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Robert Moses

The Aerial Views of Robert Moses

By the late 1950s, Robert Moses, the legendary “power broker,” was at the peak of his decades-long career in public service. He served, simultaneously, as Commissioner of the Department of Parks, City Construction Coordinator, Chairman of the Mayor’s Committee on Slum Clearance, Commissioner on the City Planning Commission, Chairman of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, Chairman of the New York State Council of Parks, President of the Long Island State Park Commission, and Chairman of the Power Authority of the State of New York. 

New York Midtown Skyline View south (Lincoln Center), November 1955. Department of Parks photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The Municipal Archives collection of records created by Moses as Parks Department Commissioner, described in an earlier For the Record article, documents not just city parks, but also the highways, bridges, tunnels, housing projects, playgrounds, and beaches he constructed. It includes information about the Lincoln Center complex, the United Nations’ building, the New York Coliseum, Shea Stadium and both the 1939 and 1964 New York World’s Fairs.

This week, For the Record highlights aerial photographic views in the Parks Department collection. Moses contracted with commercial photographers for the aerial views. Images in the collection date to the 1930s, the samples below are from the mid-to-late 1950s when Moses’ portfolio had expanded beyond parks to all of the other construction projects. The photographers flew in planes over the city and used large-format cameras.  The original negatives were scanned at high resolution. All of the images can be viewed in the Municipal Archives Gallery.  

These spectacular images show New York from above in its thriving post-War years when the old city was giving way to the new.

Orchard Beach, Pelham Bay Park, Bronx, 1956. Department of Parks photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Midtown Manhattan (Lincoln Center), 1955. Department of Parks photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

West Park Title 1 Housing, March 14, 1956. Department of Parks photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Soundview Park and Throgs Neck Expressway, June 12, 1957. Department of Parks photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Mid-Harlem and City College, June 12, 1957. Department of Parks photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Penn Station South Slum Clearance, June 12, 1957. (Note strut from airplane wing in upper left.) Department of Parks photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Battery Park, June 12, 1957. Department of Parks photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Corlears Hook Park, November 3, 1958. (Note car float in East River.) Department of Parks photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

East River Park , Title 1 housing, November 3, 1958. Department of Parks photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Washington Square South-East, November 3, 1958. Department of Parks photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

George Washington Bridge (not yet double-decked) and Harlem Speedway, November 1958. Department of Parks photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Bruckner Expressway, November 1958. Department of Parks photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Brooklyn-Queens Expressway progress, November 1958. Department of Parks photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Harlem River, Major Deegan Expressway and Yankee Stadium, November 17, 1953. Department of Parks photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Throgs Neck Expressway, November 1958. Department of Parks photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Long Island Expressway, looking west from Cross Island Parkway, November 1958. Department of Parks photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Documenting the New Deal

There has been much speculation in recent months concerning whether President Joe Biden’s infrastructure projects and related programs, if given the green light, would prove as transformative for the nation as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal was in the 1930s.

A life-long swimmer, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses vastly expanded access to aquatic facilities for New Yorkers.  In 1936, he opened ten new swimming pools and during his long tenure he built and improved public beaches throughout the city. “Swim” original art for subway. Tempura water-color on tissue paper, 1937; artist unknown.  Department of Parks General Files, 1937.

There is no question, however, that the New Deal transformed New York City.  The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was the capstone of Roosevelt’s efforts to recover from the Great Depression. Established as part of the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act of 1935, the WPA was the largest jobs initiative in American history. When the federal funding for the WPA became available, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia persuaded Roosevelt to release billions of dollars for construction projects. It was a partnership that would forever change the city.

New York received more federal funds than any other city in the nation and employed more than 700,000 people through the Depression years. They built or renovated schools, bridges, parks, hospitals, highways, airports, stadiums, swimming pools, beaches, hospitals, piers, sewers, libraries, courthouse, firehouses, markets and housing projects throughout the five boroughs. The Triborough Bridge, the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels, the FDR Drive, the Henry Hudson and Belt Parkways, and the New York Municipal (LaGuardia) Airport are just some of the WPA-funded projects that have served New Yorkers over the past eight decades.

To the eternal benefit of generations of historians and researchers, the Archives holds extensive collections essential for exploring the New Deal in New York City.

Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia to Harry Hopkins, Administrator Works Progress Administration, Postal Telegram, May 19, 1936.  Fiorello LaGuardia Collection, subject files. NYC Municipal Archives.

Documenting the New Deal in the city is largely a tale of two remarkable New Yorkers: Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and ‘master builder’ Robert Moses. Archival records showing their influence and impact on the city total more than 1,500 cubic feet.

Of particular interest to New Deal historians are Mayor LaGuardia’s subject files. There are 27 folders with content specifically labeled as relating to the WPA.  In addition, there are files pertaining to all of the public works construction projects–housing, highways, parks, swimming pools, etc., as well as the Civilian Conservation Corps, and other New Deal programs such as Social Security. In addition, there is a separate series of correspondence with federal officials in Washington D.C. totaling five cubic feet. Not all of it specifically pertains to the WPA, but given the importance of the various programs and the billions of dollars flowing from Washington, information about the massive federal program is well represented in the correspondence.

Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia to Miss Sue Ann Wilson, Federal Theatre Project, November 24, 1936. Fiorello LaGuardia Collection, correspondence with federal officials. NYC Municipal Archives.

LaGuardia’s records have been available at the Municipal Archives since its founding in 1952. The Robert Moses collection is a more recent addition. In 1984, city archivists visited a Department of Parks and Recreation storage facility at the Manhattan Boat Basin under the Henry Hudson Parkway, where they discovered 800 cubic feet of material—about 400,000 items—from 1934 through the 1970s, that included an extensive record of the WPA-funded projects during Moses’s long reign as a New York power broker. LaGuardia appointed Moses as Commissioner of the Department of Parks in 1934 and he served in that capacity until 1960, during which time  he also held at least a dozen city and state positions.

79th Street Boat Basin, Henry Hudson Parkway, ca. 1937.  Municipal Archives Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The records found at the Boat Basin were in remarkably good condition, consisting of carbons or originals of Moses’s correspondence, memoranda, transcripts, reports, contracts, news clippings, maps, blueprints, plans, printed materials, press releases, invitations, and photographs. There are 121 folders specifically labeled “WPA,” in the “General Files,” series but, similar to the LaGuardia papers, Moses’ correspondence relevant to New Deal programs are evident throughout the collection.

No detail was too small or building too insignificant for Moses and his talented team of architects as illustrated by the handsome design of this concession stand and comfort station. Pelham Bay Park, October 22, 1941. Department of Parks Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

The third trove of WPA-related materials in the Archives is the WPA Federal Writers’ Project collection. The WPA did not just improve parks and build roadways—a portion of the money was set aside for unemployed professionals in the “arts.” As WPA director Harry Hopkins explained, “they have to eat like other people.” It was called Federal Project Number One, and consisted of Art, Music, Theatre and Writers’ Projects. The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was the only one to operate in all 48 states and the territories of Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, as well as New York City.  At its peak, in April of 1936, there were 6,686 on the payroll nationwide; approximately 40% were women.

Triborough Bridge, December 1937. WPA Federal Writers’ Project Photograph Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

New York City housed the largest FWP Unit, employing nearly 300 people. The writers produced the New York City Guide, New York Panorama, Almanac for New Yorkers, a number of ethnic studies, Who’s Who in the Zoo—a total of 64 proposed books. The New York City Guide proved so durable and popular that it was re-published in 1966, 1982 and again in 1992. To illustrate the books, the NYC unit acquired photographs from trade organizations, other branches of Federal Project One, and sent staff photographers to document many aspects of New York City.

Feeding the City, reference materials, brochure, ca. 1937. WPA Federal Writers’ Project Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Two years ago, a manuscript and research files from this collection documenting the consumption and preparation of food in the City were showcased in an exhibit Feeding the City at the Municipal Archives.

Manhattan approach to the Holland Tunnel, December 6, 1936. WPA Federal Writers’ Project Photograph Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Shortly after the commencement of World War II hostilities, the WPA discontinued Federal Arts programs around the country and many shipped their records to Washington, D.C. (most went to the Library of Congress). The records of the NYC Unit of the Writer’s Project did not leave the City, however. They were deposited in the Municipal Library. Although there is not extant documentation to confirm this, it seems likely that the FWP staff had been regular patrons of the Municipal Library and well known to long-time Library Director Rebecca Rankin. Perhaps she suggested that her Library would provide a good home to their records. And indeed it did; the FWP collection (eventually transferred to the Municipal Archives) has served as a rich research resource for many decades.

Bookbinder. WPA Miscellaneous Projects, Bookbinding, ca. 1937. WPA Federal Writers’ Project Photograph Collection. Photographer: Ralph DeSola (Federal Art Project). NYC Municipal Archives.

WPA instructors held classes in designing and staging puppet shows, Tompkins Square Boys Club, January 1937.  WPA Federal Writers’ Project Photograph Collection, Photographer: von Urban (Federal Art Project). NYC Municipal Archives.

The photographs in the collection are of particular relevance to documenting what the WPA accomplished in New York City. The FWP staff arranged the pictures by subject, e.g. “Bridges, Triborough Bridge,” or “Transportation, Tunnels.”  “WPA Activities” was another subject heading and reviewing the list of sub-headings provides an indication of the wide scope of the WPA: construction projects, music project, nursery schools and parent education project, puppet teaching project, sewing project, theatre project, etc. 

It is too soon to know whether  President Biden’s proposed programs will have the same transformative effect as the New Deal. But if a model is needed for a successful economic recovery with a lasting impact, one need look no further than New York City.

Portions of this article appeared in The Living New Deal an organization dedicated to research, presentation and education about the immense riches of New Deal public works. 

WNYC-TV Archives: A Public Broadcaster for the Public Good

Over the last year, the Municipal Archives has successfully digitized hundreds of reels of film created from the 1940s through the 1980s by WNYC-TV, the city-owned television station. Although there are thousands more films to digitize, those that have already been preserved indicate the breadth and quality of subjects featured within this vast collection. From 1949 to 1981, WNYC-TV produced more than 4,000 films featuring news-worthy figures, events, developments and places, usually with sound and in full color. In addition to these films, WNYC-TV produced thousands of video tapes in the 1980s and 90s.

WNYC began as a radio broadcast station in 1924, one of the first municipal-owned stations in the country. During the early days of radio, regulatory bodies designated sections of the radio spectrum for broadcast and would lease or sell licenses to specific channels, such as WNYC or CBS. In the 1930s, like many municipalities, New York City anticipated the invention of television networks and created television broadcasting licenses to be leased in the future. Unlike most places, however, City leaders did not sell these licenses during the Great Depression, enabling them to set up municipal television stations like WNYC-TV and WNYE-TV, operated by the Board of Education, in the post-war era. Although WNYC produced several films in the 1940s and 50s, the film production expanded after WNYC-TV Channel 31 officially launched on November 5, 1961.

One of the earliest items in the WNYC-TV collection is City of Magic, a promotional film released in 1949. With a narrator speaking in the classic mid-Atlantic accent, the film celebrates New York City as the center of industry, trade, education and entertainment in the western world. There is a particular emphasis on the City’s prosperity compared with other world cities in Europe, still recovering from the Second World War.

City of Magic, 1949. WNYC-TV: Moving Images Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Although there are other productions like City of Magic, much of the WNYC-TV film collection consists of live recordings of public events, featuring local, national and international politicians and figures. President John F. Kennedy speaking at the 1962 dedication of the United States pavilion for the 1964 World’s Fair at Flushing Meadows, is one example. Introduced by Mayor Robert Wagner and Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, Kennedy echoed the sentiments found in City of Magic. In his words, visiting New York City and the 1964 World’s Fair were both opportunities for the world “to see what we have accomplished through a system of freedom.”

1964 New York’s World Fair: United States Pavilion groundbreaking ceremony with President John F. Kennedy, Mayor Robert Wagner and Robert Moses, December 14, 1962. WNYC-TV: Moving Images Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Ten years later in 1972, WNYC-TV recorded another historic public event when Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress, announced that she was running for president. In her speech, she rejected the “political expediency” of the Nixon administration, calling for national unity, electoral reform, environmental rehabilitation, an end to wars abroad and a greater focus on the potential of women and minorities. Our recent blog featured Chisholm’s presidential announcement captured by the WNYC-TV cameras:  Shirley Chisholm

By the 1970s, production at WNYC-TV had increased significantly, including comprehensive documentation of the administrations of Mayors John Lindsay and Abraham Beame. WNYC-TV also focused on interviewing local politicians about their policies, current events and the inner workings of City government. These interviews may have been especially needed by New Yorkers, as the 1970s saw a precipitous drop in the City’s ability to provide services that millions had come to depend on. The City’s fiscal crisis and Mayor Beame’s response are highlights of this collection.

WNYC Golden Anniversary: A. Labaton receiving the United Nations Award, speech by Lee Graham, proclamation and citations by Mayor Abraham D. Beame to Seymour Siegel, Herman Neuman and A. Labaton, July 8, 1974. WNYC-TV: Moving Images Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

In 1974, Mayor Beame celebrated WNYC’s 50th anniversary with an official proclamation that July 8th would be known as WNYC Golden Anniversary Day. He remarked that New York City’s broadcast system remained “the only municipally owned and operated, non-commercial broadcasting complex in the United States.” This remained true until 1996, when Mayor Giuliani sold off the Municipal Broadcast System, turning WNYC radio into a private entity that is today owned and operated by New York Public Radio and the WNYC Foundation. For better or worse, WNYC’s time as an active part of City government had finally come to an end.

Now, almost a century after WNYC began providing high quality informational and cultural shows to New Yorkers, its original television productions will be made available again. With funding from the New York State Archives’ Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund, staff at the Municipal Archives began a carefully coordinated project to assess, clean, repair and create preservation-quality digital scans of the films in this unparalleled collection. In the next few months, the Municipal Archives will stream more videos from the WNYC-TV collection online. Higher resolution copies are available upon request. You can browse the online collection here and the WNYC-TV finding aid here.

Form 51

Begun under Mayor William O’Dwyer, the Mayor’s Committee on Management Survey was a sprawling three-year labor that culminated in a hefty, two-volume final report with a slew of recommendations for sweeping changes to various agencies and offices of the government. The Committee ultimately presented eleven major findings, and twelve management recommendations, and many four-, five-, and six-point plans with their own numbered lists of justifying principles and inescapable underlying forces. Whether its primary purpose, “the securing of good management, which will bring in its wake those economies arising from the best use of men, materials, and time in getting the work of the City government done,” was in fact accomplished, is a topic for further research. What’s clear is that City government needed some kind of diagnostic.

From the Dank Recesses—the Department of Parks General Files

“Swim” original art for subway, 1937. Tempura water color on tissue paper; artist unknown. Department of Parks General Files, NYC Municipal Archives.

A life-long swimmer, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses vastly expanded access to aquatic facilities for New Yorkers. In 1936, he opened ten new swimming pools and during his long tenure he built and improved public beaches throughout the city.

Recently, the Municipal Archives received an inquiry from a potential patron asking if it was true “…that their [Department of Parks] internal records from 1934-45 are offsite and inaccessible, perhaps rotting away in a barn somewhere in New Jersey, piled up in banker’s boxes...” The answer is . . . not true! Although the Parks records did make a brief trip to New Jersey, they are very much accessible in the Municipal Archives and constitute one of the most important collections documenting the built environment of New York City and the decades-long era of Parks Commissioner Robert Moses.

It is possible that this patron’s remarks concerning the Parks records originated from Robert Caro’s epic Moses biography, The Power Broker [Knopf, 1974]. In notes about his sources Caro described gaining access to the “internal memoranda” of the Parks Department, then located “… in the dank recesses below the Seventy-ninth Street boat basin near the West Side Highway.”

In 1984, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) awarded the Archives a grant to identify and appraise historical records still held in municipal offices. During the course of the project, City archivists visited the Parks storage facility at the Boat Basin and discovered nearly 800 cubic feet of administrative records. Despite their location only a few hundred yards from the Hudson River, directly below a busy traffic interchange, the archivists found the records to be in remarkably good order.

Aerial view of the 79th Street Boat Basin and Henry Hudson Parkway interchange, ca. 1936. NYC Municipal Archives Collection. Moses leveraged federal highway funding to complete an earlier “West Side Improvement” plan and added a marina, known as the 79th Boat Basin in Riverside Park.

Recognizing the importance of this material, City archivists transferred the records to the Municipal Archives, after a detour to a laboratory in New Jersey for mold remediation.

The significance and value of this collection cannot be overestimated. It provides a complete chronicle of the achievements of Robert Moses, New York’s legendary “Master Builder.” Moses planned and constructed public works on a scale that was the envy of the world in its day and all but inconceivable now. The list of his accomplishments in the New York City metropolitan area—well documented in the collection—includes fifteen parkways and twelve expressways; eight bridges and two tunnels; over one thousand housing projects; more than six hundred playgrounds; and thirty new parks and beaches. He was responsible for the Lincoln Center complex, the United Nations’ building, the New York Coliseum, Shea Stadium and both the 1939 and 1964 New York World’s Fairs. In the words of Columbia University Professor of History, Kenneth T. Jackson, “More than any other person or institution, Robert Moses was the single-minded genius who molded New York City into a twentieth century metropolis.”

Astoria Pool, Queens, August 20, 1936. Department of Parks Collection, NYC Municipal Archives. Opened July 2, 1936, Astoria Pool is the largest of the eleven pools Moses built with funding from the federal Works Progress Administration program.

And fortunately for generations of historians, Commissioner Moses and his staff were prolific correspondents and meticulous record-keepers. The records extracted from the Boat Basin consisted of two series—740 cubic feet of the Department of Parks General Files, 1934-1966, and 44 cubic feet of the Office of the Parks Commissioner/City Planning Commissioner files, 1940-1956. The material includes carbons or originals of incoming and outgoing correspondence, memoranda, transcripts, reports, contracts, news clippings, maps, blueprints, plans, printed materials, press releases, invitations, and photographs. The records document virtually every component of the Department’s administrative actions from 1934 through 1966. The General Files series is further divided into three subseries: Administrative Files, Borough Files and Index Cards.

Sara Delano Roosevelt Park, March 6, 1934. Department of Parks Collection, NYC Municipal Archives. Several blocks of tenements in Manhattan’s lower East Side, from Houston to Rivington Streets, were razed for construction of the Sara Delano Roosevelt Park.

The Parks/City Planning Commissioner series comprises the files created by Moses in his capacity as Commissioner of the Department of Parks, Commissioner of the City Planning Department, and after 1946, City Construction Coordinator. (Moses simultaneously held up to twelve official positions.) The material in this series is 100% Robert Moses. With the exception of a few folders labeled “Hazel Tappan,” his personal secretary, it does not contain the correspondence of any of his deputies or assistants.

Both series provide abundant examples of Moses’ direct and vivid writing style. “I say its spinach!” he wrote to Mayor LaGuardia, in a letter dated August 25, 1943, reporting on a meeting about the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The letter also contains a typical Moses comment on social workers: “These people never get anywhere, and it is a waste of time to get excited about their plans.” Moses believed parks and playgrounds would solve all social ills and so concluded to the Mayor: “If I had the sense God gave geese, I would have insisted that the only thing worth accomplishing was to get rid of Raymond Street and substitute a playground.”

Pelham Bay Park: Concessions Building and comfort station, October 22, 1941. Department of Parks Collection, NYC Municipal Archives. No detail was too small or building too insignificant for Moses and his talented team of architects as illustrated by the handsome design of this comfort station.

Moses was a fearless correspondent. He even took on the United States military at the height of World War II. On May 24, 1943, he replied to Brigadier General P. B. Gage, Commanding Officer of the U.S Army, stating: “I cannot possibly give you permission to overrun Jacob Riis Park. This is one of the most important summer recreation areas in the Metropolitan district, and there is no reason on God’s green earth why it should be turned over for maneuvering of troops.”

Invitation to the Menagerie in Central Park, 1934. Color half-tone on paper; artist unknown. Mayor LaGuardia Parks Department correspondence, NYC Municipal Archives.

Good design was a hallmark of Commissioner Moses’ public works as evidenced by this 1934 invitation and during the Great Depression he could draw on a large pool of readily available talented architects and designers.

As he did with parks and arterial highways, Moses played a major role in the development of public housing projects throughout his career. In a letter dated July 7, 1958, Moses took the opportunity to express his views on the European model: “As to Sweden, I have just come back from that highly socialized country. I did inspect some of the housing, and while I found it good, it was no means as marvelous as it is described by Mr. Straus [owner of the WMCA radio station and life-long advocate for improved housing], and I found few things which could be successfully imitated in this country. I am no chauvinist, but I get rather weary of Americans who can only find achievements abroad.”

In 1998 the NEH awarded $64,000 to the Municipal Archives to microfilm the entire Commissioner series, and selected documents from the General Files series.

Robert Moses’ career and the physical changes he wrought on New York City, for better or worse, have long been the subject of analysis and debate. Beginning even before his death in 1981, there has been a steady stream of works pertaining to Moses ranging from the Caro biography to innumerable articles, dissertations, papers, conferences, documentary films and at least one opera. Access to the voluminous Parks collection—and its rich content of Moses-related material—will continue to facilitate the ongoing debate about one of the most influential figures of 20th century New York City history.