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

Highways were only one part of Moses’s ambitious plans for New York. Soon, perceptive outsiders noticed “something very disturbing about slum clearance” (961) under his watch: Moses was actively creating slums through his eviction programs. Those evicted were driven into tenements and public housing units, which were scarce, overpriced, and in terrible condition. These people were exploited by slumlords and businesses who did not care about their well-being.

Campaigners such as Hortense Gabel investigated the slums and were horrified by the conditions in which people were forced to live. They realized that people were being crammed into cramped, rat-infested buildings without amenities and treated “like cattle” (965). Moses accused his critics of being communists. Though most of the press was reluctant to challenge Moses, a few reporters began to look into his reports and figures. They discovered that Moses was lying on a massive scale and that his destructive policies disproportionately affected “poor people, and particularly poor Negroes and Puerto Ricans” (968).

Many of the people whom Moses evicted were lost in the system. Those who stayed behind were poor, scared, and desperate; their only alternative was “the abyss” (972). No help was offered to them by the government agencies that are meant to do so.