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

It was 1923, and the $15 million that Moses required for his parks was an issue; at the earliest, the money would be available to him in 1925. Moses was impatient. Smith set aside $225,000 to begin the project, with the rest to follow in due course. Moses immediately spent $63,089 setting up lavish offices and hiring his trusted friends.

Moses then set about buying land from farmers to build his highways. He could be charming at first, but he became curt and arrogant with anyone who stood in his way. He insisted that he had the “arbitrary power to seize [any] property” (184), even if this was not legally correct. Many of the rich residents of Long Island refused to discuss the matter with him. He suggested that they study his new laws and offered to negotiate or threatened to take the land anyway. In particular, Moses waged a legal battle for the Taylor Estate against a determined but naïve man named W. Kingsland Macy. The legality of many of Moses’s actions was doubtful. Nonetheless, when representatives of the rich families visited Smith’s office to complain that these highways and parks would cause Long Island to be “overrun with rabble from the city” (187), Smith identified himself as a member of this so-called rabble and backed Moses.