The power broker : Robert Moses and the fall of New York

by Caro, Robert A

  This fear turned out to be justified. The Port Authority found Singstad innocent of every charge except failing to report his brother-in-law's holdings, for which offense, in light of the other exonerating evidence, it gave the engineer only a mild censure. At least one board member expressed "great regret" that the Authority had dignified the accusations even to that extent. The Tunnel Authority's official report not only also absolved Singstad of any wrongdoing but stated that the innuendos which started the investigation were "unjust, unfair and untrue." But Moses, after apparently giving La

  Guardia an oral version of the affair, obtained and passed along to the Mayor, "for your confidential information," a transcript of the Port Authority hearings—along with a covering letter of his own that bore the Moses stamp. "This will tell you the Singstad story," Moses wrote. "You will see that in the end, Singstad and his family did not succeed in getting the high price they demanded in condemnation."

  No one but Moses, of course, had even suggested that Singstad had demanded a high condemnation price. Two investigations, in fact, had concluded that, whatever price was paid, Singstad was not going to get a penny of it. But to find out how misleading Moses' letter was, La Guardia would have had to wade through the lengthy, complicated hearing transcript. And Moses' letter went further. To undercut the Port Authority's exoneration of Singstad, he quoted his old friend Authority vice chairman Howard S. Cullman as telling him in private: "It is my understanding that [Singstad] more than told untruths throughout the whole situation, and it was finally ferreted out that he himself had approximately $50,000 invested therein."

  Whether Cullman actually said this to Moses cannot be determined— Cullman refuses to discuss the investigation—but if he did, his charge is disproven by two separate investigations. Moreover, the best proof of whether Moses himself really believed what he was telling the Mayor is the Park Commissioner's own subsequent actions: in 1944, Jack Madigan, attempting again on Moses' behalf to persuade Singstad to undermine his own commissioners, assured the engineer that if he did so and thereby helped Moses take over the Authority, he could remain its chief engineer as long as he wished. (Singstad refused the offer.) But Moses' letter had the desired effect. The Mayor, who at the time believed that his long campaign for national office was about to be capped with success, was desperate to avoid a scandal. He knew that Moses was capable of creating such a scandal if he was not given his way. "Moses kept wearing him down, talking about a 'mess,' always pressing him, wearing him down, wearing him down," Windels says. And when, in 1945, Moses was presented with an opportunity to take over the Tunnel Authority without public fuss, La Guardia, who had been holding out against such a takeover for nine years—ever since the day in 1936 when he had instructed Reuben Lazarus, "Leave the son of a bitch off" —held out no longer.

  The opportunity arose because the Tunnel Authority commissioners— novices in the political arena and unaware of the potentialities for power in their Authority—had not grasped the fact that someone was trying to take it over. Thinking of the Authority only as a builder of public works, they believed that as long as they were building public works competently and honestly, the Mayor would continue them in office. Not seeing the threat posed to them by Moses' ambition, they gave Moses the opening he needed.

  Their error was not one of commission but only of omission. It occurred after one of the three members of the Tunnel Authority, Albert T. Johnston, died, in 1943.

  With the Authority unable to proceed with any projects during the war, the other two members, Alfred B. Jones and William H. Friedman, saw no necessity for the vacancy to be immediately filled. "I think that if Jones and Friedman had recommended another man, La Guardia would have followed the recommendation," Singstad says. "But they didn't think there was any pressing haste." The only name submitted was submitted—secretly—by Moses: Howard S. Cullman. La Guardia, his defenses not yet weakened to the point of caving in, rejected that recommendation, but no one gave him another, and, in the rush of more pressing affairs, Johnston's seat remained unfilled. And as a result, when, on July i, 1945, Friedman's term expired, there would be vacant not one but two seats—a majority, enough for a takeover and, moreover, for a quiet takeover that could be accomplished simply by the apparently routine filling of two vacancies and that therefore would not lead, as a more dramatic change in management might lead, to press curiosity that carried the threat of scandal.

  Friedman and Jones had no inkling of what was happening until it had happened. With the expiration of his first term on the Authority drawing near six years earlier, Friedman had sent a brief note reminding the Mayor of that fact, and the Mayor had promptly reappointed him. Now, expecting a similar sequence, Friedman on June 15, 1945, sent La Guardia a similar note. But when he received the Mayor's reply this time, the key phrases that jumped out at him were, to his shock: "My dear Bill . . . splendid services . . . You were one of the pioneers. . . . For some time I have been considering the reorganization of the Tunnel Authority and believe that great economies may be effectuated. Therefore I will be able to relieve you of your duties when your term expires. . . ."

  "Friedman had been a good friend of the Mayor's," Singstad recalls. "He was the most surprised man in the world." Understanding of the reason behind La Guardia's decision came only when he read (in brief, inside-page articles) that the Mayor had announced that, in the interest of undefined "economies," he had decided to merge the Tunnel and Triborough authorities, and, while the details of the major refinancing and new bond issue required were being worked out, to "interlock" the two bodies by placing them under the same management—Triborough's management, as it turned out, for he appointed to the two Tunnel Authority vacancies Robert Moses and his Triborough sidekick, banker George V. (the Fifth) McLaughlin.

  To try to gain the third vote on the board—required on all major contracts—Moses shouted at Jones, a quiet, meek Quaker, at board meetings, and insulted him to his face. When Jones tried to counter this tactic by refusing to attend meetings, Moses wrote him: "There are just two courses open to you." One is resignation, "the sensible thing for you to do. . . . If you decline to do this ... we shall have to ask the Mayor to remove you . . . on the basis of charges which we shall prefer." And these charges, he said, "will necessarily include reference to . . . the various messes which the Authority was in when the Mayor decided to reorganize it." Jones, no

  politician—he had accepted the Authority post only because it would give him the opportunity to render a public service—suddenly found that continuing to hold the job would involve his name in scandal; even though no "messes" existed, the Authority's war-caused financial difficulties would make it easy to convince the public that they did, particularly if they were made public in the context of "charges" lodged against him. With his choices narrowed down to two—resignation or dishonor—on April 24, 1946, he resigned, to be replaced by Charles G. Meyer, the other member of Moses' Triborough Board.

  Fearson Shortridge, who for years had been meeting Moses on the Gracie Terrace promenade while the two men were walking their dogs in the evening, had believed "we were very friendly personally." Now he found that either he had been mistaken or friendship did not count for much with Moses: Moses fired him, appointing George Spargo in his place, without a word of warning; I "found out about it by reading The New York Times," Shortridge recalls. Moses also fired Ole Singstad, of course, replacing him as the Authority's chief engineer with a Yale classmate, Ralph Smillie, and he fired men who had been no more than innocent bystanders in his long feud with the Norwegian—the engineers whom Singstad had recruited from all over the United States.

  For nine years, Robert Moses had been seeking control of the Tunnel Authority. Now he had control. He had been unable to prevent the construction of the Authority's Queens-Midtown and Brooklyn-Battery tunnels, but now those tunnels—and their revenues—were his. New York was a city divided by water, split by rivers and bays. Every modern water crossing within the city's borders, not
only those above the water but those beneath it, not only every bridge but every tunnel constructed within the city's borders for the use of motor vehicles since 1909, was now under the control of authorities that he controlled. More important, all new water crossings would also be under his control.

  The city was obviously not in the foreseeable future going to be able to build new water crossings itself. Only the authorities—his authorities— would be able to build them. He and he alone would be able to decide which crossings would be built and when, what their shape and design would be and where their approach roads would run.

  He and he alone, moreover, would decide what tolls would be charged on these crossings. For with his takeover of the Tunnel Authority, he now possessed a monopoly over those public facilities for motor transportation within the city which produced revenue.

  America's nineteenth-century robber barons had understood the importance of monopoly, absolute monopoly. They had not been satisfied until they had eliminated all competitors.

  Robert Moses, whose aim was not economic but political power but whose power would have to rest not on political but on economic factors, had understood that competition was a threat to his aims. He had schemed for ten years to remove that threat, to obtain over all modern water crossings

  within New York—the water crossings that were a key to all automobile transportation within the city—an absolute monopoly.

  And now he had that monopoly. Henceforth, for the remaining quarter of a century in which he would be in power, no motorist would be able to use a modern bridge or tunnel in New York City without paying his authorities tribute.

  The struggles by which the industrial robber barons had built up their empires broke into public view infrequently. For the most part, only the results were announced. The battles which decided the results took place in secret.

  So did the battle which cemented Robert Moses' economic power. His public battle against the Tunnel Authority—his campaign of thundering press releases and barrages of statistics designed to persuade the city and its officials that the Battery Crossing should be a bridge and not a tunnel— had failed. The battle in which he destroyed the Tunnel Authority was one shrouded from beginning to end in secrecy. The stakes involved were vast. They included not only control of two of the largest public works projects in America but also the right to build and control a public work that would be far larger than either: the Narrows Crossing. They included the right to award contracts for the completion of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, the Battery Parking Garage and the Narrows Crossing, contracts that would total more than half a billion dollars, with all the immense patronage and power that such a right conferred, and also the right to dispose of the immense annual revenues these three projects and the Queens-Midtown Tunnel would generate, revenues that by 1968 would be running more than $30,000,000 per year. They included the capitalization power of this annual $30,000,000—to build more public works that would generate more cash: capitalization power that by 1968 would amount to half a billion dollars more. And cash—even half a billion dollars in cash—was only a small part of the stakes involved. The significance of the battle went far beyond economics. For at stake also was the issue of whether control of revenue-producing water crossings in the city would in effect be turned over to a single individual, of whether one man would be given a monopoly over all toll receipts paid by motor vehicles in a great city largely dependent upon motor transportation. For concentrating economic power in motor transportation within the city in one man would give that man a voice in all transportation policies within the city at least equal to that of the city itself. But the city itself never was given an opportunity to learn the battle's significance, or to watch it unfold. All during 1942, 1943 and 1944, while Moses and Singstad were maneuvering with RFC officials or La Guardia, while Moses was smearing Singstad and the Tunnel Authority was clearing him, not a single story on the maneuvering appeared in any newspaper. Not a word even hinting at the existence of a behind-the-scenes conflict between the two public authorities was printed.

  Moses had repeatedly ridiculed not only Singstad's honesty but his engineering ability.

  He had written La Guardia: "We do not trust Mr. Singstad. We have another man, much more competent and much more reliable, to take his place." Whether he himself believed what he was saying may be judged by his actions. Singstad's plans for the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel were used with only one modification of any substance. (And this modification—the use of a different method of waterproofing—caused the one engineering flaw in the tunnel, a persistent seepage that eventually had to be corrected— by reverting to Singstad's method.) Moreover, Moses' emissaries asked Singstad to continue with his plans for the Battery Parking Garage, down to the most detailed blueprints and contract specifications. Moses never discussed Singstad's plans with him. He went out of his way to avoid having to meet Singstad face to face. Singstad worked on them alone in his own office. But as each set was completed, Moses' engineers came to the Norwegian and took them, and used them—as drawn.

  Singstad took an office—at 17 Battery Place—whose windows looked down on Battery Park, on the portals of the tunnel that was his greatest creation and on Fort Clinton, whose sight he treasured for another reason: "Mr. Moses said it was going to fall down," the fiery Norwegian would laugh to visitors, pointing down at the red walls that looked solid indeed. "Well, it's still standing, isn't it? Its foundations are carried down to solid rock, you know." And then, one palm pounding his desk, he would laugh, a short, harsh laugh that was more like a snort, and say, "Solid rock! I knew that. And Moses' engineers knew it, too."

  If Singstad could still laugh twenty-four years later at the recollection of his fight with Moses, the laughs came noticeably hard—and this was understandable. For Moses' revenge on him was thorough.

  While Moses was completing the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, he and Spargo took care to leave with reporters chronicling its construction the impression that Singstad had had little to do with its final form. Most of the reporters' stories scarcely mentioned him. When preparations for the opening ceremonies —elaborate preparations; not only the gleaming new parking garage and the white tunnel portals and access roads but the facades of adjacent office buildings, including 17 Battery Place, were draped with bunting, flags and mammoth pennons in a display of pageantry that transformed gray Lower Manhattan into a panorama of red, white and blue—were going forward, Singstad had to watch them from his window and know that he had not even been invited to the opening of the tunnel he had designed. (He was invited, on the day before the opening, apparently only because a Herald Tribune reporter raised the matter with one of Moses' lieutenants, and Moses did not want any stories on the injustice.) And when he read the brochure,

  twenty-eight glossy pages, printed in four colors, distributed in the thousands to the distinguished guests who were to ride through the tunnel in a long cavalcade led by the Mayor and Francis Cardinal Spellman, his cup of bitterness must have spilled over. The brochure listed twenty-one separate engineers as designers of facets of the project. The name of its true designer was not among them.

  Robert Moses could hate a long time. Ole Singstad was to continue practicing engineering until he died, at the age of eighty-seven, in 1969, twenty-four years after Robert Moses forced him out of the Tunnel Authority. During those twenty-four years, Singstad was to cement his reputation as the world's master tunnel builder, and exhibit a genius for highway design as well. He was to build tunnels and huge highways all over the United States, and all over Europe and South America, receiving knighthoods and medals for his work in Norway and Belgium and Chile. But he was never—during all those twenty-four years—to design or build a mile of highway in New York City or New York State, the city and state in which he lived.

  Shortly before his death, he was asked about this anomaly by the author, who mentioned that "at one time you were the most highly regarded tunnel authority in the world." Singstad's head snapped up and the pal
m of his unusually large right hand smacked down, and he glanced at the interviewer with a look that made it all too easy to see why Ole Singstad had been so dangerous an opponent. "Yeah," he said. "And I still am. And I'll tell you this. In spite of my reputation, since I retired as chief engineer of the Tunnel Authority—I told his Mr. Gumshoer Boy that I wouldn't be happy working with Moses when he tried to talk me into giving up my commissioners— since I retired after thirty-three years in the service of some subdivision of the state government, thirty-three years! Since that time, the state has spent hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars on work that I have done and could do, but I haven't had a single job from the State of New York. Not one! Just the other day, we were turned down for a highway job on Long Island. And I have been told by a friend in Albany, 'You are wasting your time trying to get jobs there as long as Robert Moses is living.' Ever since I retired, he has been hurting me in the pocketbook. And he has been hurting me in the pride. Ever since!"

  Singstad stood up, with astonishing violence for a man in his eighties, walked over to the window and looked down. It was a bleak January day and the wind whipping against the glass from off the Upper Bay was cold and bitter. It had piled snow against the red sandstone walls of the old fort.

  But the walls looked mighty solid all the same, and Singstad muttered, half under his breath, "All lies and fabrications. Lies and fabrications." And then, after a while, he said, aloud, "I'm not sorry. A. B. Jones was a Quaker, and Quakers don't fight, but he was a wonderful man. He was a very wonderful man. All my commissioners were wonderful men. I'm not sorry at all."