Customer Reviews

The Last Three Miles: Politics, Murder, and the Construction of America's First Superhighway

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I live in North Jersey, but this book is relevant to anyone interested in American history, the changes this country underwent when the automobile became commonplace, and the evolotion of modern machine politics and bossism. This exhaustively researched, yet economically written book is full of insight and fascinating information about the power struggles that ensued as American cities tried to cope with the changes wrought by the need for roads.

Frank Hague is not as widely known as other political bosses of his era, but he should be, and Mr. Hart's smooth style and astute writing bring the decades-long Jersey City mayor to life and fill in many blanks about him. Hague's controversial reign had a permanent and very tangible impact in New Jersey, New York, and, in fact, throughout the nation.

The Last Three Miles has as its most specific focus the construction of what is now known as the Pulaski Skyway. Serving as macrocosm are the machinations of politicos and union men and corporations before and during the construction of America's first viaduct/superhighway. The cast of characters is nigh Shakespearean, and Steven Hart is particularly good at breathing life into the major players. Foremost is Frank Hague, Irish tough and one of America's great political bosses. Serving as foil is Teddy Brandle, the thuggish union boss who becomes rich and powerful by playing ball with Hague, and whose dispute with his patron over the construction of a hospital leads to the climactic labor struggle which serves as climax in Hart's narrative. Also making an appearance is railroad engineer, intrepid world-traveler and lothario Fred Lavis. There are many others.

In less deft hands, the book could easily have exceeded 500 pages, and been rendered unreadable to anyone not a historian by the inclusion of tedious minutiae. Hart's great gift is whittling down the story to its most concise threads, threads that pull the reader happily along. He tells his tale with wit and vigour, somehow managing not to skimp on essential context, situating his New Jersey narrative within the larger framework of labor woes and Tammany Hall-style 'democracy' and federal intervention in local public works. It's a great read. I laughed out loud at several points, most heartily during a catalog of the salaries and 'duties' of several well-paid Hague henchmen. Hart even manages to take the reader on a harrowing ride along the Skyway's hazardous route.

Hart treats his subjects fairly and allows their flaws largely to speak for themselves, which is refreshing. It's easy to condemn guys like Hague and Brandle for their paranoia and brutish excesses, ignoring their often astonishing achievements. The Last Three Miles documents both in an entertaining and enlightening manner, reminding us that this was how things got done for much of our history.

The Last Three Miles is not merely a story of the hopes, woes, and struggles behind the completion of a public works engineering feat that failed to live up to intended purposes. It's a story of a nation evolving from humble roots to industrial and economic supremacy, often in a ham-fisted, blundering fashion.

I'll nestle it on the bookcase between Plunkitt of Tammany Hall and The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

There's something repulsive, yet strangely compelling, about the Pulaski Skyway, the grimy eyesore that the author aptly describes as "a uniquely efficient generator of traffic accidents." Deride it you must, but the Skyway is a fitting landmark for the squalid industrial wasteland it straddles. You'll want to buy and read this book in a hurry, before the inevitable collapse of the rusty hulk -- which even today, after some 75 years of service, plays a vital role spewing traffic in and out of New York City. It can't be too long before the monstrosity falls down, as anyone can attest who regularly drives the wretched span linking the Holland Tunnel and points west.

This well-researched little book tells the complete story of the Skyway's ill-starred design and construction. But by way of context, it necessarily tackles a much bigger story: the life and times of the notoriously corrupt Frank Hague, long-serving mayor/dictator of Jersey City, and the bloody battles waged by trade unions locked out of the Skyway project -- a forgotten, sad chapter in America's history.

Let me start by saying that I was born in Jersey City in 1940 and lived there until 1956. My father had his business there and after I finished school, I wound up in the family business. Because my dad was always interested and somewhat involved in politics, I still retain some knowledge and awareness of that one of a kind era.

I can vividly remember going to Journal Square and passing over the manmade cuts that looked like canyons to a young boy. And when I attended Dickinson High School, looking down on the approaching traffic to the Holland Tunnel.

This is a book that I've been looking for someone to write for many years. If you are from Jersey City or Hudson County and were born before 1950, so many memories will return. If you have any interest in machine politics, union labor or history in general, this is a great find. I couldn't put the book down and was very disappointed when I was finished.

Mister Hart could do us all a favor by supplementing his research and writing a complete history of Jersey City (Hudson County).

If you want to read a book on bridge design, engineering & construction, this ain't it. Steven Hart tells us what is necessary to the tale. But the Pulaski Skyway - obsolete from the day it opened to traffic in 1932 - provides Hart with an iconic landmark on which to base a superb, unflinching, unsentimental look at the long, harsh reign of Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague.

Past Jersey political bosses like Enoch "Nucky" Johnson of Atlantic City & Frank Hague of Jersey City are too often recalled with humor, nostalgia, & even affection. But their power was maintained through fear & brutality. They were gangsters. Johnson even felt it beneath him to run for office, preferring to control his city from a palatial suite in the Ritz-Carlton. Where the affable & personally generous Johnson ran a wide-open island resort town - its sole business was entertainment - that offered every conceivable vice, for a price, & cops directed visitors to whorehouses & gambling joints, Hague's Jersey City was a large, tough railroad & port city, dissent suppressed by a fascistic police force & a network of spies & informers. Hague's roots were in the puritanical Jansenist Catholicism of poor Irish immigrants. What the two men had in common were a taste for expensive suits & a will to crush opponents by any means necessary. Hart reminds us that the "good works" Hague did were for power & profit, not the gestures of a progressive Rooseveltian Democrat.

The Last Three Miles is also the story of every major highway in Jersey; the Turnpike, Parkway, Expressway, the interstates, bulldozing through working class neighborhoods, splitting towns in half, destroying farms, woods, & wetlands, endlessly widening, enriching politically connected construction companies, banks, & large landowners. The never to be completed Route 18 extension in New Brunswick is currently filling the pockets of its planners' grandchildren, perhaps the most successful pork barrel highway project in Jersey history. The Skyway was the prototype. Accidentally inadequate due to the limited railroad experience of the designers - they had no other model, the Skyway demonstrated that a closed design without room for "improvement" was bad for future business.

The labor war that poisoned the building of the Skyway was waged on twisted principle; the added expense for union labor was nominal compared to what the builders spent to secure the construction sites for scab workers. Hague was anti-union - if he didn't control the union. But the Ironworkers boss, Teddy Brandle, was a power-hungry wheeler-dealer who predicted the style of the management-friendly fatcat union leaders to come after World War II, the ones who negotiated deals on country club golf courses.

Long ago, my rock & roll garage band was driving home from Hoboken, where we'd gone to eat the famous pizza & cruise the hundreds of pretty Italian girls on Washington St. We'd missed the Turnpike entrance & were on the Pulaski, five of us, all 17 or 18 years old, our lead guitarist driving his beloved Chevy. We were teenage rowdy, not drunk. Suddenly, the bass player sitting in a backseat threw his jacket over the driver's head. Why he did this is unexplainable. I was also in a backseat. As the driver yelled & struggled to remove the jacket, the car drifted to the right, then the left, across two narrow lanes, other cars swerving & honking. I was terrified. Two days later we had a band meeting & kicked out the bassist. He had been my friend since 2nd grade. His sin was that serious, tempting death on "Death Avenue."

The Pulaski Skyway was Americas first super highway. It has been in the Sopranos and many other movies. What is not nearly as well known is the politics behind building the skyway. "The Last Three Miles" is a fascinating read of both the bridge and the politics of Jersey City at the time of the building. The book is about the building of the Pulaski Skyway, but it is actually about the times and politics, corruption and murder during the building of the bridge. It is also about the failures of the bridge when it was built. The bridge was about getting trucks and cars off the local roads and it failed miserably at the truck objective. The explanation of why still haunt the Northern New Jersey area to this day.

Frank Hague is truly one of Americas most memorable mayors in America. He ran Jersey City with an iron fist for more than thirty years. Hague was so powerful that Franklin Delano Roosevelt left Hague alone. This is important to keep in mind when reading the book.

This book reads like good novel. It is well written and gives the life and times of this period true life. As in all things, Stephen Hart writes about the good and the bad of those times. Hart writes about the matter of fact corruption and yet the bridge is built as well as hospitals and other institutions that ended serving the community. This book should not be missed. Highly recommended.

I am a Jersey City native and still reside here. I hadn't heard of this book until it came up on a search on the Amazon site. Though not a fan of the Skyway (it took years before I would drive it)I thought the book sounded interesting since it included much of Jersey City's history. I was right, but it was even more than that. It was an easy read, thoroughly entertaining and very enlightening. Anyone from this area would certainly find it interesting and educational. Others would be entertained by the writing and I am sure would see that things like this can happen anywhere. To them it may read like a novel but we who are from here know it is real. The author certainly did a great job of researching!
Great book!!!

This work captures the dynamic history of a fascinating piece of urban architecture. Additionally, "The Last Three Miles" provides a solid, illustrative history of Jersey City and Hudson County that any enthusiast of history will appreciate. If you have never had the pleasure of laying eyes on the Pulaski Skyway, you will soon find yourself itching to do so by the end of this book.

Fascinating topic, but seems more focused on union-labor relations and politics than the highway itself. Lacks maps to back up descriptions of local geography, and the conclusion was extremely weak.

Some other books about New Jersey history and geography that I found a better read are Robert Sullivan's excellent Meadowlands, Looking for America on the New Jersey Turnpike by Gillespie and Rockland, and for the true hardcore transportation geeks and wonks out there: Doig's Empire on the Hudson.