The Red Hook Bridge That Never Was
Last weekend’s New York Times article on Robert Moses, written on the eve of three new museum retrospectives, had one particularly interesting tidbit in it. Turns out that one of the projects that Moses championed that never came to fruition was a bridge from Red Hook to Battery Park City. And you thought property values…
Last weekend’s New York Times article on Robert Moses, written on the eve of three new museum retrospectives, had one particularly interesting tidbit in it. Turns out that one of the projects that Moses championed that never came to fruition was a bridge from Red Hook to Battery Park City. And you thought property values were high in Red Hook now! Anyone know more about how that proposal played out and was ultimately scrapped?
Rehabilitating Robert Moses [NY Times]
Photo by burningdove
The concern over a bridge was not totally unwarranted – not that a bridge itself would simply block traffic from the naval yards, but that it would be a military target, and bombing the bridge could block the harbor.
Burying the route and creating a tunnel was considered to be safer, although more expensive, with the global military situation changing in the late 30s.
“turns out …”?
Kind of surprising that someone who writes a blog about nyc development wouldn’t be familiar with the Power Broker.
None of this surprises me that humps like Docotorff are also part of “crowd”
8:13 — way to be incoherent! Bravo.
I agree with 12:52’s “turd” comment.
How about some Jane Jacobs retrospectives instead of devoting more attention to him?
Irony is, most of the people on the boards of those museums probably live in houses he would have demolished and take their kids for walks in parks he would have run a highway through (ie: Washington Square).
Well now…he did dot the FDR with housing projects but as much as that is a turn off today it kind of balances Walenta’s land in DUMBO doesnt it?
If “we” had our way by todays standards all waterfront property from lower Manhattan to the 20″s and in Red Hook would be unsellable luxury condos no?? Folks have to live somewhere. I’m glad he (Moses) finally stopped dotting our landscape with his idea but in actuality one plan made way for others today. Hopefully they too will make way for more alternative situations. Too much of anything is not cool in our city. B/T/W the Atlantic Yards sits on the site where the Brooklyn Dodgers was slated to be and uh.hum Mr. Moses stopped it so they ended up in L.A. So in fact Mr. Moses is the original poster boy for develop don’t destroy Brooklyn! And you all hate him…hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Now some of the “condo” owners want moohlah. “people make the world go round”
robert moses is turd,,, the huge “city of torrow” plans were terrible disasters.
he would have destroyed all of NYC if he had his way
Moses was a megalomaniacal monster. His “successes” are on par with Stalin, Pol Pot, and the late weirdo who ruled Turkmenistan and built a solid-gold statue of himself that rotated to always face the sun. 500,000 people cleansed from their homes — ironically (but not unforeseeably) that slum clearance resulted in cementing slums into this city. Former slums Moses would have deemed worthy of clearance are now coveted, human-scale homes and shops, while freakishy monolithic Corbusier-style “homes of the future” are the hideous stains left to us, which will take the next half century to erase.
There is no honest way to “rehabilitate” Robert Moses.
Well… initially his power came from this position in the parks department. Thus he could, through his position, build roads associated with parks and then, the roads that gave access to the roads in park. (Good mind)
Because he didn’t want everyone (i.e. those people who would need to travel by bus) going to his creations, there are height restrictions on the parkways. (kinda a jerk)