I finally finished this tome! Robert A. Caro is a very detailed and wordy person (see my review of The Path to Power last week), but I finished this.
I have never been to New York, but I found myself looking up every site mentioned. It is a fascinating look into one man's vision for New York that did not always take people, and especially poor people into account. He had a vision for the automobile and highways and bridges.
One thing that I did not like is that there was no mention of Jane Jacobs and her fight to save Greenwich Village and SoHo from the Lower Manhattan Expressway! That is what I DID know about New York and Robert Moses. I even went back to listen to the audiobook to see if maybe I accidentally hit a button that skipped that part, but I didn't. I found this article:
I have no idea why he would leave out such an important part because it was the first time the people had successfully fought him and saved their neighborhood!
All that said, this is a story of power and about the MISUSE of public funds at the expense of the majority of the people to enrich a few. I am indignant!
It is a long book, but I can see why it won a Pulitzer, but I also think Caro assumes motive a lot. I think he had some pretty big biases against Robert Moses, and he really trashed him in this book. There has been a resurrection of his reputation since the book was published in 1974. Time will tell.
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