« It came from the Blogosphere... | Main | Waging Laughter Against Atlantic Yards »
February 7, 2007
In reappraisal of Robert Moses, much praise
Three-part exhibit offers a less cynical blueprint of the master builder's mixed legacy
NY Newsday
By Justin Davidson
Another examination of the exhibits re-examining the legacy of Robert Moses.
Robert Moses was a man of many titles, but the epithet that stuck was "master builder," a curiously medieval-sounding phrase for a modern technocrat.
...
Today, every new construction of any size must run a gauntlet of potential disapprovers: environmentalists, activists, preservationists, neighbors, bureaucrats and politicians. The sorts of people he flicked aside as "professional vomiters and mud-throwers" with "maggoty brains" are now in the ascendant. When Jane Jacobs, the urbanist who helped kill a Moses expressway, died last year, she was eulogized as a saint. Her "think small" approach has fueled resistance against large development plans from Kings Park Psychiatric Center to Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. Activists see a new Moses lurking behind every deal - high-handed officials teaming up with venal tycoons.But perhaps the tide is turning toward Moses again. The rebuilding of Ground Zero has lacked his galvanizing presence, but not his ambitions. Atlantic Yards probably will get built, thanks to the deployment of that quintessential Moses tool, eminent domain.
Posted by lumi at February 7, 2007 7:32 AM