Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York [Paperback]

Hilary Ballon (Editor), Kenneth T. Jackson (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 2008

A fresh look at the greatest builder in the history of New York City and one of its most controversial figures.

“We are rebuilding New York, not dispersing and abandoning it”: Robert Moses saw himself on a rescue mission to save the city from obsolescence, decentralization, and decline. His vast building program aimed to modernize urban infrastructure, expand the public realm with extensive recreational facilities, remove blight, and make the city more livable for the middle class. This book offers a fresh look at the physical transformation of New York during Moses’s nearly forty-year reign over city building from 1934 to 1968.

It is hard to imagine that anyone will ever have the same impact on New York as did Robert Moses. In his various roles in city and state government, he reshaped the fabric of the city, and his legacy continues to touch the lives of all New Yorkers. Revered for most of his life, he is now one of the most controversial figures in the city’s history. Robert Moses and the Modern City is the first major publication devoted to him since Robert Caro’s damning 1974 biography, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.

In these pages eight short essays by leading scholars of urban history provide a revised perspective; stunning new photographs offer the first visual record of Moses’s far-reaching building program as it stands today; and a comprehensive catalog of his works is illustrated with a wealth of archival records: photographs of buildings, neighborhoods, and landscapes, of parks, pools, and playgrounds, of demolished neighborhoods and replacement housing and urban renewal projects, of bridges and highways; renderings of rejected designs and controversial projects that were defeated; and views of spectacular models that have not been seen since Moses made them for promotional purposes.

Robert Moses and the Modern City captures research undertaken in the last three decades and will stimulate a new round of debate.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Essential reading for urban planners, and a refutation of Robert Caro's great 1975 book, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. (Florida InsideOut )

[S]mart, insightful essays offering new perspectives on Moses's legendarily ambitious aims and the politics of city building. (Bpd: Blueprint Directory )

[E]xcellent. (Howard Kissel - New York Daily News )

[W]atershed reexamination. (Library Journal )

[E]xcellent book of essays. (Wall Street Journal )

[A] wonderfully insightful new book. (The New York Times, The City Weekly Desk )

About the Author

Hilary Ballon is an architectural historian and professor at Columbia University. She is the curator of “Robert Moses and the Modern City,” the 2007 exhibition concurrently at the Queens Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York, and the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery of Columbia University. She is the editor of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. Her previous books include New York’s Pennsylvania Stations; The Paris of Henri IV: Architecture and Urbanism, which won the Alice Davis Hitchcock Award for the Most Distinguished Scholarship in the History of Architecture; and Louis Le Vau: Mazarin’s Collège, Colbert’s Revenge, which received a medal from the Académie Française.

Kenneth T. Jackson is the Jacques Barzun Professor of History at Columbia University and a former president of the Urban History Association, the Society of American Historians, the Organization of American Historians, and the New-York Historical Society. His many books include Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States; The Encyclopedia of New York City; Empire City: New York Through the Centuries; and The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915–1930. In addition to the Francis Parkman and Bancroft Prizes and four honorary degrees, he is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2001 he served as New York State Scholar of the Year. His famous all-night bicycle ride through the city has been an annual event at Columbia since 1975.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (September 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393732436
• ISBN-13: 978-0393732436
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 9.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #284,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A modern take on the metropolis that Moses crafted, March 18, 2007

By 

Richard Murdocco "Student" (Bronx, New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York (Hardcover)

The Power Broker (another prominent work on Moses) is a product of the 1970s pessimism concerning the death of the city, saying that Moses helped bring about the downfall experienced in 1974 when the book was published. In Ballon's book, we have the experience that 30 years of hindsight provides, and the tone is radically different Ballon and other essayists provide a more modern insight to Moses and his achievements. Do not be fooled, this is not a coffee table book, but almost a text book for urban planners on the practices employed by Moses. The book was inspired by the museum exhibits going on currently in New York City concerning Moses and his works, and is an excellent supplement to them. If you are interested in NYC, public works, or Urban History- this is a must buy, and will become more important as time wears on.
I also recommend The Power Broker and Moses' own book Public Works: A Dangerous Trade

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Master Map, April 1, 2008

By 

J-Man "J" (NYC) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York (Hardcover)

Unfortunately, the essays are a bit of a drudge, but the book itself is definitive, and as a life long NY City resident I must admit - absolutely dazzling. Its less about Robert Moses, more about his hand over projects that involved countless talented Americans. Learn about highways never built, public parks on the grandest of scales, and how to clear a city slum via Title 1. You thought you knew NY City, and perhaps were even sure Manhattan was all you would ever need to know. This book shows the sophisticated development of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and The Bronx, as well as their more popular and over crowded, smaller brother. Simply amazing.

13 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ITS A WONDER HE DID NOT TRY TO PART THE EAST RIVER, March 21, 2007

By 

Shannon Deason (Houston) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York (Hardcover)

Now this man had POWER. It is amazing how much control he had over the building of infastructure in NYC, he was the first and last word. He was like a 20th century Baron Hausemann. This book is well written and scholarly and frankly just fascinating. I saw a documentary on Robert Moses one time and was just blown away at his hubris and power. His reign over NYC spanned several powerful mayors and to this day no person has ever had so much power of the cities infrastructure. Great book, highly recommended.