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Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York's Master Builder and Transformed the American City
To a young Jane Jacobs, Greenwich Village, with its winding cobblestone streets and diverse makeup, was everything a city neighborhood should be. The activist, writer, and mother of three grew so fond of her bustling community that it became a touchstone for her landmark book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. But consummate power broker Robert Moses, the father ...more
Hardcover, 256 pages
Published
July 28th 2009
by Random House
(first published 2009)
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This book tries, and succeeds, to do many things at once. It is a biography of Jane Jacobs the author, journalist, activist and mother who helped redefine urban planning and cities themselves. It is also a biography of Robert Moses, the skilled manager who dominated New York public works for decades. And finally it charts developments in urban planning throughout the 20th century, especially the rise and fall of modernism.[return][return]Anthony Flint's work reads almost like a novel at times, s...more
Anthony Flint's narrative history recounts three important battles for the future of lower Manhattan between renowned urbanist Jane Jacobs and New York City masterplanner. While Jacobs's story as a community organiser and Moses's as planner have both been scrupulously recorded, Flint's intention was to give both equal prominence in the same book. He falls short in that effort, however, as it mostly reads from the view of Jacobs fighting against a rather faceless boogie man. At times, it also fee...more
Unlike Robert Caro's magisterial The Power Broker, about Robert Moses, this one's a quick read. I especially enjoyed learning more about Jacobs (whose Death and Life of Great American Cities has been on my TBR pile for far too long). While there's an attempt at the end to balance the good with the bad in Moses' career, it's Jacobs who is at the heart of this story, and I found myself wishing there was more on her later life and work in Toronto.
Living in a New York City which is flour...more
Living in a New York City which is flour...more
The story of Robert Moses, a manically driven city planner with a vision of New York as infrastructure, verses Jane Jacobs, the folk hero of Greenwich village and matriarch of contemporary planning. The story is familiar, but it never gets old.
I met the author at school. He said the book had been labeled "beach reading for urban planners." That seems about right. He also mentioned that he conceived the idea during Alex Krieger's course on planning history. Krieger (whose cl...more
I met the author at school. He said the book had been labeled "beach reading for urban planners." That seems about right. He also mentioned that he conceived the idea during Alex Krieger's course on planning history. Krieger (whose cl...more
Compelling yarn about how Jane Jacobs, a Greenwich Village writer and mom, took on one of New York's most influential urban-planning power brokers and won. Told from a an earnest-yet-accessible angle (I think the author himself called it "beach-reading for urban planners") it manages to draw both Jacobs and Moses with depth and nuance -- even going so far, at the end of the book, as to show that the pendulum may have swung a bit too far in Jacobs's direction of late: When latter-day "...more
As a big fan of Jane Jacobs, I was really looking forward to this book, but it was a big disappointment. The writing is mundane and the author makes the huge battles between Jacobs and Moses (grassroots/neighborhood folks v. urban redevelopment) sort of boring and Jane Jacobs herself almost unlikeable (which maybe she was) while actually and completely unintentionally making Robert Moses somewhat sympathetic. But it does make very clear the significant about turn in urban planning that was pro...more
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Three seminal battles over NYC Urban Planning. It's biased in the sense that Flint chooses three events where Jacobs and her peers defeat Moses, but I'd say there could be a much uglier portrait of Robert Moses. Maybe that's to be found in The Power Broker, but I don't know that I have time for its 1300 pages. This slim volume is an accessible guide to what Jacobs did to preserve NYC's essential character. In two of the three battles that boiled down to not superimposing motorways in certain urb...more
DJ Yossarian
rated it
Having read Death and Life of Great American Cities about 20 years ago, I found this book about its author and the causes she championed to be enthralling, even-handed, and well-written. Flint doesn't demonize Robert Moses, and gives him due credit for the parks, beach facilities, and bridges he built. The author also demonstrates that, although Moses was extraordinary in both his maniacal work ethic and the amount of power he amassed, his approach to how cities should be revitalized was very mu...more
Over a decade ago I had the pleasure of taking Professor Kenneth Jackson's great course "History of the City of New York" at Columbia. As a Computer Science undergrad I was a bit scared to take the course, my required reading was generally much different in scale and scope from history courses. I emailed the professor that summer and asked what texts might be included, hoping to both get a head start and to pick up used copies. I received a kind reply and two books listed were The Powe...more
This book is a great introduction to Jacobs: her life before, during, and after her most popular battle with "the establishment" and the reasons she penned "Death and Life of Great American Cities". (Which is now on my reading list.)
Many consider her to be libertarian, many conservative, some liberal - but I believe she was simply focused on fighting for what she believed to be the best human living conditions possible...in the heart of a vibrant urban neighborho...more
Many consider her to be libertarian, many conservative, some liberal - but I believe she was simply focused on fighting for what she believed to be the best human living conditions possible...in the heart of a vibrant urban neighborho...more
This is a good fast read and is a great follow up to Robert Caro's tome "The Power Broker" The subject matter is a must for anyone who cares for cities. It made me want to read Jane Jacobs actually books. One picky comment is that the author sometimes doesn't get his neighborhoods and directions correct, he places Sty Town in the Lower East Side, when it is above 14th Street well out of the bounds the neighborhood, and says that Gramercy Park is a few blocks east of Washington Square ...more
THis book is rad, if you love New York history books. Its all about the battle between Robert Moses, who build all of these famous NYC things like bridges, state parks, playgrounds, Lincoln Center, the U.N, Shea Stadium, Jones Beach, and Central Park Zoo, and Jane Jacobs, who kept him from destroying Washington Square Park, the West Village, and SoHo. Cool stuff. Did you know Washington Square Park hosted a gallows, a burial ground for paupers, a parade ground for soldiers, and when it was a ...more
I was captivated by this story from the first to last page. Jane Jacobs advocacy for high density urbansim and historic preservation is well known. Robert Moses' philosphy of modernizing and slum clearance is well known. But what this book does is capture their battle for the soul of New York city like nothing I have read before.
I highly reccomend for those who care about the making of our cities.
I highly reccomend for those who care about the making of our cities.
As a Jane Jacobs fan, I was excited to read this book about her efforts to preserve the neighborhoods of NY against the madness of Moses, a New Havener by birth. It wasn't nearly as long as I thought it would be, but it did prove to be interesting to me as a city lover and a fan of municipal understanding. Made me admire Jacobs even more, and also feel complicated about Moses and want to know more about him. Finished it on the beach on an island, far from Manhatten.
An excellent primer in the conflicts that lead Jane Jacobs to write "The Life and Death of American Cities," this short book also provides some explanation for why modern-day American cities (particularly New York City) look the way that they do. If Jacob's opus is a must-read, this is a useful companion piece.
I was spoiled by "Boozy: The Life, Death, and Subsequent Vilification of Le Corbusier and, more importantly, Robert Moses," which tells the outlines of this particular story with a lot more ironic downtown verve and a whole lot more poetic license. (Oh, and less theory, which I hardly need more of.)
A quick and information packed book. Well written and well researched. I learned so much. Have always like Jane Jacobs and enjoyed finding out more about her as a person. Her views fit in with where I am at in terms of thinking about community. I loved her tenacity and originality and her fearlessness as she took on Moses and the developers. Some of what Moses accomplished was amazing as well.
This book was definitely an inspirational take on the power of citizen activism. I really enjoyed it and it made me want to read Jacobs' Death & Life of American Cities and the PowerBroker (biography on Robert Moses). It also makes me want to take a trip down to the West Village!
A very interesting book about the advent of greater citizen involvement in public works projects. It certainly made me see the Water Bureau's current dealings with the local neighborhood associations in a different light. I think the author was very even handed - not portraying Moses as a devil, or Jacobs as an angel.
Chris
is currently reading it
This book is about how housewife/journalist/reformer Jane Jacobs stood up to developer/politico Robert Moses, and was instrumental in shaping the future of New York City. Fascinating -- a true story of the power of the individual to make a difference.
G. Hilgemeier
added it
Fast paced account of the battles between David & Goliath (ie Jacobs v Robert Moses.) Well written, although the account suffers from his biases. He makes Ms. Jacobs into too much of a saint at times.
I feel like I have written "YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK IF YOU CARE AT ALL ABOUT CITIES" a few too many times. This book was actually just okay. It probably would have made a good magazine article.
A wonderful read! Dramatic and suspenseful at times, even though I knew the outcome. I'll never walk through Washington Square Park or down Broome Street again without offering up a thought of gratitude for the intrepid Jane. Her efforts were truly heroic.
A good overview of Moses' downfall in over-reaching, without reading Caro's 1000+ page bio of the man - ditto on Jane Jacobs and her oeuvre.
A well written book chronicling the land use debates of the 50s and 60s and the lives of Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses.
For those of us j-school students who didn't have time to read The Power Broker. Now in period specific form.
Did you ever read a book that you just wanted to end so you could get on with the next one? This is well-written and interesting enough that I continued reading it, but it took much longer than I would have liked.
had to read it for class, definitely a good read!
Holly
marked it as to-read
mentioned at 2010 APA conference as a top read
Kieran
marked it as to-read
Dad recommended it and lent me his copy......
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Anthony Flint is author of "Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York's Master Builder and Transformed the American City." A journalist for twenty years, primarily at The Boston Globe, he writes about architecture, urban planning and sustainability. He was a visiting scholar and Loeb fellow at the Harvard Design School, and also served in the Office for Commonwealth Developm...more
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