Category Archives: Robert Moses

Robert Caro’s Al Smith

10 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by in Alfred E. Smith, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Historiography, Libraries, Robert Moses

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Alfred Emanuel Smith in May 1920 during his first term as governor of New York

I was on vacation last week when I received a text message from someone who was himself away, sitting on a beach in Mexico no less, telling me that the New-York Historical Society had just acquired the extensive—200 linear feet—papers of Robert Caro. I told my friend that I remembered seeing Caro interviewed on C-SPAN 12-15 years ago and Brian Lamb asking the biographer where his papers might eventually go. Caro said at the time that he was not sure, but that he would not be giving them to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin. He had had several problems with officials there over the years, especially in the early years of his multi-volume LBJ project when at least some officials then at the archive had been personal associates of Johnson himself and thus less than forthcoming. As it happened I was reading Terry Golway’s Frank and Al: FDR, Al Smith, and the Unlikely Alliance that Created the Modern Democratic Party when my friend texted.

Caro’s papers include a great deal on Al Smith himself, one of the great and sadly forgotten figures in American history. Smith happened to enter the New York State Assembly 116 years ago this week in January 1904. Tammany boss Tom Foley, the man responsible for giving Smith his start in politics, gave Smith one piece of advice before his protégé headed to Albany that January nearly a century ago: “Don’t speak until you have something to say.” And so for that first term Smith sat as a back-bencher high above the legislative floor, taking in the proceedings and figuring out who was who and what was what. Roosevelt entered Albany politics seven years later. The word “alliance” in Golway’s title is fitting, for while Smith and FDR’s relationship was more than transactional the two very different men and never shared a friendship in any true sense. For reasons too complicated to go in to here and now, I would aver that it is not a stretch to say that without Al Smith there would be no FDR, at least no FDR as we know the man and his legacy.

I have some projects I’m hoping to accomplish involving Al Smith over the next few years and am hoping Caro’s research on the four-term New York governor and 1928 Democratic Party nominee will be available fairly soon.

(image/Library of Congress)

 

Rainy Sunday winding down

20 Sunday Oct 2019

Posted by in Eleanor Roosevelt, Federal Hall National Memorial, Robert Moses

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I hope everyone’s weekend was good. Here was the scene yesterday at Federal Hall when Charles Starks spoke about the life and legacy of George F. McAneny. Few today know who McAneny was, but the public official and urban planner was one of the most influential figures New York City in the first half of the twentieth century. Among other things he helped turn Federal Hall into a national memorial. Starks did a good job capturing McAneny’s significance. Here we see the speaker showing an image of Robert Moses and his never-built Brooklyn-Battery Bridge. The reason that project never came to fruition was in part due to McAneny, Eleanor Roosevelt, and others.

It was so good to be in front of the public again. There is nothing like that interaction with a live audience, especially a curious audience. There was a big turnout for Open House New York, with some coming from Westchester for the day to take in Federal Hall and other venues sponsoring Open House NY events in the downtown area. There were many good questions, many of which I was able to answer and some that I was not. That is always humbling. At the same time it is also unavoidable. When it comes down to it, we know very little.

FDR’s Tammany Society

02 Tuesday Jul 2019

Posted by in Federal Hall National Memorial, Fiorello La Guardia, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Robert Moses

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Franklin Roosevelt wrote this letter to the Tammany Society on July 2, 1936. It was read aloud two days later at the Tammany wigwam on 17th Street and 4th Avenue during the Tammany Society’s annual Independence Day celebration.

I came across this letter in my prep for a small talk I hope give on the 4th of July at Federal Hall about the history of Independence Day in New York City. It’s a missive from President Roosevelt to the Tammany Society in the lead-up to Tammany’s annual 4th of July event. When we think of Tammany we immediately think of Boss Tweed. In reality, Tweed was a very small part of Tammany’s long story. The Tammany Society dated back to the 1780s; it was a response to the Society of the Cincinnati, a Revolutionary War organization for officers who fought in the conflict. The organization continued for decades after Tweed’s death and would be at the height of its power in the 1920s and 1930s. Roosevelt himself had taken on, or tried to take on, Tammany in the early 1910s when he was a young state assemblyman, but soon realized the futility and so made his peace with the organization. Governor Roosevelt was there–as was Al Smith, Jimmy Walker, Herbert Lehman and others–when Tammany opened its new wigwam across from Union Square on July 4, 1929.

Now president, Roosevelt did not attend Tammany’s 1936 July 4th event. Instead he attended an Independence Day ceremony at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. It’s a story for another time but it’s funny how the reputations of the Founding Fathers rise and fall in relation to one another, especially Jefferson and Hamilton, who was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati. Right now Hamilton is upland Jefferson is down. In the mid-1930s however the opposite was true. Before he was all done Roosevelt would put Jefferson on the nickel and dedicate the memorial to the philosopher, secretary of state, and third president on the National Mall. Tammany men were more inclined toward Jefferson as well. Jefferson and John Adams both died on July 4, 1826, fifty years to the day after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Ironically the Age of Roosevelt accelerated Tammany’s decline.The Society’s influence waned when New Deal federal dollars began pouring in shortly after Roosevelt took office. Men like Fiorello La Guardia and Robert Moses found they could sidestep Tammany and get their funds directly from Roosevelt.

(source/150th Anniversary Celebration, 1786, July 4, 1936)

Whitman at 200

31 Friday May 2019

Posted by in Incorporating New York (book project), Robert Moses, Walt Whitman, War of 1812

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Walt Whitman was born in this farmhouse in 1819. The family moved to Brooklyn four years.

Walt Whitman was born in the farming community of Huntington, Long Island on May 31, 1819, two hundred years ago today. He was the second of what would eventually be nine children, one of whom died in infancy. Whitman had a strong sense of history and always believed he was taking part in a large historical narrative, probably because he was. Whitman and his family feature prominently in my book manuscript “Incorporating New York,” and I just may write a fair bit about the Whitmans over the summer. A friend and I intend to see the exhibit at the Grolier Club in the coming weeks or months. He also lived across the street from where I work, which has always made him seem that much more immediate to me. The Brooklyn printing house where he set the type for the first edition of Leaves of Grass was torn down in the early 1960s to make way for a Robert Moses project. Whitman and his siblings gloried in listening to stories of how their Long Island elders tricked the Redcoats during the British occupation in Revolutionary War.

By the time Walt Whitman was born the second round against the British—the War of 1812—had been over for nearly half a decade. During this Era of Good Feelings there was a feeling of optimism in the young republic, that the country held great possibility. A sense of history was clearly not lost on the parents; three of Walt’s brothers were named George Washington Whitman, Thomas Jefferson Whitman, and Andrew Jackson Whitman. George Whitman became an officer in the 51st New York Volunteers during the American Civil War, serving in the Army of the Potomac. It was after hearing of George’s wounding at the Battle of Fredericksburg that Walt rushed down South. His brother was okay, but what Walt saw in the hospitals horrified him. It was then that he became a nurse in the wards.

The Whitmans’ story is nothing less than the story of nineteenth century America. In addition to the Grolier exhibit I mentioned, there will be a number of other events in New York and elsewhere for those inclined.

(image/Jerrye & Roy Klotz MD via Wikimedia Commons)

Robert Moses’s Bethpage

19 Sunday May 2019

Posted by in New Deal, Robert Moses

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Robert Moses at Bethpage, April 1935

I am sorry about the lack of posts recently. Blogging will continue to be light through next week as the academic year enters its endgame. There are so many things to make happen before submitting grades, which we will probably do a week from today if all goes as planned. I spent a good chunk of today reading and grading papers. I have learned a great deal this year, about not just Robert Moses but local, state, and national history more widely. We intend to keep the energy going. It’s the people you work with who make it all worthwhile.

Way back on the first day of class we were telling students about Moses’s many accomplishments. The course focus is on New York City itself but you must lay the foundation talking about the master builder’s wider legacy. One of those things, I told the class, was Bethpage State Park near Farmingdale, where they played this week’s PGA Championship on the Black Course. Brooks Koepka held on to become the first back-to-back PGA winner since Tiger Woods in 2006-07. The Black Course is a pretty good test of golf; Woods won the US Open there in 2002. It and the four other links that comprise Bethpage were built under the leadership of Robert Moses in the 1930s within his jurisdiction as head of the Long Island State Park Commission. Needless to say, there was some serious sausage-making in turning it all into a reality. The detail-orientated Moses was involved in every aspect of turning the nearly 1,400 acre site into a golf location open to all. He also used New Deal money and men, putting about 1,800 laborers to work.

Moses envisioned Bethpage State Park as a Jones Beach for the middle-class golfing set. Remember, as its name indicates it is a public facility, not a private club. That they play the majors there is testimony to the vision and legacy of Robert Moses. In class tomorrow I’ll talk to the students briefly about it before getting on with the business of the day.

(image/Brooklyn Daily Eagle)

FDR opens the 1939 World’s Fair

30 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Federal Hall National Memorial, Fiorello La Guardia, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George Washington, Robert Moses

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World’s Fair 1939 first day cover

Yesterday in class we spoke about the opening of the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, which opened on April 29, 1939. Robert Moses, Fiorello La Guardia and their associates made certain that the bridge opened in time for the World’s Fair, which began the following day. One of the first to cross the span from the Bronx into Queens was Franklin Roosevelt, who left Hyde Park early that morning eighty years ago today and crossed the Whitestone in his motorcade on the way to speak to 40,000 gathered in Flushing Meadows. The 1939 New York Fair opened when it did to commemorate George Washington’s first inaugural. In a good reminder that the Early American period is not that long ago, and that the ideals for which it stands are still quite fragile, when Roosevelt spoke of his presidential predecessor it was only the sesquicentennial of Washington’s presidency. We are still a work in progress.

Why should I go on when Roosevelt himself put it so well himself? In part he told the gathered eighty years ago today:

“Fortunately, there have been preserved for us many generations later, accounts of his taking of the oath of office on April thirtieth on the balcony of the old Federal Hall. In a scene of republican simplicity and surrounded by the great men of the time, most of whom had served with him in the cause of independence through the Revolution, the oath was administered to him by the Chancellor of the State of New York, Robert R. Livingston. And so we, in New York, have a very personal connection with that thirtieth of April, one hundred and fifty years ago.”

This postcard of the George Washington statue at the 1939 World’s Fair represents the first president as he was taking the oath of office 150 years previously in Manhattan.

 

Robert Moses vs President and First Lady Roosevelt

05 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by in Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Governors Island, Herbert H. Lehman, Robert Moses

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A model of Robert Moses’s unrealized Brooklyn-Battery Bridge

One of the biggest myths about Robert Moses is that he was so powerful that he managed to build whatever he wanted wherever he desired. In reality nothing could have been further from the truth; Moses worked within political and economic realities and more often than not had to change his plans to satisfy elected officials, citizens, insurance companies, and other stakeholders. One project dear to his heart was the Brooklyn-Battery Bridge. If you have never heard of it, that’s because it never got built. The bridge would have gone fro the Manhattan Battery to Brooklyn Heights.

It almost happened. Moses pushed the initiative through the myriad city agencies and managed to get Governor Herbert H. Lehman signed off on the measure. It took none other than President Franklin Roosevelt to quash the deal. It was a personal thing with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt; they were New Yorkers who owned a house on East 65th Street, Franklin was briefly a Wall Street lawyer, and their Roosevelt ancestors had roots in the city dating back to the mid-seventeenth century.

Eighty years ago today, writing from far off Seattle in her April 5, 1939 “My Day” column, Eleanor wrote obliquely of Moses and his proposed bridge:

“I have a plea from a man who is deeply interested in Manhattan Island, particularly in the beauty of the approach from the ocean at Battery Park. He tells me that a New York official who is, without doubt, always efficient, is proposing a bridge 100 feet high at the river, which will go across to the Whitehall Building over Battery Park. This, he says, will mean a screen of elevated roadways, pillars, etc., at that particular point. I haven’t a question that this will be done in the name of progress, and something undoubtedly needs to be done. But isn’t there room for some considereation of the preservation of the few beautiful spots that still remain to us on an overcrowded island? After all, lower Manhattan at Battery Park is one of the gateways through which many of us leave and enter our country. These moments are important moments in our lives and the irritation of an eyesore perpetrated in the name of progress will be bad for the souls of many Americans.”

If you look at the rendering above, you see that the proposed bridge would have cut through the harbor directly north of Governors Island, still a major headquarters of the U.S. Army. Further north, in the East River, was the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Besides ruining the beautiful views Mrs. Roosevelt speaks of, there were national security implications. And that was how the president and his Secretary of War, Harry H. Woodring, killed the thing, declaring the harbor too important for national security interests to have such a bridge cross through it. The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel was built instead.

(image/New York Preservation Archive Project)

 

Opening Day 2019

28 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by in Baseball, Robert Moses, Style

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Professional and college baseball players such as the 1919 University of Michigan baseball team were returning to the field in that first spring after the Great War’s end.

The days have been busy and full this week, which is a good thing. We took our students to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade yesterday afternoon to view and discuss the construction of Robert Moses’s Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. I concluded the presentation with a brief reading, just two paragraphs, from Truman Capote’s 1959 Holiday magazine article “A House in the Heights.” Capote lived in at least two rented homes in Brooklyn Heights during his time in New York City. I pointed out to students the one at 16 Pineapple.

I would be remiss if I were not to note that today is Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season. Today is the earliest Opening Day ever. It makes sense to push up the start of the season to accommodate the longer post-season; they just don’t want it falling into November. I came across this photograph of the 1919 University of Michigan baseball team and find it extraordinary on a number of level. First of all is the stunning clarity of this image, taken not on the field but within the control of a photographer’s studio. The menswear of both the players and coaches/managers is intriguing as well. One of baseball’s most special features is that you get dressed up to play it. Baseball uniforms are not so much gym clothes but style wear. There is a reason the Yankees wear pinstripes.

When this photo was taken ball players were returning from Europe and rejoining their college and pro teams. I’ll probably come back to it in October, but as it would turn out the 1919 Black Sox scandal, and subsequent trial, would add to the bitterness and cynicism of the post-Great War milieu in the early 1920s.

Enjoy the season.

(image/Rentschler’s Studio, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Bentley Historical Library)

A little Sunday reading

17 Sunday Mar 2019

Posted by in 23rd (106th) New York State National Guard Regiment, Fiorello La Guardia, Memory, Monuments and Statuary, New York City, Robert Moses

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The New York City Mayor’s Committee on Permanent War Memorial’s official rendering for the unrealized enduring monument.

Here is a little something to read over the remainder of one’s weekend: my piece at Roads to the Great War about the temporary Victory Arch built in Madison Square in the winter of 1919. This is the article I was alluding to last week when I posted the pictures of the return of the 27th Division. I have always found it interesting the way civic leaders built such ornate edifices knowing they would be used hard for a few short months or years and then torn down. Almost all of the facilities built for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago for instance, were temporary assemblies built not of marble or granite but timber and plaster of Paris. The White City in all its majesty appeared poised to stand for centuries when in reality its wood and plaster would not have withstood more than one or two Chicago winters. At least we have the stories and photographs to remember them by.

Enjoy your Sunday.

(image/New York State Library, Manuscripts and Special Collections)

 

La Guardia & FDR, October 1936

16 Saturday Mar 2019

Posted by in Fiorello La Guardia, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Herbert H. Lehman, New Deal, Robert Moses

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Fiorello La Guardia and Franklin Roosevelt break ground on the “tube” connecting Manhattan and Queens one month prior to the 1936 national election. Members of Local 184 made Roosevelt an honorary member during the ceremony. After this long day, Roosevelt traveled north of the city to his home in Hyde Park. New Deal funds totaling $58,000,000 in 1930s dollars went into building the tunnel, which opened one month ahead of schedule in October 1940. Roosevelt was the first to drive across.

I wish the image quality were higher but there is surprisingly little documentation of this historical moment. Here we see Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and President Roosevelt at the groundbreaking for what we now call the Queens–Midtown Tunnel. The photograph is from the 3 October 1936 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the day after the groundbreaking. I was not aware until I began co-teaching this course in January of the size and scope of the infrastructure projects built in New York City under the New Deal. Of course I was aware of such efforts as refurbishing Civil War battlefields, tidying parks, planting trees, building small-scale restrooms and picnic areas along byways. But large scale infrastructure is something on a whole other magnitude.

Municipal leaders outside Gotham believed the fix was in between Roosevelt and La Guardia. That is understandable given that Roosevelt had previously been the governor of New York and that he and Eleanor still owned a house on East 65th Street. The reality though was that New York City and State entered the New Deal process earlier than most locales because men like Herbert Lehman, Robert Moses, and Fiorello La Guardia were ready from the outset with plans. As the 1930s went on other municipalities caught up in real dollars.

This image we see here, grainy as it is, was taken about one month prior to the 1936 national campaign in which Roosevelt ran for re-election against Al Landon. La Guardia was a Progressive Republican supporting Roosevelt. Both men understood the power of publicity and the photo op. Roosevelt’s radio address was broadcast nationally. More than 100,000 people, many of them schoolchildren, turned out on 2 October 1936 to see Roosevelt speak, Mayor La Guardia, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, and Senator Robert F. Wagner also sharing the stage. (Earlier the same day this photo was taken La Guardia and Roosevelt together attended Game 2 of the Yankees-Giants World Series at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan, a game the Yankees won 18-4.) While many did not realize it at the time–though given his political instincts Roosevelt almost certainly did–the 1936 presidential election sealed the coalition of conservative white Southern Democrats, blue collar trade unionists, rural populists, African-Americans, and ethnic voters that largely held together until the tumult of the 1960s.