Robert Moses was an American public official who worked mainly in the New York metropolitan area. He is sometimes compared to Baron Haussmann of Second Empire Paris. His decisions favoring highways over public transit helped create the modern suburbs of Long Island. He influenced a generation of engineers, architects, and urban planners who spread his philosophies across the nation.
About Robert Moses in brief
Robert Moses was an American public official who worked mainly in the New York metropolitan area. Known as the \”master builder\” of mid-20th century New York City, Long Island, Rockland County, and Westchester County, he is sometimes compared to Baron Haussmann of Second Empire Paris. His decisions favoring highways over public transit helped create the modern suburbs of Long Island. He influenced a generation of engineers, architects, and urban planners who spread his philosophies across the nation despite his not having been trained in those professions. Moses’ reputation for efficiency and nonpartisan leadership was damaged by Robert Caro’s Pulitzer-winning biography The Power Broker, which accused Moses of a lust for power, questionable ethics, vindictiveness, and racism. Moses was born in New Haven, Connecticut, to assimilated German Jewish parents, Bella and Emanuel Moses. He spent the first nine years of his life living at 83 Dwight Street, two blocks from Yale University. He graduated from Yale College and Wadham College, Oxford, and earning a Ph. D. in political science from Columbia University. Moses rose to power with Governor Alfred E. Smith, who was elected as governor in 1922, and set in motion a sweeping consolidation of New York State government. He was never elected to any public office. Nevertheless, he created and led numerous public authorities that gave him autonomy from the general public and elected officials. As a result of Moses’ work, New York has the United States’ greatest proportion of public benefit corporations, which are the prime mode of infrastructure building and maintenance in New York and account for most of the state’s debt.
Moses also helped persuade the United Nations to locate its headquarters in Manhattan, instead of in Philadelphia, by helping the state secure the money and land needed for the project. During the height of his powers, New. York City built campuses to host two World’s Fairs: one in 1939 and the other in 1964. Moses received numerous commissions that he carried out efficiently, such as the development of State Park Jones Beach in New Jersey. He also served as the chairman of the State Council of Parks and president of the Long Island State Park Commission. At one point he held 12 titles simultaneously, but was neverelected to anypublic office. He was known for his skill in drafting legislation and was called ‘the best bill drafter in Albany’ He was seen as a savior of the public government when the public was accustomed to corruption and incompetence, when a few states and cities had few projects ready to spend millions of New Deal dollars. He died of a heart attack on December 31, 1987, at the age of 83. He is buried in Mount Sinai Cemetery in Mount Vernon, New Jersey, where he was a member of the Mount Sinai Hebrew Congregation and served as a trustee of Mount Sinai High School for more than 30 years. He had a son, Paul Moses, who served as mayor of Westchester, and a stepson, Michael Moses, a former mayor of Yonkers.
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This page is based on the article Robert Moses published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 21, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
