I'm personally neither a fan nor a critic of Brennan Lee Mulligan's roleplaying style. But I did enjoy The Power Broker episode where they interviewed Brendan, in part about his D&D campaign patterned as a sort of mythic NYC shaped by an esoteric version of Robert Moses, inspired directly by this book.

Potentially of interest to roleplayers, historians, and civics junkies.

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-power-broker-11-brennan-lee-mulligan/

#ThePowerBroker
#99PercentInvisible
#RobertMoses
#DnD
#Dimension20
#BrennanLeeMulligan

I finally finished reading The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro and while the book is extremely long, it paints an extremely detailed picture of Robert Moses' work in the City of New York. I read this as a part of the podcast 99% Invisible's book club, which went through all of 2024.

There are some chapters that feel like: 'here's a bunch of data'. There are other chapters that demonstrate how Moses would not help public transit, not on his watch, cars come first! One such example of that would be to run both sides of a highway far enough apart that you could run trains down the middle. Moses just wasn't interested.

And of course, there are examples of Moses pushing people out of their homes to make room for infrastructure. There are other examples where Moses is going to run a highway through some people's homes, even though there was a park one block south of there that would still work. Moses was having none of that. After all, he had the power – built up over decades.

And now that I'm done with The Power Broker, I need to read some more of the books on my shelf. I have such a backlog.

https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/jane-jacobs-missing-chapter-robert-caro “There are two entire chapters that were cut out…One was on Jane Jacobs stopping the Lower Manhattan Expressway. And one was why the New York City Planning Commission has no power” #ThePowerBroker #JaneJacobs #urbanplanning #NYC #RobertMoses

Started listening to 99% Invisible's "Power Broker" #podcast , and.. wow. AOC episode was revelatory, to say the least.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/power-broker-01-robert-caro/

Series concludes October 7th with a live interview at NY Historical with author Robert Caro. Wow. #robertmoses #gentrification #urbanism #cityplanning #fuckcars

https://www.archpaper.com/2024/06/exhibition-robert-caro-the-power-broker-new-york-historical-society/

August 29, 1961 - The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was pursuing its voter registration drive in Amite County, Mississippi. Of 5000 eligible Negro voters in the county, just one was registered to vote. SNCC leader Robert Moses was attacked and beaten this day outside the registrar’s office while trying to sign up two voters. Nine stitches were required but the three white assailants were acquitted.
#RobertMoses #SNCC

A Couple Recent Interesting Podcast Episodes

First off, I’ve mentioned before that I enjoy listening to the science fiction short story podcast Escape Pod. Today I listened to episode 949, A Foundational Model for Talking to Girls. Large Language Models (LLMs), what we have colloquially called AI for the past few years, have been a giant source of wonder and consternation in the world. AI in general has long been a topic for science fiction, but this short story tackles the current LLM version of AIs. I found it to be a very fun episode that is a master class in providing a huge amount of backstory without an exposition dump. I don’t want to spoil anything about this story, but they naturally drop all these background details about the world that make me want more stories in this universe. It also has a fun, light tone to it. I highly recommend you either listen or read (the full text is available at the episode link above)

The other podcast episode I wanted to mention is actually a series of episodes. There have been a few times where I have come to the realization that I prefer the wikipedia summary of the story compared to the real thing. One example is Bioshock. I haven’t played it, but I know for a fact that I would not enjoy the story nearly as well as I enjoyed reading the summary of the story and all the backstory that led to the events of the game. The same is true of Robert Caro’s The Power Broker. I know myself and I know I would not nearly enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoy listening to Roman Mars, Elliott Kalan, and each episode’s guest discuss the contents of each chapter and provide color commentary. You can get to the archive of all the episodes here. It’s a fascinating story of one man’s transformation from working in the NYC parks department to becoming one of the most powerful men in NYC (able to challenge US presidents and win!).

#99PI #AI #LLM #NYC #podcast #RobertMoses #scienceFiction #shortStories #ThePowerBroker

https://wp.me/p5cs3g-4LW

"To ease access to Flushing-Meadows Park - [#RobertMoses] had determined that The [World's] Fair was going to be held in that park - a vast network of new Queens highways, $120 million dollars worth of new highways, would be needed."

Booooooooooo

I just finished reading The Power Broker and, man, that was a heck of a book!

I feel like RM was the epitome of the "brilliant jerk".

It makes me wonder what things would be like in New York (and elsewhere) if he had built public transit they way he built roads.

All-in-all, a good book. I'd recommend it.

(I started it because of 99% Invisible, but then I just kept reading...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_Broker

I don't go to school, so I'm a bit sad I will not get to dress up as Robert Moses from The Power Broker by Robert Caro for World Book Day

#WorldBookDay #RobertMoses #PowerBroker

Photo By C.M. Stieglitz, World Telegram staff photographer - Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c36079, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1265880

I’m doing 99 Percent Invisible’s year long read through The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro and it’s fascinating to see the parallels between the 1920’s and today – especially when it comes to courts and appeals.

I usually don’t highlight in my books but there are passages that really stand out to me:

On pages 193-194, the author talks about how many appeals Robert Moses had the commission's lawyers file. Moses only needed to keep the case going until the special session was over in the legislature. "Every appeal was denied–but every one used up time."

https://99percentinvisible.org/club/

"During this decade, 439 miles of new highways were built, and not one mile of new railroad or subway. In 1974, people using subways and railroads in and around New York were still riding on tracks laid between 1904 and 1933 - the last year before #RobertMoses came to power in the city. Not a single mile had been built since."

"Build railroads at the same time that you were building roads, and solving the metropolitan transportation problem would be greatly simplified. Pour all available funds into roads without building railroads, and that problem would never be solved. Public exposure to this point of view was limited. Editorials such as the one in the herald-tribune that so aroused #RobertMoses ire were rare. Nonexistent in the two newspapers most decisive in shaping public opinion in NY - the NYT and Daily News."

Lol. "Moreover, the colossal true cost of the Cross-Bronx [Expressway] could no longer be concealed. Before it was finished, the highway, including its interchanges with other highways and the bridge carrying it over the Harlem [River], would be the most expensive road constructed in all history - would cost not the $47mil that #RobertMoses had originally estimated, but $250mil."

He created the template for megaprojects (& their cost overruns). Estimate low, and rely on sunk cost fallacies.