Robert Moses

Robert Moses defends urban sprawl. (January 1962)

No New Yorker has a longer or more distinguished record of public service than ROBERT MOSES. He joined the Bureau of Municipal Research in 1913, under Mayor Mitchell, became secretary of state for New York under Governor Al Smith, and as city construction coordinator, he has handled the hundreds of millions of dollars which have been spent on parks, public beaches, housing, and bridges. He is now president of the New York World's Fair 1964-1965 Corporation.

No New Yorker has a longer or more distinguished record oj public service than ROBERT MOSES. He joined the Bureau of Municipal Research in 1943 under Mayor Mitchell, became secretary of stale for New York under Governor Al Smith, and in his present office as city construction coordinator he has handled the hundreds of millions of dollars which have been spent on parks, public beaches, housing, and bridges. Mr. Handlin’s biography, which Mr. Moses evaluates, is the newest volume in the Library of American Biography series published by Little. Brown.

No New Yorker has a longer or more distinguished record of public service than ROBERT MOSES. He joined the Bureau of Municipal Research in 1913 when John Purroy Mitchel became mayor, and ever since has worked uninterruptedly for city and state. Today, as City Construction Co-ordinator, he handles the hundreds of millions which are spent on the parkways, public beaches, housing developments, the bridges, throughways, and other improvements required by the most active city in the world. Two years ago he teas appointed to the Mayor’s Committee on Management Survey; gradually the press spread the word that when the Committee made its report there would be enormous economies all down the line. This was too much for Mr. Moses and he spoke out.

Every motorist is aware of the monotonous new communities, the clusters of little pastel houses, which have mushroomed up overnight within a thirty-mile radius of most American cities. Have they been planned with forethought or simply with a rich profit in mind? Robert Moses, who puts the question, is an authority on parks, highways, housing, and municipal and state planning. In his thirty years of participation in New York's city and state governments, he has served every governor since Al Smith and both Mayors La Guardia and O'Dwyer. He has recently completed a report for the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, on its needed public improvement.

What public affairs mean to the private citizen. ROBERT MOSEShas learned by thirty years of participation in New York s city and state governments. An authority on parks, highways, and municipal and state planning, he has served every governor since . Al Smith and both Guardia and O’ Dwyer, In the Hoover Commission on the Organization of the Federal Government he was the head of the task force on public works. His warning to “Republican Bourbons” and “Demcratic Socialists” is that the United States is ripe neither for revolution nor for reaction, and that both parties should mind their language accordingly.

No man in the United States has had more to do with public works than ROBERT MOSES. He has been head of the state park system of New York since 1924, park commissioner of New York City and chairman of the Triborough Bridge Authority since 1934. He was Secretary of State under Governor Smith. He is a member of the City Planning Commission. His guiding spirit has trebled the recreation facilities of his state and city, brought into being the great metropolitan parkways and bridges, Jones Beach, and play areas from Niagara Falls to Montauk Point. At the Atlantic's request he speaks his mind on that stubborn problem of slum clearance.