I loved the Power Broker. It’s a page turner (I listened to the Audiobook), and it helped me get back into nonfiction.¹
It took me a long time to get through, and I ended up finishing it hours before my redeye flight² to New York City. I woke up about 15 minutes before landing, and the first thing I saw was the fall colors of Long Island. The second thing I saw was the two Jones Beach parking fields.

The Power Broker changed the way I understand New York City, Long Island, politics, and how I conceptualize the link between built form and history and power.

Rereading #

I began reading the actual book in August of 2024. I’m reading it with my partner.

Major themes #

• [[power]]
  • threats of [[resignation]]
• [[civil service reform]]
  • elitism in [[good government]]

Introduction: Wait Until the Evening #

• opens with [[Sophocles]] quote

  One must wait until the evening
  To see how splendid the day has been.
  —Sophocles

• moses swam at [[yale]], class of 1909

  • tried to lie to swim team donor, tell him money was going to a swim team and not his own minor sports association. when team captain told him not to, he tried to threaten his resignation, it was accepted. #resignation

• jump to [[robert f. wagner jr.]] oath of office 45 years later, passes up moses for [[planning commission]] at the urging of [[good government]] groups [[citizens union]], [[city club]]

  • moses threatens [[resignation]], wagner appoints him to planning commission

• examine his life through the lens of [[power]]

  Power is the backdrop against which both confrontation scenes should be played. (4)

• moses wielded immense money

  including, in fact, only those public works that he personally conceived and completed, from first vision to ribbon cutting—Robert Moses built public works costing, in 1968 dollars, twenty-seven billion dollars. (9)

  equivalent to $244,039,655,172 in 2024 dollars

Part 1: The Idealist #

1: Line of Succession #

• moses mother and grandfather were very rich. part of [[our crowd]]
• [[bella cohen]] dragged family to new york, involved herself in [[settlement houses]] run by rich [[german jews]] to americanize [[eastern european jews]]

2: Robert Moses at Yale #

• tried to lie to swim team donor, tell him money was going to a swim team and not his own minor sports association. when team captain told him not to, he tried to threaten his resignation, it was accepted. #resignation

3: Home Away from Home #

• attends [[oxford]] after yale
  • became swimming caption
• was popular
• enjoyed oxford’s elitism
• became extremely arrogant about not thinking about clothes or money. always [[entertained]]
• became a strong [[anglophile]]
• picked up british thoughts on civil service and government
  • that governments of the lower classes should be scorned. it is the right of the upper classes born to wealth to take care of the lower classes through public service
  • became increasingly racist against the brown, black and asian people conquered and governed by the british
• picks up [[good government]] beliefs about [[patronage]]
  • but in a classist way

    The Civil Service of Great Britain reveals it’s author as the possessor of a depth of class feeling and conservatism more appropriate to a retired colonel of the guards than a young progressive from New York City. “Open competition “maybe with the young author said he wanted—but the openness was to certain individuals only. “Merit “maybe the determinant he said he desired, but it was not merit based on a man’s handling of his job. The competition Moses wanted was a competition open only to a highly educated upper class the marriage he was talking about was Merritt not in public service but in the education given exclusively to members of that class.

• 1913 while working toward Ph.D. at [[Columbia]], joins ranks of the [[Bureau of Municipal Research]]

Part 2: The Part 2: The Reformer #

4: Burning #