Robert Caro and the Man/Monster Who Built New York
He is also an extraordinary writer. After reading page 136 of his book The Power Broker, I gasped and read it again, then again. This, I thought, is how it should be done.
.. His first book happened because, great reporter that he is, he asked the right question and saw a truth invisible to others. The question was: how do cities decide to build bridges, roads and so on?
.. “These two guys had written a textbook on highway and land planning, and they explained it by mathematical equations. I’m sitting there, taking assiduous notes, and all of a sudden it came to me — this is all bullshit. OK, I know why highways get built. They get built because Robert Moses wants them built. They’re writing this book about power and didn’t understand where power comes from, and neither did anybody else.”
.. “I started to think, how did this happen? He was never elected to anything, and you think, if you’re an American, you live in a democracy. Your concept is that power comes from the ballot box. But he had more power than anybody who was ever elected.”
.. Moses was a monster, and this dawned on the electorate when they saw his disdain for their questions and objections. “He would slam his palm down and say, ‘They expect me to build playgrounds for the scum floating up from Puerto Rico!’” He was, as a result, defeated by the widest margin there had ever been in a gubernatorial race.
.. He got a minimal advance for the book and told Ina he’d take her to Paris when it was finished in, say, two years. It took him seven. Ina sold their house to get them through — he seems to tear up when I mention her dogged support — and they lived in a miserable flat in the Bronx.