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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production

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Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello and happy Friday. I'm Holly Frey. And

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Speaker 1: I'm Tracy B. Wilson. We talked about Robert Moses all

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Speaker 1: dang week. The whole week long. We sure did. I

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Speaker 1: have so many things to talk about. Okay. One, he

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Speaker 1: was really good at reports. I mean, there was almost

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Speaker 1: part of me where I'm looking at that almost 400-page report.

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Speaker 1: It is more than 400 pages. Thinking like, did you

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Speaker 1: just intend to bury people in such a big report

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Speaker 1: that they would not see what you had written and

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Speaker 1: they would just go, yes, clearly you know. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: He was, I will say, a very good writer. I

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Speaker 1: noticed that in a lot of the things I read

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Speaker 1: about him. And that was something that even came up

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Speaker 1: in that Bob Balm piece that we referenced a couple

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Speaker 1: times in part two. He wrote of him, quote, Though

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Speaker 1: personally kind and gentle, at least at public events and

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Speaker 1: social affairs, Mr. Moses becomes a violent, cutting fighter when

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Speaker 1: he sets words to paper. He does write his own stuff.

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Speaker 1: Any ghost capable of writing as well as Robert Moses

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Speaker 1: would have been in print long ago under his own name.

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Speaker 1: And he's not wrong. He really was a very good writer.

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Speaker 1: That Atlantic article is long and some of it really

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Speaker 1: makes me angry, but it's well written. I'll give him

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Speaker 1: that for sure. Yeah. He was very conceited. I also,

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Speaker 1: we didn't talk about it in either of the episodes,

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Speaker 1: but that quote mentions... that he was actually very charismatic.

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Speaker 1: I mean, people talk about him today in his public works.

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Speaker 1: And there is, I think, a tendency to envision him

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Speaker 1: as like just this, you know, bowl-in-a-China-shop-flavored jerk who was like, nope,

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Speaker 1: my way or the highway, and kind of barreled through things.

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Speaker 1: And he kind of did have the my way or

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Speaker 1: the highway thing, but he was really charismatic about it,

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Speaker 1: which I think helped get a lot of people on

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Speaker 1: his side over the years. It kind of goes back

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Speaker 1: to what we had talked about Bill Moskowitz kind of

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Speaker 1: coaching him on like, hey, don't make people angry that

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Speaker 1: you're going to need the support from later on. Be

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Speaker 1: judicious about when you decide to be a jerk or not.

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Speaker 1: I also think that's why he did not see it

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Speaker 1: coming when he gave his resignation to Rockefeller and Rockefeller

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Speaker 1: was like, cool, see ya. And Rockefeller was like, fine. Great. Thanks. Thanks.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much. Here's a funny thing about the World's

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Speaker 1: Fair in 1964. Okay. The World's Fair had hours that

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Speaker 1: were like 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., except for one pavilion,

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Speaker 1: which was allowed to have somebody stay there 24-7, like

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Speaker 1: to look after it. Okay. Do you want to guess?

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Speaker 1: Of course, my first thought was, was it a human zoo?

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Speaker 1: But this was past the human zoo era of World's Fairs. No,

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Speaker 1: it was the Vatican. Oh. So I don't, I didn't

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Speaker 1: go down that rabbit hole to see if they had

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Speaker 1: relics or something that had to be carefully looked after.

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Speaker 1: But I was like, oh, somebody from the Vatican just

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Speaker 1: like slept at the fair all the time. Just going

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Speaker 1: to go live at the fair. Wow. There is another

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Speaker 1: whole thing that happens. We mentioned. in the episode, that

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Speaker 1: after his first wife died, he got married less than

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Speaker 1: a month later. But apparently, well, not apparently, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I did not read word for word everything in Kara's

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Speaker 1: biography because it's like 1,100 pages. It's so long. It's

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Speaker 1: a lot of book. I have read parts of it

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Speaker 1: over the years, but I didn't like sit down and

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Speaker 1: cover to cover it for this. But there is a

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Speaker 1: whole thing in there kind of accusing him of impropriety

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Speaker 1: with women. Mm-hmm. And one of the things that Robert

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Speaker 1: Moses wrote in response to it was, among personal, nasty, false, venomous,

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Speaker 1: and vindictive canards is one that I was romantically linked

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Speaker 1: with Mrs. Ruth Pratt, our first congresswoman, and that as

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Speaker 1: a result, my wife took sick, became an alcoholic and

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Speaker 1: a recluse, they virtually abandoned her, joined some kind of foursome,

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Speaker 1: and took a lady who subsequently became my wife to Florida.

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Speaker 1: My companion on the short Florida vacation was my daughter, Jan.

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Speaker 1: With respect to my family life, the author's innuendos are

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Speaker 1: wholly untrue and scurrilous. Okay. And it's like, this is

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Speaker 1: one of those things that then makes me go, okay,

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Speaker 1: Robert Caro. And this is where we get to the

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Speaker 1: question you had before we recorded. Yeah. Which is overpass bridges. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I would say... overwhelmingly, when I see Robert Moses' name

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Speaker 1: on social media, it is about the overpass bridges and

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Speaker 1: whether buses could get to the beaches. Right. Yeah. Buses

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Speaker 1: could not get to the beaches, but whether that was

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Speaker 1: intended for the reasons that people suspect or not is

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Speaker 1: a matter of very hot debate. Here's what's up. So

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Speaker 1: in the Caro biography, Caro relays a story that he

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Speaker 1: says was told to him by Sidney Shapiro, who was

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Speaker 1: an engineer who worked on a lot of projects with

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Speaker 1: Robert Moses. Mm-hmm. And based on the hundred hours plus

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Speaker 1: of interviews that he got from Shapiro, Caro said that

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Speaker 1: Moses specifically had those overpass bridges built low to prevent

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Speaker 1: buses from passing under as a way to keep Black

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Speaker 1: and other minority New Yorkers from getting to Jones Beach specifically.

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Speaker 1: That is the thing that often gets repeated. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: I feel like I've seen 1,000... social media videos on

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Speaker 1: such sites as YouTube and Instagram Reels and whatnot. Yes.

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Speaker 1: It gets repeated a lot, so much so that it's

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Speaker 1: kind of accepted as proven fact in a lot of cases,

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Speaker 1: but there have been some investigations into the veracity of

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Speaker 1: it that leave it very much open to interpretation. Don't worry,

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Speaker 1: I promise I'm not going to try to tell you

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Speaker 1: that Robert Moses was not racist. But there have been

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Speaker 1: Some additional details that have come up, a number of historians, architects,

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Speaker 1: city planners, historians who specifically work in city planning, and

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Speaker 1: a lot of them have come to the conclusion that

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Speaker 1: Caro either fabricated or exaggerated this story. So one thing

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Speaker 1: that has been noted is that the bridges in question

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Speaker 1: were basically carbon copies of existing bridges from Westchester County

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Speaker 1: with the same basic dimensions. So those already existed. Mm-hmm.

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Speaker 1: Some of Moses's overpass bridges through the state were unusually low.

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Speaker 1: Even those, though, have been debated with some analysts, concluding

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Speaker 1: that those lower dimensions were actually due to the land

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Speaker 1: and the conditions of the area. They weren't like... Also,

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Speaker 1: this is the one part that is a little sticky

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Speaker 1: for me that makes me go, oh, I don't know

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Speaker 1: where we put the blame. All commercial traffic was supposed

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Speaker 1: to have been prevented from entering leisure infrastructure. So the

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Speaker 1: idea of a parkway was to allow cars to enter

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Speaker 1: to keep vehicles like buses and trucks out because they

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Speaker 1: are noisy. This is like the Blue Ridge Parkway, which

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Speaker 1: we did an episode on previously in Skyline Drive. There's

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Speaker 1: not supposed to be commercial traffic on those roads. Right.

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Speaker 1: That's why it is called a parkway. We... There was

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Speaker 1: a moment we mentioned that was a quote from Moses

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Speaker 1: where he was talking about, you know, parkways or mixed-use highways. And, like,

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Speaker 1: he's specifying parkways are for parks. So there were ways

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Speaker 1: that buses could get to Jones Beach, but they were

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Speaker 1: a little bit roundabout. They would drop people at, like,

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Speaker 1: the far end of the park, and it wasn't a

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Speaker 1: convenient thing. But it is a little unclear about if Moses...

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Speaker 1: was thinking about, like, yes, this is good. It will

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Speaker 1: prevent Black and brown people from getting to the beach. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Was he thinking, if I build these bridges too low

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Speaker 1: for the buses, then... Can I keep these people out? Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And again, he was racist, so that's possible, but... Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Here's the part that I get real sticky about, too. Okay.

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Speaker 1: Because this story is said to have come from... Sid Shapiro. So,

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Speaker 1: of course, the natural thing would be like, let's ask him.

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Speaker 1: He died two years before Robert Caro's book came out.

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Speaker 1: So nobody could verify anything that he did or did

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Speaker 1: not say. Right. it becomes like an unverifiable claim, which

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Speaker 1: is a little bit of a problem. Caro has said

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Speaker 1: in interviews, Robert Moses is one of the most racist

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Speaker 1: human beings I have ever encountered. And listen, that is

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Speaker 1: probably true because he was for sure racist. But it

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Speaker 1: is tricky to verify all of this. There has been

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Speaker 1: a lot of debate and analysis over it. Specifically, probably

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Speaker 1: you've seen a lot of it because Pete Buttigieg referenced

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Speaker 1: it in 2021. Oh, yeah. And that kind of kicked

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Speaker 1: off a whole thing. Here is where I net out

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Speaker 1: on this. I'm not sure that he did say, build

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Speaker 1: those bridges lower, it will keep these people out. But

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Speaker 1: what I am sure of is that he, if that's

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Speaker 1: the case... He also wasn't taking into account making sure

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Speaker 1: that beach was easily accessible for everybody in New York

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Speaker 1: that might want to access it, which is its own

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Speaker 1: kind of weird thing. And it's like, to me, that

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Speaker 1: suggests a short-sightedness that is not normally associated with him

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Speaker 1: or the way he ran his projects. So that's where

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Speaker 1: I'm kind of like, Either you dropped the ball super

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Speaker 1: bad because your racial bias just made you not even

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Speaker 1: think about those people's needs. Right. Or it was a

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Speaker 1: very convenient way to drop the ball. Yeah. Because you

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Speaker 1: would have thought through all of these possibilities and you just... went, okay.

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Speaker 1: Can I tell you where I net out, having not

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Speaker 1: been the person who researched this episode, but have gone

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Speaker 1: down some rabbit holes about the social media videos that

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Speaker 1: I have seen about Robert Moses and the Bridges. Where

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Speaker 1: I net out is that it's plausible, but not confirmed.

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Speaker 1: that it was an intentional effort to keep buses from

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Speaker 1: getting to the beach so that there would be fewer, quote, undesirable,

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Speaker 1: in his mind, people at the beach. Like, that's plausible,

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Speaker 1: but not confirmed. However, as appealing as it is to

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Speaker 1: find a figure who you can point to and say,

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Speaker 1: this person is the person responsible for this Even though

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Speaker 1: Robert Moses was really good at clearing through bureaucracy and

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Speaker 1: moving things and getting things done, he was working within

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Speaker 1: a system. And the system that he was working within

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Speaker 1: was racist. And there was a lot of other racist

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Speaker 1: infrastructure going on all around New York, some that he

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Speaker 1: was involved in and some not. And when you really

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Speaker 1: put the focus on him and, like, point the finger

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Speaker 1: and say, Robert Moses, he did all of this, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of ignoring all of that other stuff that was

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Speaker 1: systemic and not just one guy. 100%. It is not

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Speaker 1: as though Robert Moses introduced racism to New York. Right.

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Speaker 1: Or even probably into, like, the public works sphere of

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Speaker 1: New York at this time. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I also

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Speaker 1: just think like when you do exactly what you're talking about,

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Speaker 1: when you make it about one person's faults, you're really

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Speaker 1: robbing the conversation of some of the avenues it needs

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Speaker 1: to explore to get to a better place. Right. The

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Speaker 1: obvious answer at that point, if you accepted that this

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Speaker 1: was all part of his mastermind scheme, is, like, we

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Speaker 1: can't have another guy like him in place, but I

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Speaker 1: promise you're still going to have problems with, like, policies

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Speaker 1: that are inherently racist or reflect an unconscious racial bias,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. So, like, you have to fix the bigger system,

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Speaker 1: as you said. I'm going to tell you something right

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Speaker 1: now that is going to perhaps blow your mind. Robert Moses...

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Speaker 1: infamous for prioritizing car traffic, didn't drive. That's funny. Oh,

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Speaker 1: it's funny. Like, he just was like, we need more roads,

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Speaker 1: more roads, roads, roads, roads, love the roads, roads, bring

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Speaker 1: you more roads. Yeah. I live in a city where

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Speaker 1: we desperately need more housing. One of the things that

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Speaker 1: has been, that has come up often in proposals to

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Speaker 1: build new housing is reducing the minimum number of parking

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Speaker 1: spaces that can be included in this new apartment building, right?

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Speaker 1: Because if you need 40 parking places, that's a lot

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Speaker 1: of land that could also be housing, right? And every

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Speaker 1: time there is like gigantic debate with some people who

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Speaker 1: just don't want there to be an apartment building, but

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Speaker 1: some people who are like, but how are people are

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Speaker 1: going to get around without a car? And that's a

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Speaker 1: genuine question because where we are is not as robust

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Speaker 1: in the public transportation infrastructure as other parts of the

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Speaker 1: area around Boston. And so sometimes I'm like, I'll see

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Speaker 1: people saying, how can a household live with only one car?

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Speaker 1: And I'm like, our household has only one car. And

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Speaker 1: it doesn't get driven all that often. So it's like,

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Speaker 1: I understand the comments. And I feel like, as we

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Speaker 1: said in the episode, like, this is something that was

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Speaker 1: not just a Robert wrote Moses problem all over the country. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: has prioritized cars and continues to prioritize cars and get

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Speaker 1: pushback when there are efforts to move away from the

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Speaker 1: cars a little bit and have more infrastructure devoted to

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Speaker 1: mass transit and bicycles. Boy, are there people in some

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Speaker 1: Metro Boston communities furious about bike lanes. Yeah. Was it...

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Speaker 1: I think it's still the case... This is one of

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Speaker 1: the few ways that the height of the pandemic did

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Speaker 1: some interesting things that were maybe good, which is that, like,

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Speaker 1: I remember, I know it happened in San Francisco, where

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Speaker 1: there was a very historically busy area where they just

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Speaker 1: closed the street to car traffic during that. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: made it, like, a public space where people could just

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Speaker 1: walk around. And even after they reopened everything in the city,

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Speaker 1: that stayed closed down, and it's like... Yeah. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: don't know if it still is, but I know for

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Speaker 1: at least a while it did. And it just became

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Speaker 1: like a new thing and like a great vibey, like

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Speaker 1: people just walking around, visiting restaurants, you know, patronizing the

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Speaker 1: various businesses because they weren't worried about getting run over.

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Speaker 1: Like just a cool. I mean, it makes it so

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Speaker 1: apparent when you see that happen. Like, oh, this is

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Speaker 1: actually how people could be living in cities. But we

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Speaker 1: all are car people, myself included. I'm a car person. I,

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Speaker 1: you know. I like sitting in traffic because I'm a weirdo.

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Speaker 1: Because it's one of the few times that, like, I

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Speaker 1: can't be answering email. You're not reachable. I can't be. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm just, it's very zen for me. I'm in my

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Speaker 1: head with my thoughts. It's quite lovely. But yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: a very, I'm not a city planner because I don't

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Speaker 1: have the chops for it in a variety of ways.

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Speaker 1: But including that I would have a hard time struggling

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Speaker 1: with With those kinds of questions of like, OK, but

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Speaker 1: we do have a lot of people who have cars

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Speaker 1: and they got to put them somewhere. What are we

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Speaker 1: going to do? You know, private parking decks or even

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Speaker 1: city run parking decks get very expensive in a different way.

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Speaker 1: There's no easy answer. I think all city planners are

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Speaker 1: kind of put upon in a variety of ways. But

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Speaker 1: here's the funny thing I would like to conclude with. OK, good.

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Speaker 1: It's sort of funny. It just tickles me a little.

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Speaker 1: So we talked about the huge pool initiative. Uh-huh. There

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Speaker 1: is actually a fun tie-in between that 1930s pool initiative

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Speaker 1: and the Muzak Corporation. Okay. Because Muzak was established in 1934. Mm-hmm.

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Speaker 1: Their whole thing is that, or their thing at that

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Speaker 1: time was that they would transmit music not on the radio, but, like,

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Speaker 1: kind of with the cable-style thing. Mm-hmm. Like, closed... closed

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Speaker 1: lane uh you know for public address systems and stuff

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Speaker 1: but the astoria pool when it opened in 1938 had

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Speaker 1: a musac contract so there was always musac playing at

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Speaker 1: the pool funny but then in 1939 that was like

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Speaker 1: their test case and people loved it but it was

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Speaker 1: going to be 115 a month per pool and that

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Speaker 1: was too much for the city and they were like

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Speaker 1: we can't actually do this yeah But if Muzak had

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Speaker 1: been cheaper, we could all have Muzak at our public

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Speaker 1: pools when we're in New York. Not that I ever

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Speaker 1: go to a public pool in New York, but you

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Speaker 1: never know. I just think that's funny. I was just thinking,

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Speaker 1: instead of having people playing their music on their phone

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Speaker 1: speakers and driving everyone else up a wall, I don't

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Speaker 1: know if that happens in New York. I know that

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Speaker 1: happens at It happens everywhere. It happens everywhere. Yeah. Everywhere.

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Speaker 1: At the airport. When I said I don't know if

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Speaker 1: that happens in New York, I meant I don't know

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Speaker 1: if it is explicitly not allowed in New York. Oh, yeah. No,

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Speaker 1: I see it happen. I mean, if it's not allowed,

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Speaker 1: people aren't paying attention to it because I see it

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Speaker 1: all the time when I'm in New York. I was

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Speaker 1: just there and it was like I saw it twice.

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Speaker 1: Once at the airport with a person just like. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: play in their tunes or they were like watching music

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Speaker 1: videos on I don't know YouTube I presume and I

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Speaker 1: was like I don't know when as a society people

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Speaker 1: suddenly decided that listening to things on their phones without

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Speaker 1: headphones was fine I mean it's a I think that

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Speaker 1: that has always been something that happens sometimes but it

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Speaker 1: seems a lot more prevalent now than it was in

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Speaker 1: 1985 when the options for portable listening to things were smaller. Yes,

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Speaker 1: but I think you could trace it back. And again,

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Speaker 1: I'm just talking out my keister. I don't really know,

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Speaker 1: but I would trace it all the way back to like,

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Speaker 1: Not to vilify, but car culture and the idea of

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Speaker 1: blasting your radio in the car so everyone can hear

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Speaker 1: how cool you are. I hate that, too. Which goes

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Speaker 1: back way, way, way far. I mean, I did that

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Speaker 1: as a teenager. Listen, I can't judge too much, but...

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Speaker 1: I hate that, too. However, one time, the funny thing

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Speaker 1: that I will end on is that there was a

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Speaker 1: delivery driver driving down our street one time who was

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Speaker 1: blasting the soundtrack to Hamilton. And it was the... Specifically

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Speaker 1: the one where there is a loud call of Lafayette

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Speaker 1: happening at points in the music. And so this delivery

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Speaker 1: driver driving down the street blasting Hamilton. And at the

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Speaker 1: key moment some other person in the neighborhood yelled Lafayette

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Speaker 1: and it was glorious I love it I love it

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Speaker 1: yeah I don't I try not to judge listen again

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Speaker 1: we have all been there I have anyway I thought

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Speaker 1: everybody needed to hear the cure as I drove around

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Speaker 1: you know my dinky beach town that I grew up in.

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Speaker 1: I was just trying to counter all the mainstream stuff

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Speaker 1: that was going on because I was a jerk and

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Speaker 1: still am in many ways. But I don't make people

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Speaker 1: listen to my music. Anyway, Robert Moses, your legacy is confusing,

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Speaker 1: difficult to really grasp. I mean, I do feel like, though,

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Speaker 1: New York would not be what it is today if

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Speaker 1: he had not been in the positions he was in.

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Speaker 1: It would be something else. There are people who have

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Speaker 1: suggested that if it were not for Robert Moses, New

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Speaker 1: York would have had like a similar collapse to what

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Speaker 1: Detroit experienced. I don't know if that's true. You're kind

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Speaker 1: of like working in theoretical realm. But it is interesting.

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Speaker 1: And now whenever I'm there, I will think about it

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Speaker 1: in a different way, which I will be, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: in a month and a half, I guess. I'll look

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Speaker 1: at it then. In any case, if this is your

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Speaker 1: weekend coming up, And you hate traffic, which I know

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Speaker 1: is the norm. I know I'm the weirdo. But if

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Speaker 1: this is your weekend coming up, I hope you don't

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Speaker 1: have to sit in traffic. You don't have to be

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Speaker 1: in your car unless you want to. You can hang out.

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Speaker 1: You can do pedestrian things. I hope your neighborhood is

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Speaker 1: cool and has a sense of community and that you

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Speaker 1: aren't choking down car exhaust because everybody is driving instead

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Speaker 1: of conducting themselves around town other ways. I also just

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Speaker 1: hope you get time to do whatever it is that

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Speaker 1: makes you happiest. If that's reading a book, playing with

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Speaker 1: your dog or your cat, dressing your dog as a

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Speaker 1: hot dog, which I love, obviously. You know, prepping for Halloween,

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Speaker 1: the very important activity of this time of year. Whatever

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Speaker 1: it is, I hope it's relaxed. If you have to

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Speaker 1: work this weekend, I still hope you get to do

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Speaker 1: some of those things. It only takes five minutes to

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Speaker 1: dress a dog if it's cooperative. If you have other

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Speaker 1: things that you would like to do, I hope that's great.

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Speaker 1: I hope everyone that can and likes it has a

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Speaker 1: big bowl of ice cream because that's what sounds really

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Speaker 1: good to me right now. We will be right back

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Speaker 1: here on Monday with a brand new episode. And then

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Speaker 1: tomorrow we will be right back here with a classic.

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Speaker 1: Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.