgers, Democracy, 41.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid., 42.

[20] Rodgers, Democracy, 43.

[21] Ibid., 44.

[22] “Progress made on Long Island’s Parks and Parkways: A Traffic Solution. Secretary of State Robert Moses Discusses Present and Future Plans.” New York Times. April 29, 1928. P.RE1.

[23] Rogers. Democracy, 51.

[24] Rogers. Democracy, 51.

[25] Caro. Power Broker, 277.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Caro. Power Broker, 279.

[29] Ibid.

[30] Ibid., 301.

[31] Caro, Power Broker, 310.

[32] Ibid., 318.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Eugene Lewis. Public Entrepreneurship. London: Indiana University Press, 1980.

[36] Kenneth Jackson, Robert Moses and the Planned Environment: A Re-Evaluation. in Joann P Krieg. Robert Moses: Single-Minded Genius. New York: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1989. p. 26.

[37] Jackson, Planned Environment, 26.

[38] Ochs, 2.

[39] George Stevens. Robert Caro’s Moses: A Historian’s Critique in Joann P Krieg. Robert Moses: Single-Minded Genius. New York: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1989. p. 42.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Black, John A. Robert Caro’s Moses: Long Island’s First Environmentalist. in Joann P Krieg. Robert Moses: Single-Minded Genius. New York: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1989. p. 141.

[42] Ibid.

[43] Ibid.

[44] John A Black, “From Fort Tilden to Shinnecock Inlet: The Consequences of Roads and Parkways,” Long Island Forum, March 1987. p. 47.

[45] Black, “From Fort Tilden to Shinnecock Inlet,” 48.

[46] Ibid.

[47] Ibid.

[48] J Lance Mallamo. Building the Roads to Greatness. in Joann P Krieg. Robert Moses: Single-Minded Genius. New York: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1989. p. 163.

[49] Ibid.

[50] Mallamo. Building the Roads to Greatness, 164.

[51] Ibid.

[52] Ibid., 165

[53] Ibid.

[54] Ibid.

[55] H.J. Neale. Highway as Parkway in John Robinson, Highways and our Environment. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing, 1972.

[56] Caro, Power Broker, 940.

[57] Ibid., 941.

[58] Ibid.

[59] Ibid.

[60] Caro, Power Broker, 946.

[61] Ibid., 948.

[62] Ibid.

[63] David A Andelman. “L.I. Expressway Nears End of 32-Year Construction.” New York Times, Jun 24, 1972. p. 33.

[64] Andelman. “L.I. Expressway Nears End of 32-Year Construction,” p. 33.

[65] Ibid.

[66] Ochs, Newsday, 34.

[67] John Robinson. Highways and our Environment. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing, 1972. p. 150.

[68] Robinson, Highways, 154.

[69] Ibid.

[70] Ibid.

[71] Jane H Lii. “NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: DOUGLASTON; More L.I.E., Fewer Trees?” New York Times. Dec 10th. 1995. p. 19

[72] Ibid.

[73] Lii, Fewer Trees, 19.

[74] Caro, Power Broker, 8.

[75] Ibid.

[76] Ibid., 6.

[77] Ibid.

[78] Ibid.

[79] Ibid., 7.

[80] Robert Moses, Working, 87.

Photo Credits

Photo: By Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge: The Beginning, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo: By C.M. Stieglitz, World Telegram staff photographer, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo: By Robert_Moses_with_Battery_Bridge_model.jpg: C.M. Stieglitz, World Telegram staff photographer derivative work: Daniel Case, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo: Cole Kachejian – Robert Moses Causeway Entrance Sign 2017