Robert Caro's The Power Broker at 50 | The New York Historical

During his decades of power, the public works decisions that determined the city’s shape were made on the basis not of democratic but of economic considerations. During most of his reign—the post-La Guardia portion of it—the city’s people had no real voice at all in determining the city’s future.

And the Triborough Bridge[*3] was finally being built. Here was a project to kindle the imagination. In size, its proportions were heroic. For all Moses’ previous construction feats, it dwarfed any other single enterprise he had undertaken.

Imperfect as New York’s old political system may have been, the public will was never insignificant within it. The borough presidents and other elected officials who had exercised power under it were kept in power only by the public’s votes, and they were therefore responsible and responsive to the public. Such responsiveness was built into the old

When the Fair came to a close on October 17, 1965, Robert Moses was revealed to the public in all his egotism, arrogance and ruthlessness. He was, in fact, portrayed, in the press’s emphasis on the $100,000 a year in salary and expenses and the escrow account, as something worse than he was—greedy for money. He was in public disrepute so great that