The book is a great blueprint on how to get things done. Unfortunately NYC's infrastructure has declined over the past 50 years and it's doubtful anyone in power has learned from Moses or has his spatial skills. Since the Moses days the government replaced many of the builders, engineers, and transportation professionals with lawyers and public administrators. This disrespect of infrastructure spread elsewhere and may partially explain why our national infrastructure spending has plummeted 60% since the Eisenhower years and 30% over the past several years. As for the author it appears he was initially on a mission to be negative of Moses, but it appears Moses grew on him somewhat. Five stars.
One star for the chapter titled "One Mile" - the stretch of the Cross Bronx traversing East Tremont. The book paints a neighborhood of victims, but makes many mistakes and exclusions of the history and design of this stretch of highway:
1. The chapter painted a picture of everyone was blindsided in the 1950's when the XBronx was built- this isn't true. There is no mention that the plan for the highway predated Moses- it was by the Regional Plan Association, back in the 1920's and formalized in the 1930's. Most of the building stock in East Tremont is of masonry steel buildings and built around this time. The developers knew the score. They knew a highway would eventually come and they decided to build anyways- it was a business decision. They were reimbursed when their buildings were condemned. The tenants were the ones who were angry when displaced, though many of them may have known that it was going to eventually happen, yet decided to move in anyways.
2. The author tried to paint East Tremont as a neighborhood that goes back many, many generations. There are some buildings with stone foundations, but once again it appears the bulk of the building stock was built around the time the RPA first came up with the idea for the highway. Pictures of Yankee Stadium (to the south, closer to Manhattan) show the stadium was surrounded by open fields in 1923 and the Grand Concourse in the background of these photos was a building-less road. Most of the Bronx had just converted over from farms and rural lands at the time the RPA initially planned for the Cross Bronx.
3. The book doesn't mention the highway crosses over a ridge in this area. East Tremont (to the north) and Crotona Park (to the south) sit on the ridge that runs north-south. The tenants led the fight to have the highway rerouted south to the northern edge of Crotona Park. The ridge is higher and wider in Crotona Park and the Bronx River to the east is a 6 to 8% descent from the park. Moses' intent was to minimize the highway descent from the ridge to the river crossing to 3%. The descent from East Tremont to the river is about 4%, which allowed Moses to achieve the 3% with help of cuts and some elevated roadway. The book doesn't mention anything of the terrain nor the reason for choosing the less steep East Tremont path but reports by Columbia and MIT do.
4. The chapter provides a map of the route Moses built and a proposed route designed by a hired gun engineer the East Tremont tenants hired. The engineer's background was work on FDR's Westchester parkway system which is known for being dangerous. It's loaded up with dangerous "S" curves. His proposed plan, to reroute the highway to the northern edge of Crotona Park, also had a dangerous "S" curve (reverse curve). "S" curves are no longer allowed for interstate design and are outlawed in many municipalities' land use laws. None of the Moses critics nor the author picked up on this major flaw, but the Columbia report did.
5. The map also shows the proposed route by the hired gun was to travel right through an existing transit station. The transit station would had to be rebuilt. Once again the critics and the author didn't pick up on this major flaw, although it was the author who provided the map.
6. The MIT and/or Columbia report mentioned there was a study that analyzed the East Tremont Association's hired gun's plan. The study concluded his plan would require as many displaced people as what was eventually built. The book doesn't mention anything about this study.
7. The takeaway from this chapter is that the highway divides East Tremont. It does not. The map provided by the author appears to show only one cross street (Southern Boulevard) was to remain. In reality all of the cross streets remain. And none of them were elevated. Most of this stretch of highway is in a 30 foot deep cut. You don't see much of East Tremont from the highway and very little of East Tremont sees the highway. The cut is only about 90 to 100 feet across, thus you always see pedestrians walking along the cross streets 30 feet above.
8. The author failed to mentioned many of the buildings removed for construction were eventually replaced. The highway has many buildings lining it that were built after the completion of the highway.
9. In 1976 President Jimmy Carter (prior to his presidency) visited Charlotte Street, a few blocks south of East Tremont, and described it as the "worst" neighborhood in America. The neighborhood went downhill quickly from blight that crept up from the South Bronx. It is doubtful the people of East Tremont would have stayed put. The author painted a different picture.
10. The Columbia study mentioned the Cross Bronx has extremely high truck traffic (25% of the traffic). The trucks provide goods to Long Island, Queens, and Brooklyn, but the book doesn't mention this and doesn't mention what the alternative would be to transport goods.
Also one star for not giving the history of the West Side prior to the West Side Highway. When Moses finished the highway (he didn't the start the highway), it replaced many commercial rail lines and warehouses that blocked Manhattan from the river. The rail lines ran the full length of the west side of Manhattan and the rails brought goods into the city. Even overseas goods came in by these West Side rails. The city implemented heavy levies on goods coming in by ship, thus businessmen had goods unloaded on the NJ side of the Hudson, the goods were transported up the Hudson to Albany by rail where they crossed the Hudson and then they came down the east side of the Hudson to the West side of Manhattan. The RPA plan (once again predated Moses) was to replace the rails with a highway. Thus the RPA planned to replace the trains with trucks (via the Lincoln Tunnel). The author didn't explain any of this and didn't explain how goods would be brought into the city otherwise.
Three stars for blaming Moses for today's city's congestion.The city was already clogged with vehicles by the time Moses arrived, which the author did explained. But the book blames the continuing congestion on Moses, for not designing his expressways to allow for mass transit. The author was inconsistent in that he cherry picked the RPA's role. He didn't explained that Moses' expressways were actually the RPA's plan but then the author cited the RPA's much later recommendation for expressway and bridge design to allow for mass transit. RPA's recommendation came after Moses broke ground. Moses' later expressways, out on Staten Island, appear to be adequate to allow for mass transit construction- the author didn't reveal this. Allowing for above ground mass transit requires more land to condemn thus more money and it would have reduced the number of highways that he could have built, but once again it appears Moses did make the effort out on Staten Island. The author also never explained that the existing mass transit was built (about 115 years ago) in very developed, congested areas without the benefit of prior planning allowing for mass transit. Most of these lines in Manhattan and Brooklyn were built in congestion as heavy as today's if not more so.
The author made a big error and a big omission regarding the reason Moses developed parkways solely for cars. Many reviewers believed the author painted Moses as a racist for the reason. But Moses had limited funds and he did the most with these funds. Designing the parkways for cars saved him a lot of money and allowed him to have money to spend on other projects. Roadways for heavy buses cost much more- the pavements have to be much thicker and the roadbeds have to be much deeper, plus the maintenance is much, much higher. Per a government study, a single truck or single bus with typical 18,000 lbs. axle loads causes as much damage to the roads and bridges as 9,600 cars. The author failed to explain the enormous costs for roads and bridges designed for buses and trucks.
The book omitted the RPA's role in the misguided Lower Manhattan and Mid-town Manhattan Expressways plans. The author explained how the idea for the expressways was misguided, which he is completely correct, but he failed to explain it was not Moses' idea, but the RPA's. The RPA prepared a map/plan in 1929 that clearly depicts 4 expressways crossing the width of Manhattan: the Lower Manhattan and Mid-town Expressways, one around 125th Street and the current Trans-Manhattan Expressway. How is it so many Moses' critics can not read a map or plan? Btw, it was lame of the RPA to let Moses take the full blame for their misguided idea.
And lastly he painted a picture of Moses being the reason why mass transit declined. The problem with this theory is that Moses has been out of power for 50 years. The theory doesn't explain why nothing has been done with mass transit since. The city has done virtually nothing to connect the outer boroughs with each other. Most of the subways in the outer boroughs are nothing but spokes that lead into Manhattan. Back in the era of private transit companies, the main demand was for transport into Manhattan, yet transit companies still connected the spokes with a cobweb of trolley lines. For various reasons the trolley lines and many of the elevated train lines connecting the spokes were removed. The lethargic government hasn't made any real effort to reconnect these spokes, even though the demand for travel between the outer boroughs has increased. Thus the highways Moses built are clogged all week and weekend long with local traffic. These boroughs need both expanded highways and subways connecting each other, but the city does nothing and the elitist Moses' critics living in Manhattan couldn't care less.
NYC had the best mass transit system in the world 70 to 110 years ago when it was developed and operated by private industry- the author didn't explain this. The Moses' critic types of the day wanted city control of these subways which they got around 1940. Since then the subways have fallen into mediocrity. The suburban rail lines have a similar history- once again nothing has been done in decades to the system since the government takeover of around 1970. Now that Moses is gone our roadways, bridges, and tunnels have also fallen to 50 years of government neglect. Our tunnels and bridges are routinely backed up for 30 minutes during rush hour, the airports are rated as the worst in the nation, the city highway system is consistently clogged, it is vastly undersized, Penn Station and the bus terminals are dumps, and the subway system is poorly maintained, dirty, noisy, poorly lit, and convoluted. The subway system is extremely confusing for out-of-towners. Private industry and Moses had real transportation professionals running everything. Now we have lawyers and public administrators. Very little ever gets done. Things that do get done cost far more and take far longer to complete than they should. And many mistakes are made with planning and design. As a group they have horrible spatial skills and construction knowledge. They have deflected the blame for today's decrepit transportation system to Moses and they have insulated themselves by brainwashing us that it's Moses' fault.
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patrick thomas horan
One of life's force's of nature.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 10, 2014
