The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

To what extent can Al Smith be considered a father figure for Moses? How does this factor into Moses’s feelings about his family and his Jewishness?

What is the role of Robert Caro in The Power Broker? How visible is he in the narrative? How does he anticipate and counter accusations of bias in the text?

Explore the intertextual elements of The Power Broker, such as the epigraphs and excerpts from other works. How do they affect the book?

Choose one of Moses’s projects and research it. How was it received when it was created, and how has it impacted the neighborhood or parts of the city where it lives? Are there positive outcomes?

Moses frequently accused his opponents of being communists. To what extent is The Power Broker an anticapitalistic critique?

The Power Broker was published in 1975. How did it affect Moses’s reputation? How has Moses’s reputation changed (if at all) since the book’s publication?

Research one of the public infrastructure projects that Moses killed, such as the Second Avenue Subway. Has the project gained traction since his death? How has the city come to view public transit in general?

This guide touches on aspects of Caro’s book that parallel the structures of Greek tragedies. Choose one element of the book and close read it through this lens. This could be a character, a setting, or an arc. What tropes and archetypes does Caro use? How does this enhance his work?