Monday, November 14

"Leading Out the Regiment" Chapter 33 in pictures

"In 1949, Title I of a new Federal Housing Act codified a new concept---urban renewal---that insured  that Washington's role  would henceforth be as crucial as City Hall's not only on low-income housing but in most major urban reshapings." (704)
 Plans for Moses's Cross-Manhattan Expressway that would've connected the East side to the West Side of Manhattan, 12 lanes of traffic that would've gone through 31st street

Demolition on Grand St. (LES) as part of Moses's slum clearance  circa 1948.

Tammany backed mayor William O'Dwyer 1946-1950
“Sachems of Tammany Hall, 1929, including Mayor James J. Walker”
*The Political Machine that is Tammany comes back into power in the absence of La Gurdia 

*O'Dwyer gives Moses the title of  "City Construction Coordinator"
and a position as head of the Slum Clearance Committee
*As the city Construction Coordinator Moses positioned himself as the representative for the city's positions of design and construction controlling all interactions between city, state and federal funding agencies.

*He controlled the Housing authority for a decade and had complete control over the highway system
All his positions together meant he controlled funding from the Triborough Bridge Project, The State Department of Public Works and Federal Funds for Slum Clearance

"Every large scale Public work it sometimes seemed, had to have its arrangements, its payoffs, its deals and its coincidences" (714)
Carroll speculates that write offs , pay offs and favors could be covered up by the Triborough Bridge & Tunnel Authority's vast revenue in the form of : service fees, broker fees, legal fees and commissions. 
               
"He and he alone--not the city's people not, not the government officials the people elected to represent them, not the power brokers who dominated some of these officials ---decided what public works would be built, when they would be built and to what design they would be built. He was the supreme power broker" (754).

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