Robert Moses (the "Power Broker") Interview (1977)

this program is made possible in part by an unrestricted general program grant from the Ford Foundation and in part by the members of channel 13 [Music] this is the city that Robert Moses built New York in the area around it was a very different place before Robert Moses arrived over a period of 50 years from the days of Al Smith through the years of Nelson Rockefeller as head of city state and county commissions and authorities Robert Moses changed the face of New York it was Robert Moses who built the Throgs Neck bridge and the Bronx white stone and the Verrazano and the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel it was Robert Moses who built Jones Beach virtually the entire Long Island Parkway system the Henry Hudson Parkway and the Cross Bronx in Buckner expressways it was Robert Moses who cleared the land for Lincoln Center and the United Nations who built Shea Stadium in the second World's Fair and the Coliseum it was Robert Moses who built Kennedy Airport and co-op city and 600 playgrounds in New York and when Robert Moses built bridges he built the roads that led to them when he built housing units he built the parks around them he gained a Power unseen before a power to build what he felt the city needed he was afraid of no one he battled the poor of the Westside and the rich of Long Island and in the end Robert Moses always won Robert Moses was a man even presidents feared Franklin Roosevelt tried to have him removed from power by special order but he too failed Robert Moses has been praised as the man who got things done and damned as the man who didn't care what it took to get them done and this is the centerpiece of the empire that Robert Moses built a Triboro bridge it was this bridge and the authority Robert Moses commanded that made so much possible the roads for tunnels the housing the parks and yet more bridges roads tunnels and parks hello I'm Robert Sam Anson for wnet reports Robert Moses is 88 now and his period of great building is over well that does not stop him from coming to this bridge nearly every day and going beneath it to a small building on Randall's Island where virtually out of sight he helped build the city of New York his title is a modest one to the Triborough bridge and tunnel authority the words though belie the power that he possessed a power unlike any other a power that in all probability will never be seen again that's why we've brought you here to this bridge to meet the man who built it and in the process help shape your life mr. Moses what do you think that you think it's possible that today we could have another Bob Moses somebody who could build on the scale but you built on are there too many problems that prevent that sort of building today no I don't think so I think that if you're you get to where you're hard enough up to get something done you find that the same methods have to be used the same standards have to be applied and it just becomes a question of saying we should pick open have to go back and do the things the way they were done before I don't think there's any doubt about that now they take a long time to to get a recognition of it through your city is it a lot of financial trouble today is it tougher to build the way you did as a tougher today to do that kind of thing and why I think it is tougher I think it's tougher today because of the fact that people have gotten confused by as much by terminology by definition is by anything else for example if you I run into people all the time to talk about well why don't we I say why don't we do more about subways and they begin talking about rails and rubber I find they don't know what the hell are talking about they mean more subways you can't build any more Subway's it costs too much and you'd have a most dreadful Wow well the people who don't want them and the there are these worst thing that's happened he's endless Harry's hearings Aaron and their prolonged and their prolonged and nothing nothing happens now when anybody talks to me about transportation I say well what is it you specifically mean now as far as I'm concerned the best form of transportation the best thing that could be done for transportation is repair work now that has to be done well the Westside and everywhere else the repairs have to be made stuff has to stand up when you were building all the tunnels and bridges and roads and expressways and parkways did you ever imagine in your wildest dreams that they would be bringing that many cars into New York City every day yes you've had this lifelong love affair with the automobile but you never learned how to drive did you no I did learn how to drive when either the backyard of one of the churches babbled but I I did that more or less it was stunt as I used to sit on his porch and he had a very good wine cellar if he was on bad terms with his wife they never spoke to each other each have half of the house and I used to sit up there and I learn how to drive an old Ford but I never used it but that wasn't because I have any objection to the automobile I was the fellow that that told the people in in Detroit I said you fellas are crazy because their point of view was they have nothing to do with the automobile after it got off the assembly line that was the government of how to take care of that you think of anything stupid or the left they held back all highway major highway work we were building three rod roads in New York when I first began with cover that's only three rod row 45 feet wide soprano well it was just wide enough for two lanes and the we got into major road construction but what you have to keep in mind in that particular case is it the major transportation had to be by a highway and have it be vehicular and have to involve rubber and not rails and that's true today now if you're looking forward to the time when the automobile companies will no longer make automobiles I mind if I'm not just talking about the individual this territory a pictures one man in one car and there's an awful lot of baloney of that if you live in the suburbs you'll know it's nonsense but over and above that is the fact that the highways take care of buses trucks and the individual car over many people and that'll be so as far ahead as we could look if you could imagine a time when all people working for the constructors of these cars used for these multiple purposes are gonna be out of business will you tell me what the name of other people are going to be doing what projects that you didn't build did you want to build oh they were parts of the these programs that are still there to be done like the rest of Jones Beach now the towns I have a lot of land there particularly the town of hempstead and we want them for example to build another causeway at least one more causeway I think there ought to be two over there Jones Beach and that will be on town land next to state land and involves love cooperation you were beating on several things though bridge a bridge across the sound an express way across Midtown not beaten yet with a solid cross it you think there's still hope for that one that's got to be built the whole bottle it's got to because how long you postponed it how much hell do you raise and waiting to fill the thing that's all you haven't changed the picture event this is an indispensable thing what about the expressway across Manhattan at 30th Street and then there was the lower Manhattan autumn he does now if you take 511 this morning one of our former top fellows will just burn out some kind of a shooting party we had down south where's two big firms one of which will be the chief firm in the building of this West way it is built while you're saying designing it would you but let's take that doesn't it's an example he said so if the head of this firm told him all his plans unprepared the Senate of the faith based on 1 billion 300 million dollars they've now sent 1 billion one hundred million dollars that's absolutely nonsense and it isn't 1 billion 300 million though it's 1 billion 700 billion dollars on account of increase of course that time no question about that that's what's going to happen no how do you think that the new president the United States bear in mind that the announcement of this whole thing was made by the black gentleman who had that job 18 days before he was going out of office bill Coleman the former Secretary of Transportation days before he was going out of office the other man had already been told he was in and been sworn in he was gathering at his wife and his belongings to move to Washington the announcement came from a man brought 18 days and when it appeared the press finally that only he already had 12 or 13 days left now why wasn't a new man and when the new man is there next week we'll say why is he going to say he's gotta go to the present gonna say what a lot of these this person is naturally gonna say to him what is this amount well the amount it's a top engineering firm mentioned to one of our former chief engineer's only constant letter this morning he says they've revised the thing now they say it's a million three another one of the firm's I know pretty well I checked up I said a billion five I say it's a million seven and so to all my men we're pretty nearly right now just ask yourself this question you go around and Congress all new people House Democratic on both sides our new officials thousands of them sheriff's members of City Council local members of legislators in the state's why would you try to sell how would you try to sell them the idea this 90% of this huge sum was to be spent on four and a quarter miles on the west side of Manhattan just tell me how you'd sell that thing be pretty tough well you know damn well it wouldn't help them now if you stall over the thing repairs yes now you mention 30th Street I don't know why what do you think 30th Street would cause I think 300 million but do it but that ain't a buildin Expressway across the river there's nothing happen to prevent building one of the main buildings has gone down and then forgotten was a French hospital it's gone and another one has just burned up well a friend of mine lives on 30th I don't know if you'd like to have the expressway come through his house well are we doing this for your friend over there's a lot more people like that today oh sure they're always a lot more opposition to that hello it's people do you need we need this crossing yes and we also need the crossing downtown that was postponed lay it over which is a main objective from the west of the from the east of the West Side that has to use a tunnel system over the New Jersey what about friends like mine who live on 30th Street and who are interested in keeping their neighborhoods intact now I want neighborhood is being kept intact I visualize let's say all the way across tell me about that begin begin on the east side and go to the west side what is the neighborhood you disturb until you get by the Pennsylvania Station for example well there's a lot of folks living over on the east side in Murray Hill and Kips Bay they were not talking about Barra hill you know where the hot one is there on 30th Street the friend there was a house or something of that kind they're gonna make a whole policy based on his well there's a lot of people like that in here what do you are are they on this roof well they're all demonstrating and going to public meetings lots of generalization I don't accept I asked you to follow the 30th Street route you tell me where these people aren't gonna be heard you can't because they're already to speak of their few houses you'd find that anywhere so because there are a few people who don't want anything disturbed there this is an indispensable thing it'll have to be built now 300 million dollars taken out of a billion seven all call it a billion five and I know it isn't that that's all right you could get away with that you get away with a long that happen expressway well what do you think of this whole movement about neighborhood preservation you think that's just a passing fad well what is a boo but tell me about it well for instance in Clinton well in Clinton what used to be Hell's Kitchen when the city was thinking of building a convention center there the people in that neighborhood raised hell when there's ever going to be a big public works project in any neighborhood did the city now people raise hell about it do you think that that's that's something you didn't really have to contend with did you when you were building a lot of things of course we had to contend with it dollars let's be a little sensible about this thing what how do you visualize if you were around at that time the area that we cleared out for the Fordham expansion downtown they needed the college they couldn't put any more people up at Rose Hill in the Bronx and they were working with a group of people who are interested in the what is now known as Lincoln Square Opera Performing Arts every kind of arts and we did it for now I ask you what was that neighborhood was a Puerto Rican swamp you remember it no I don't know yeah well I lived on one of those streets there for a number of years and I know exactly what it was like was the worst slum in New York you wanted to leave it there why I took on a neighborhood business Christ you never could have been there that was the worst slum in New York and we cleared it out now we spent an awful lot of money moving people and people good many people criticize this hala wanted to go over and live with his as sister-in-law's family in Jersey City or we paid paid the freight to move them over I think that we went too far but we made them all happy and you know that after we opened that area there with a tremendous ceremony and all that kind of thing after that there were not one single goddamn letter I got from any of those thousands of people who were in there were they unhappy what the hell were they unhappy about they stopped writing letters father suggester you we've got some generalization said well I'm glad to set me straight well I know but you have to have your stuff if you're going to do these jobs how do you respond to people mr. Moses who save it but time for big buildings and big projects in New York is over but the city has to contract and get smaller and that we should be less ambitious and we should I well there's a lot of people like Roger star for instance said yeah well let's take Roger star Roger star our accomplish much of anything you're very nice guy you're a very intelligent guy and when they were building the two big needle trades projects so he was in that picture did he make any great is a great opponent of let's say any of the needle trades tell people who built those things which one Roger star is the Ducker and Dodger when it comes to big thing now he wants a little bits of groups of people a little happily together in places have no elevators that kind of thing can't do that really all lands too expensive too valuable and I know well that when they have they remember that lunch they have New York and Lindsey raise hell because it turned out that I was a principal speaker well I don't kind of have either them there he should be the principal speaker but I want one thing I want my talk printed I want it next to everybody's desk where he's eating that's all just do that well they had a quite a role I call about one of my friends it was a chief contributor the thing he says I'll pay they did call his way out Lindsay stop talk to me and I said well I don't think their hell of a lot of the people Johnny gonna pay much attention to the you had it out here today but there's the text I said once what's the matter with it now as to the other thing you were talking about he's a very able very nice guy who doesn't want any trouble he's got an ideal job he's teaching no that's wonderful he doesn't need money anyway but he's teaching now but there are a lot of people like mr. Starr who think that the city that the time for growth is really over the projects like yours big ideas no use for them anymore what do you say to that well I say they're wrong what do you say when you see the conditions in the South Bronx today I mean really see them and I won't say Harlem but all of us a good deal of has been cleared up and this huge area in Brooklyn horrible conditions now it's true that you can have a couple of Kennedy widows there come over there they celebrate because they've opened a place that accommodates 80 or 100 or 200 people why talk about thousands and thousands of people whoa whoa whoa you think what Roger Starr is gonna take care of them was his idea now you want to talk to people who know their stuff about this kind of thing these needle trades fellows sort of ablest smartest builders we ever had in New York I mean for slum clearance let's talk about what Robert Moses would do let's take a hypothetical situation you had unlimited political power in New York unlimited funds how would you rebuild this town well of course nobody ever has limited funds I simply go ahead and do it piece by piece the way we've done everything I'll take this that place there at the end of the park of a Bronx white stone the box white stone bridge it's just sore necks well particularly of the area on the east side of it we acquire the extra land there when we were building the bridge because I thought it would be used for housing no Rajasthan Nevada did one goddamn thing about it now one of their time thinking of going with it you know what that fakie you're doing that's the finest piece of waterfront left in New York gonna make a garbage dump out of it what's the idea of that no you look at that thing I think I'll point of that out you this is the two certificates that's one over there and one from the lieutenant governor or just become governor Malcolm Olson yeah you know what happened when I've been designated to get into this very thing you're talking about I gave orders to not to give me any more information nothing what what do you have up your sleeve now mr. Moses what's your next big project to mine all that I've ever suggested was that along with since this place here I've just become an adjunct of the MTA all its independent or and it's independent funds because this was a completely solvent outfit never old anybody anything I couldn't buy but next to giving advice and I don't think that's of any terrible importance what the hell consultant I don't know what it is the only other thing that interests me there's a sound crossing crowd we could build well no practically no state money a little for preliminary work on how on our ability to sell the bonds on what a character all we've done before hostile air he does so through the 30s the 40s the 50s and into the 60s the press treatment of you was pretty favorable but recently you've come in for some criticism and attack what how do you assess the press treatment of you well to the extent that they were unfriendly I'd say they were unfair what would you expect me to say to that do you have any regrets you mean about going into the whole thing sure and I do it all over again probably probably you're gonna tell me what they are when I advocate what I advise most of the young people that think of going into this thing and I'm talking about the unprotected civil service not the civil service although civil service people are not too well protected these days I look I would say dependent upon what kind of a fellow you're talking to and there you get back to probably the best definition around about definitions and mater's when this was put up to Harry Truman you remember what he said you can't stand the heat stay out of the kitchen that's it he said it all little guy from Missouri there's a haberdasher said it there isn't any different it won't be any different if you like the heat just keep away from this kind of thing how did you get into the building business in the first place well I went over to Oxford for a year and I left my mother thought well of it but my father thought it was nuts and that I ought to go into business so my grandmother paid the bill then I came over here the only lady around the roost it's one of those curious stories and she said well why don't you get a degree of some kind you might as well finish up so I stayed long enough to get a degree in jurisprudence which is sort of law and I never practice law and the idea that I wanted to practice law and so then I got into this notion of public works and not from the point of view of legislation running for office that kind of thing but a major public works and went in with one of these reform organizations very closely allied to the mayor of New York I was john-boy Mitchell and after I've been in this reform organization or whatever you want to call it and all things the wall I made up my mind that I wasn't earning anything these fellows and I wanted to get assigned to a bureau or office in the city which brought me into contact with a whole child now that by definition meant budget civil service city planning and I did get acquainted we were there whole time I had some curious kinds of luck the head of the budget bureau was a fella called Terrell very able fellow but he was a periodic sauce and he he had a very smart woman secretary will help them and a fella called Sullivan who was a top advisor he had about three other men in the organization who were good and I finally got where I was something of a minor factor in the office there and they then I ran into governor Smith I was just the time he was sheriff very briefly you know then he was President of the Board of all of them and then he ran for governor and was elected and after that I was very close to him the other thing he did and I I just got the idea that among all the things that were around the things that interested me most were had to do with highways transportation parks parkways recreation that kind of thing and I got switched over into that but the main point is I think I mentioned before when we were talking about this was that the one thing led to another if you got into in a major transportation you had to get into housing it was unavoidable and then another thing of happy but change the whole picture was that somewhat later this is 32 when LaGuardia came in the they consolidated I asked him I told him that if I was coming into the administration I wanted the five departments of parks it was a board Commissioner for each borough and each borough was an island to know there wasn't very good connection between among the islands and I said you I want one one-man job when I want to be on a board with the other people they they were all right they were all the five - were really able follows and so somehow all of thee although there was able to get this act through as the first law introduced that year 32 the second one that was passed was chapter 2 that the game gave me a one-man job but the point of the whole thing is that I inherited all the people on relief and there were 80 mm I wake up some morning and find her I have a 2,000 people working for you a third of them completely incapable of doing any work that was worthwhile I mean diamond cutter or something of that kind he's not very good digging ditches and then there were people that were just again everything kind of a fella was digging a ditch and he he'd be down in the ditch and the body of his would be above and he tossed up Spade full of Earth 1012 feet high the fell off on top of throw it back again it run down and happened you know and all that kind of thing and one of the things that you had to do which is criticized by some people you took material equipment away from the people who couldn't do anything well it was how I'm sifting sands down Coney Island looking for last summer's wedding rings buried wedding rings you know and and you gave them material little fellas that could do something with it well that's I know threats about that was the only way to get it accomplished but after that I stuck pretty closely to things that had to do with transportation Public Works you had quite a scrap with FDR and Harold in the end oh yes but in the end I got along with Ickes well how did FDR try to get you well one of the things I would say that if I had to pin it down let me go back to step I knew him when he was in the legislature I knew him before he had the trouble up north there became crippled and when he became crippled and is crawling around on his hands and knees he had to people took care of him one was his wife the other was a curious little gnome of a character that left his family and you know it's almost like a bit of biblical stuff you know he took up his bed warm and he came and joined him and the that was unlike me he didn't like me it's perfectly simple like the governor having give him some time of a job that it was difficult to 5:1 so he he he made him a secretary of a Taconic Parkway the region where the governor lived he was a chairman of this commission and as fella told me he's a very arrogant little bastard and he he told me he wasn't going to do any work he wasn't there and he was instructed by the governor to take this job I dropped it once a week see how things were going well we had some very major problems and plans for the Taconic region in which Roosevelt was very much interested and he was a very good head of that Commission because he knew everybody up in that area there but Louis Hall was never got over this thing and I said to you if you're going to work or you're going to get out and he went to the governor that started the trouble and I said alright get somebody else I'm not going to have a nominal head man or this Commission it's going to tell me that he's working for you and that he has I don't know this is asking if what he's doing and that was the basic trouble cuz I'd seen a great deal of Roseville what his head of the Park Commission he used to he was downtown the law firm and he was also at an insurance company down there and he used to stop on the way up and pick me up nice to go up the house with him and we'd have a few drinks up there I don't think mrs. Roosevelt liked this whole idea of me having the drinks and all I clarified his mother lived next door if they'd called entrance into her place there she'd come in and out know then that she ran the whole roof Roosevelt's mother absolutely when the boys his boys went to school she took care of everything pay the bills and everything else well how did FDR try to get his revenge on you well he's something of the Andy finally he made it impossible for me to do things I would otherwise have been able to do why he was yellow spray should know that I'll give you a number look mrs. Roosevelt had double friends up in the in Brooklyn or the heights up there and well from my point of view they were kind of a weird group they they waited for all kinds of causes and arcs and things of that kind and when the idea was broached of through the proper channels and everything else of building a bridge I hope from the heights over to the Valerie her chums were against that one in particular and this has been denied but there's any question about what happened she went to the governor and the army people all of the RV people except the Secretary of the army who was having the governor of one of the western states and well no no ability regular army officers without any exception we're in favor of building a bridge and at the request of mrs. Rosen president sent fully Secretary of the army and he said nothing doing I'm building a bridge so the man they'd be they had a commission to build a tunnel down a tunnel it costs between two and three times as much accommodate about a third of the number of people way of getting over but it was wrong and never should have been done but then this fellow this army fella just he just got a little went kind of nuts and he said there won't be any more bridges seaward of the Navy Yard well that stage of the game I decided that along with all those we were gonna build the Verrazano Bridge and we build it and he lost his job nobody ever heard anything about it anymore after that when you took the job with the city with Fiorello LaGuardia as the parks commissioner you were also held on to your state job as well didn't oh yes well I have that previously well it's quite unusual for a single man to hold powerful positions in both the city and state governments and many people have said that that was the key to your getting things done was having absolutely as many hats all I said is that these things are so closely related the can't do one without doing the other for example if you're working on a Parkway it's obvious that in building anything relax aren't you you have to move a lot of people and that gets you in the housing so I had to take all the chairmanship of the housing for Aled what are that way with other things that the everything that had to do with what they know call ecology mystics environmentalism we use we simply call conservation of those days you don't seem to have much use for modern-day environmentalists no no I don't I'd say that just what I say oh the some of the trying to learn many of the transportation people but they were a mixture of sincere honest fanatics but you just couldn't do much of anything with because they wouldn't play accepting on their own basis and young fellows have gotten into this thing and I got an innocent taking courses and colleges and planning of that kind of thing and who really doesn't have our much ability of any kind and then open-minded people simply wanted much more done about preserving nature that in process of building these big public works I wanted too many of them you had to take on a lot of these rich powerful people on the North Shore of Long Island to build your parks and well in Buffalo well Hydra so those people when this is private power business they didn't want the state messing into it these are very tough people how did you manage it well one way or another part of it was locked part of it was personal relationships and I suppose you'd say part of it as a large part of it of course the staff the people that had a Roger that really did the work or which top fellow would get the credit but I should have been shared with a lot of other people and I would say just sheer stubbornness you're a pretty tough scrapper have to be that'll always be so if you don't like that call it leadership you started off some people say as the idealist of idealist and then later you described yourself as a reformed reformer yes under a folde reformer in the sense that I got away entirely from the notion that these things could be done by multiplying the number of hearings to the point where that'd be 10 or 12 agencies Washington all whom had to be consulted about these he could build anything under those conditions and it was not a difference in the basic sympathy you became more interested in highways and transportation that in aesthetics and saving our she last specimens of some kinds of animal for that kind of thing maybe I that didn't there was a certain a lot of that Christian there so it's for pragmatic reasons getting things done there that you lost some of your idealism I doesn't know I doesn't mean that you but you lost your idealism the things that you primarily are interested in more or less immediate realizable objectives and that came ahead of everything else and so many of you poets we're a there to just want these things at all they didn't want them none the basic things you want it fellow doesn't want a highway or Parkway or something of that and he's moved out on Long Island and he just wants people the same climb there's kind of established us why listen he could talking to him about idealism or the it doesn't really add her to it he worked with an awful lot of governors and mayor's and public officials over the years but you seem to have a particularly warm spot in your heart for Al Smith oh I thought he was far and away Lee the ablest man in Public Works that I knew certainly the ablest governor you seem an unlikely pairing you in Smith but you were very close why well this fella from the 4th Ward down at the heels in those rough and tough those are things that I don't know how you here you were Yale and Oxford and but the two of you got on very tightly you mean because he doesn't got to call it college degree probably wouldn't have done him any good at all how did you get to become so close with Governor Smith I don't know I can't answer that accepting but I liked him very much like the way he did things and of course there was that factor of enormous loyalty to his own people never ran away from he had to change his mind on something agreed to do he'd send for you and say well let me tell you what I'm up against what happened here and he was an ideal there to work for you didn't have to turn around and figure whether he'd left the procession turned up some side street which is true practically all the others at different times let's talk a bit about some of these other fellas that you've worked with for instance Fiorello LaGuardia what do you think of him I thought he was the best mayor in my time IRA difficult their work with and I think I mentioned once before talking about this picture he he had a secretary who drank too much and got the trouble talked out of term some newspaper men who come around and get him to talk out of turn and on one of these occasions he did talk out of turn the mayor fired him and he had been the head of one of the big promise and organization societies and the job had been filled he had a sick wife one child it was very sick everything was wrong and he came to me and asked me if I would intercede with with the mayor and I said I don't know why you should ask me they decide you know great friend of mine and what I said on the other hand I have nothing to complain about but in all the years you've been around here and all this charity work and uplift work he was hundreds and hundreds of friends it would be much closer than I am and I said you know there's kind of resent anybody getting into this thing especially somebody who has really has nothing to do with it but why should I do it he says because they are all scared of him he says there are only four or five people that will talk to him about these thing well I said that's complimentary I'll go over and talk to us you know we live down south and the cost shorts park here and the we had moved the mayor up into the mansion we had fixed the mansion up for him I did that bail them out of where he was and Harlem and so I did go over to seal this and he was mad as hell at me says none of your god damn business why you got to do all I'd tell me about why secretary should feel I saw no it's a free country and I don't think this is worthy of you now when I wouldn't do this thing and I said where you find another job for this fellow and then he made a remark and I've often repeated this is exactly what happened he didn't he want to leave a thing so he said to me I'll tell you something he said I'm loyal the principle so not to people I said that's like god damned of Ross I ever heard of oh boy he's run the people and he still believed about today and he didn't know what to say I've said you win the argument you know if he's a debate high school debate or silver medal or a bronze medal or something and that's the subject fellow says he's always interested in principles and not the people trying to win the medal that doesn't mean anything and I said I think that's a lousy point of view I got up walked Oh a couple days later two or three days later talk to me about finding a job somewhere else and paid a little less although was taken care of but I never forgot that and I think it was a something basically wrong with this metabolism or something fellow to say a thing like that but he he really he really thought that that was it he was loyal to principles not to people I was one thing I threw out before I left that problem probably was gratuitous and I said when you wanted to bail your sister Oliver Lynn thought of the Jewish side of the inheritance you didn't figure on this loyalty to principles very much you wanted those of us who could do anything herbs woke me some of the others the dredger out know that I wanted involved he didn't say though the word it was nothing comes to be said tell me about Bob Wagner Bob Wagner was I always thought was a good there of New York what he was he's not a bowl there he wanted to smooth everything down and get over the hurdles and he didn't like tough decisions he never did how about Nelson Rockefeller what's that Nelson Rockefeller always very able very able but Nelson's one of these fellows who have so many options they can do any damn thing he wants you had quite a tussle with Nelson Rockefeller at one all at different times how did you finally resolve it well I don't know I'm on good time I was rather when I see him how does it work out with when when two fellows with pretty strong egos and pretty strong ideas you and Nelson Rockefeller come head-to-head how does that clash resolve itself well solves itself of one of this governor his winning us have any illusions about that but I don't know why we should have had references at all and I know when he opened the Smyth exhibit in the old State Capitol in Albany and they plan to have it in the new Capitol and it wasn't ready and they wanted to have a celebration there on the counter is running for the last time any subject quite a few people are criticizing me for what the size of this thing the enormous expenditure and all that cut they called megalomania well I still have some some of them will say it's elephantiasis up they take your choice I mean about the same thing and he says what would you do in my place I said I'd pound the desk and say can't build anything too large for the Empire State that's what he did you don't have so many fond feelings that take it about John Lindsey no no absolutely you know I never had any illusions about him from the first time that I saw him I look they're awfully damn carefully and on account of his treatment of new bull or so it was a very close friend of month know I know about any useful I don't think he had any qualifications for the job and I mean after all if you want to find out about his charm and charisma talk to the women who I talked to be why do you think it is that we don't have people like Fiorello LaGuardia and Al Smith on the scene anymore well partly because they just don't happen it will become available as people become available for high public office and parties I've said because there's so many people who will find it's much better to well like a borough president wants to be a judge on it what simpler are much easier fun to be in the thick of things and I'll be responsible for day-to-day things that are going on do you sometimes think that your methods have a reputation of being pretty tough when you when you wanted to get something done when you to build a road or build a park or housing do you think that if your methods have been perhaps a little gentler or more circumspect or less direct do you think that you would have gotten as much accomplished no I'm absolutely sure of that anybody can go back these ex post facto boys and girls and say how things should have been done at the time when they were not around or out of time when they were around and never were heard from anybody can do that your have been quoted as saying a number of times perhaps in jest but nothing you ever did was tinged with legality was 10-gallon I said that there were occasionally things we did that were tinged with we cannot me after all the laws the law and if there were any things of that kind the people the opponents always had recourse to it don't they how did you manage to have you had a lot you developed a lot of enemies over the years in government a lot of people didn't agree with you you had some big political battles you're a Republican you were working with a lot of Democrats yet you managed to outlast and beat them all how did you do that maybe a lot that's all there is to it you have to ask the other people uh-huh you certainly dominated the stage for a long time well I don't know about that how plenty of there's plenty of towels around the and by the same token there plenty of phonies second third-rate made a first-rate job big job - big boy care to mention some names that's so many of them why do you think it is a lot of people are leaving New York now well there you have a question that what is really happening when you say New York you mean New York City New York City oh well they're going to the suburbs they're nearby if they're going to the outlying areas like westerly Suffolk County driving out of here on highways that Robert Moses built well what's wrong without yes a waterway if they want to come into child commutative child or they're going to drive and on highways that Robert Moses built yes that's right how else would you do it we could build enough Rapid Transit for that let's be crazy I was a meeting at which they had a small appropriation that they came up a popular vote five hundred million dollars and a bill the extension up in the Bronx a subway extension there and it was one of the two people spoke against them I said I'll give you a very simple argument there's like god damn person in this room will ever see this thing built you know it's so they never use the nickel will have money for it not a nickel I used it for other purposes if you say that New York on a shrinking population are not told sure that I'm that that's so if you say that you're not interested in theaters you're not interested in your own business why are you doing here why don't you go somewhere else wouldn't live anywhere else what wouldn't live anywhere else yeah now to go out and apologize to a lot of snobs and phony such as though they went out on Long Island beginning of the 20s and 30s that kind of jag hired better I never liked them I don't like them now and most of them have disappeared they've gone elsewhere the children don't like it there anymore I don't know what maybe because there's an exclusive enough maybe because they could see the newcomers they don't want to see him has it all been fun for you cause that has it all been fun Oh a lot of it has been sure that's I thought I think I told you the story wasn't hello but in New Haven around a vote of L circuit you have 15 theaters all over New England friend of my father's family moved to New York I went back to New Haven College my father wanted me to meet this man and his name was Sylvester Z polo pol I and he I got to know him very well and this fellow ole I said to me he said Bob now you just remember this life is a vote of LLL show that's what it is we get any fun of out of it it's all right as long as you regard all these things are up against as part of a vote of he'll show you're all right and I think the conclusion is right it isn't a voter bill show are you get any fun out of it get it listen mr. Moses thank you very much good time that's real life listen how about I get the drink and some leads [Music] this program was made possible in part by an unrestricted general program grant from the Ford Foundation and in part by the members of channel 13 you

Channel: Daniel Stone

Views: 64,543

Keywords:

Id: VbQAoTDBMWU

Length: 59min 47sec (3587 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 10 2020