Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York's Master Builder and Transformed the American City [Hardcover]

Anthony Flint (Author)

Book Description

Release date: July 28, 2009

To a young Jane Jacobs, Greenwich Village, with its winding cobblestone streets and diverse makeup, was everything a city neighborhood should be. The activist, writer, and mother of three grew so fond of her bustling community that it became a touchstone for her landmark book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. But consummate power broker Robert Moses, the father of many of New York’s most monumental development projects, saw things differently: neighborhoods such as Greenwich Village were badly in need of “urban renewal.” Notorious for exacting enormous human costs, Moses’s plans had never before been halted–not by governors, mayors, or FDR himself, and certainly not by a housewife from Scranton.

The epic rivalry of Jacobs and Moses, played out amid the struggle for the soul of a city, is one of the most dramatic and consequential in modern American history. In Wrestling with Moses, acclaimed reporter and urban planning policy expert Anthony Flint recounts this thrilling David-and-Goliath story, the legacy of which echoes through our society today.

The first ordinary citizens to stand up to government plans for their city, Jacobs and her colleagues began a nationwide movement to reclaim cities for the benefit of their residents. Time and again, Jacobs marshaled popular support and political power against Moses, whether to block traffic through her beloved Washington Square Park or to prevent the construction of the Lower Manhattan Expressway, a ten-lane elevated superhighway that would have destroyed centuries-old streetscapes and displaced thousands of families and businesses.

Like A Civil Action before it, Wrestling with Moses is the tale of a local battle with far-ranging significance. By confronting Moses and his vision, Jacobs forever changed the way Americans understood the city, and inspired citizens across the country to protest destructive projects in their own communities. Her story reminds us of the power we have as individuals to confront and defy reckless authority.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Former Boston Globe reporter Flint recounts how activist and writer Jane Jacobs stopped the seemingly unstoppable master builder Robert Moses. Beginning in the 1930s, Moses consolidated his enormous power through the administrations of various mayors and governors, revamping the city parks network and constructing a mind-boggling array of projects including bridges, highways, Shea Stadium, Lincoln Center and 10 giant public swimming pools. Although highly skilled at crushing opponents, Moses was eventually outmaneuvered in the 1950s and '60s by Jacobs, whose landmark The Death and Life of Great American Cities was a war cry against urban renewal projects that destroyed existing neighborhoods. Jacobs derailed Moses's plans to run two highways through lower Manhattan (one in what would become trendy SoHo). But, says Flint (This Land: The Battle Over Sprawl and the Future of America), who is now at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Moses's tarnished reputation has been undergoing rehabilitation recently as cities realize the value of reliable infrastructure. Lucid and articulate, Flint's account will appeal more to urban planners, policy wonks and community organizers than the general reader. Photos. (July 28)
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Review

“Wrestling with Moses is an epic tale filled with nuanced lessons. Flint is passionate in supporting Jacobs’s once radical but now commonly shared views, yet he deftly leaves room for Moses. This is an indispensable read for anyone interested in the shaping of cities.”—Alex Krieger, professor of urban design, Harvard University

“In this gripping and inspiring story of one woman who galvanized her community against powerful, destructive forces, Anthony Flint gets to the heart of what makes neighborhoods–and cities–thrive.”—Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and Who’s Your City?

“Jane Jacobs, the crownless queen of cities, defended New York against the assault that would have destroyed its pattern of the daily life. Wrestling with Moses is a masterly tale of how her mandate endures.”—Jane Holtz Kay, architecture critic for The Nation and author of Asphalt Nation

“Anthony Flint has written a riveting account of a struggle between opposites that forever redefined the American city. With no formal training in urban planning, Jane Jacobs had the audacity to take on Robert Moses and the passion to save old New York from the wrecking ball.”—James L. Swanson, Edgar Award—winning author of Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer

“Beautifully written, Wrestling with Moses is a step back in time to the bohemia of Greenwich Village in the 1960s, when Bob Dylan’s music filled the streets and revolution was in the air. As a woman standing up to power, Jane Jacobs blazed a trail. This is a remarkable book.”—Brad Matsen, author of Titanic’s Last Secrets

“Anthony Flint has not only captured the life and times of the remarkable Jane Jacobs but, more important, he has delineated the amazing cast of characters–politicians, design professionals, neighbors, and citizens–that populated her life and her city. Wrestling with Moses will soon become classic, essential reading for anyone concerned with cities, past, present, and future.”—Eugenie L. Birch, Lawrence C. Nussdorf Professor of Urban Research and Education, University of Pennsylvania

“Reporter Flint offers a fascinating history of the two combatants as well as an architectural history of New York City.”—Booklist

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Random House; First Edition edition (July 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400066743
• ISBN-13: 978-1400066742
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 0.8 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #658,271 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anthony Flint is author of "Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York's Master Builder and Transformed the American City." A journalist for twenty years, primarily at The Boston Globe, he writes about architecture, urban planning and sustainability. He was a visiting scholar and Loeb fellow at the Harvard Design School, and also served in the Office for Commonwealth Development, the Massachusetts state agency coordinating growth policy. He is currently director of public affairs at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (www.lincolninst.edu), a think-tank in Cambridge, Mass. where he is also engaged in writing and research. He is the author of two blogs, At Lincoln House at www.lincolninst.edu and Developing Stories at www.anthonyflint.net. His first book was "This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Future of America" (Johns Hopkins, 2006).

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lessons for today from yesterday September 11, 2009

By Albert V. Lannon

Format:Hardcover

"Wrestling With Moses" is the true story of how a small group of neighbors challenged, and stopped, rampaging development in New York City, led by Robert Moses. Jane Jacobs formed her ideas for her brilliant "Death and Life of Great American Cities" in the struggles to save Washington Square Park, and many neighborhoods, countering Moses's approach of total demoition and replacement by roads and instant slum housing projects. It is hard today to comprehend how Moses held so much power, staying in charge through five mayors, but Jane Jacobs and her neighbors offer lessons for taking on today's stone-wall bureaucracies. Anthony Flint clearly likes the late Jane Jacobs, but gives Moses his full due. A good read for anyone interested in politics, urban studies, or involved in fighting wrong-headed development (like the proposed I-10 Bypass in my rural Arizona neighborhood).

30 of 35 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Too Elaborate a Plan, Too Lame an Execution August 28, 2009

By Jiang Xueqin

Format:Hardcover

According to the urbanist and civic activist Jane Jacobs, author of the modern classic "The Death and Life of Great American Cities," a city is made great by the diversity of its neighborhoods, which are in themselves the organic growth and interactions of buildings, streets, and people: cities are not planned, but grown and nurtured by the people who live in them. That's the completely opposite approach of the master builder Robert Moses, who saw New York City as wild, sprawling, and restless, and which needed to be tamed, structured, and controlled by the sheer power of his will and imagination. It is the epic struggle between these unlikely enemies -- one a fiercely ambitious Yale graduate who controlled most of the city's construction and a soft-spoken self-educated mother of three -- that the former Boston Globe architecture correspondent Anthony Flint chronicles in "Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on New York's Master Builder and Transformed the American City."

In the epilogue Mr. Flint writes that Jane Jacobs offered help and information to a young Newsday reporter by the name of Robert Caro while he was researching his epic "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York." The book was much too long, and Robert Caro had to cut out the chapter on Jane Jacobs. Mr. Caro was writing a book about Robert Moses, and there is little reason to suspect that, so busy with his epic battles with American President Franklin Roosevelt and New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller as well as overseeing his vast empire that could at any time be responsible for over two thousand construction projects, Mr. Moses paid any attention to a committed but ultimately powerless urban activist by the name of Jane Jacobs. By the time of Jane Jacobs' ascent, culminating with the 1961 publication of her classic tome on what makes a city great the seeds of Robert Moses' decline had already been planted: his arrogance, his pride, his absolutely loyalty to his corrupt functionaries, his disregard for and contempt of his fellow beings, and his relentless power-mongering all caused his spectacular descent from power after spending a lifetime methodically and meticulously rising to the top. To suggest that Jane Jacobs or one book or one movement could take down this titan as Anthony Flint and many thinkers suggest is slightly ridiculous. Robert Moses made too many enemies, and his ideas didn't work: his highways and transportation grids caused more problems -- mainly traffic -- than they solved, and his urban renewal plans destroyed neighborhoods, livelihoods, and lives. Living in and witnessing the Age of Moses, an intelligent observer such as Jane Jacobs could see exactly what was wrong.

Mr. Flint's book draws on shamelessly from other works, and there is very little original research that the author himself conducted. On his section on Robert Moses Mr. Flint breathlessly summarizes "The Power Broker." Yet, ironically, even though Mr. Flint's book is ostensibly about Jane Jacobs, and Mr. Caro's book is about Robert Moses, it's Mr. Flint's book that best captures the spirit of Robert Moses and Mr. Caro's book that captures best the spirit of Jane Jacobs.

Robert Moses liked to plan big projects and construct them as quickly as he could, and "Wrestling with Moses" certainly feels that way: it sounds like an excellent story, but the story of the struggle reads too artificial and mechanical. Like most of Robert Moses' structures there's no life and soul in "Wrestling with Moses": it's just there.

And if it were a city "The Power Broker" would be Jane Jacob's ideal: each chapter is sprawling, diverse, and overflowing. Each chapter feels like its own neighborhood, with its own collection of diverse people, structures, philosophy, and language. You can roam each chapter of "The Power Broker" at your own pace, feel alive in it, and know that if you come back you'll always find new things to interest you. Like all great pieces of literature and great neighborhoods "The Power Broker" will continue to interact with people in different ways at different times.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars A great story, but only a good book - History Lite March 1, 2011

By Andrew

Format:Paperback

Surprisingly shallow treatment of the two dynamic leaders butting heads over differing visions. The author manages to present a richly dramatic story in a way that robs it of drama and personality. 'Thin' may be the best descriptor for this book - anyone expecting an in-depth understanding of either these people or these times should be made aware that this book will tell you the basic story, but leave you hungry for more. The author tries to rise to the challenge - but he has not spent the time or the energy to write anything definitive. Read Robert Caro's biography of Robert Moses to encounter the real deal.

Special mention should be made of the poor editing - practically identical sentences in consecutive paragraphs was one that made me wince. But a strong editor who sent the author back better comments might have improved this book considerably.

All that said, I did manage to finish it - Jane Jacobs is an interesting figure, and this is the first attempt at her biography I had read. But, of course, you would do better just to read her books.