Everyone is Watching

by Megan Bradbury

  3

  Robert Moses is looking out of the window of a train at the towns and villages of Long Island. It is 1922. He is catching glimpses of the ocean, the glittering sun reflected across it, boats sailing there. As they come out of a town, he sees woodland in the distance that covers many acres. He doesn’t know what this land is used for. Then it’s gone.

  Moses loves the town of Babylon on Long Island where he is renting a bungalow with his wife. He can stroll through the quiet streets and down onto the beach. He can swim alone in the ocean. He is forceful yet elegant when he swims. He cuts through the water without a splash – he glides. He likes the ocean best when it is rough. He likes to work against a strong force. To watch him from above would be to watch a machine, the direct line of movement through the water caused by his body, those thick, broad shoulders, the wide, defined back.

  Robert Moses is busy working hard for the governor but there are many other things he wants to do. Most New Yorkers don’t get the chance to swim in the ocean. Children play baseball in streets that are congested with traffic. They swim in the East River, which is polluted with waste. Families live in overpopulated tenement slums with no access to gardens or public parks. Summers in Manhattan are unforgiving. People can die without relief. Those with automobiles drive to Long Island. But what looks like an hour’s drive on paper can, in reality, become four hours along such inadequate roads. Everyone is trying to get somewhere else but there is nowhere to go and no way to get there. People sit in traffic for hours at a time. They slowly pass the estates of the richest families in America, the Morgans and the Vanderbilts. They pass the columns and gated driveways, the turrets of castles, the lush manicured lawns of the rich.

  As Moses walks home from Babylon station, he thinks about the patch of woodland he sees every day from the train. No land should be left unused.

  Robert Moses pays a visit to the Babylon Town Hall and asks to see a map of the island.

  That woodland out by the coastline, he says to the clerk, what’s it used for?

  It’s the old Brooklyn water supply, the clerk says. A place to store water in case of a shortage. Never been used, as far as I know.

  Robert Moses obtains the use of a car and a driver. He is driven through Long Island along Merrick Road. At the end of the road he gets out of the car and climbs over the fence into the wood. He picks his way through the undergrowth, through the bracken and the wild grass, through bramble thickets. This is not just any wood but three thousand five hundred acres of forest. He finds four reservoir ponds with lilies growing there, and pickerel and trout swimming. He finds a reservoir bigger than that in Central Park. He can see it all in an instant, recreational parkland with tennis courts, baseball diamonds, and a golf course, picnic tables, hiking trails, lakes used for swimming, and enough space left over to build a road directed towards the ocean and a brand new public beach.

  Moses reads about the legends of the Great South Bay, about the shipwrecks and the fishermen there. He asks local oystermen about the island: which parts are unexplored? How can he get to them?

  Moses buys himself a small boat. His wife calls it the Bob. He goes out in the boat alone and scours the Long Island shore. He is looking for hidden coves, fjords, dunes and forests.

  There is a sandbar called Jones Beach just off the southern coast of Long Island that’s completely inaccessible except by boat. Moses lands his boat and drags it ashore. He sits on the deserted beach, which stretches as far as he can see, snow-white sand reaching east and west.

  Moses explores Jones Beach, walks up and down it. He sits and thinks. He walks through the undergrowth and wades in the ocean. He swims. Floating in the water, he looks back at the sandbar.

  Again, Moses throws his lunch into the Bob and heads out. It’s smooth sailing, just the glassy water beneath him and his own shadow cast across the boat’s hull. Not another boat to be seen on the ocean. Not a cloud in the sky. He is heading east to Fire Island, the next barrier beach. He cuts the engine and pulls the boat onto the sand. He shields his eyes from the sun. He walks through the sand dunes, the beach grass, the wild marshes. These things don’t appear on any of the maps he has seen. The place is clean and wild. Pure. Not polluted and overcrowded like Coney Island, no bawdy barkers or scandalous sideshows. No freaks. It is a natural place. This is the perfect environment, a clean slate. And it is growing. He finds himself in the middle of many acres of beach when, according to his map, he should be standing in the ocean. The tide has produced new land by doing what it does naturally. This is value produced by the passage of time, he thinks.

  Moses struggles against the powerhouses of City Hall, the institutions, the go-getters, the populists and idealists, the moneymen, the landowners, the engineers, the governor and the mayor. They all tell him no. They tell him there’s no money for this. They tell him nobody wants the roads and the bridges, and nobody cares about public beaches. The Governor Al Smith isn’t one for sports and recreation. He doesn’t like to watch baseball. He would never run. But this is the man Moses must convince.

  Al Smith was born in the Lower East Side in 1873. He learnt to swim in the East River by diving off ramshackle piers into the polluted water with his friends. The trash floating in the water was just part of the scenery. Smith’s whole world existed in the Lower East Side, for this was where the whole world lived, the greatest concentration of different nationalities in America. The streets were his playground, his recreation yard, the dark alleyways the running lanes, burst drains the waterholes, loose sidewalk stones the obstacle course. He witnessed the completion of Brooklyn Bridge from his tenement window. His family were Irish and Italian. He understood what it was like to be an outsider and to take advantage of opportunities when they came. He wasn’t educated like the other politicians. He didn’t understand the politicians when they spoke. He did not know the process of drafting a bill. He took the bills home and he read them all. He read everything he could to help him understand. He was not privileged but people liked him. He had a certain way with people. He could look a fellow in the eye. He told a man straight what he knew. He knew everyone in the neighbourhood. He knew what life was like for them. He lived, not in wealthy uptown housing like the other politicians but downtown.

  So why take a shine to Robert Moses? This Yale-educated, professional, literary young man? Did he see the makings of a good human being in that sparkle in his eye? Was it Moses’ ideals that he approved of? In the beginning, Moses had many.

  Moses makes Al Smith get out of the car and he points to where the parkway will go. He explains the layout of the bridge approach and the crossing to the sandbar off the coast, which will be Jones Beach.

  Moses says, This is where the central parkway will come over and the entrance to the east bathhouse will be here, and on either side of the causeway will be parking lots, and just there will be the refreshment house with a boardwalk running along the outer edge, and the beach beyond that. Lifeguards will be stationed at regular intervals, and we will put the locker rooms beside the first-aid booth, and there will be services inside those locker rooms: lavatories, showers, lockers and diaper-changing rooms. This is where the theatre will go, a curving outer wall and stone benches, and there will be bathrooms and dressing rooms back stage. There will be swimming pools and diving pools, sun loungers, chairs and tables, and a restaurant beside that. Further along will be the games area, shuffleboard, table and paddle tennis, roller-skating rinks and a pitch-and-putt course. And here, an area for additional shade. Beach grass will be planted by hand to keep the dunes in place. Can you see it, Governor?

  My God, says Smith.

  In 1924 Al Smith appoints Robert Moses the head of the Long Island State Park Commission. Moses takes his security and the chauffeured car and he walks through the back gardens of the properties on Long Island, flashing his new City Hall credentials. He notes down the dimensions of the land. He measures with tape and takes photographs. He instructs his men to do the same. When he looks at the stat
ely mansions, he is looking right through them. He does not see the protests from the owners at all. He is seeing what this land could be without these houses, without these men standing in his way.

  Al Smith takes Moses by the arm and they stroll through the Lower East Side. They walk down Orchard Street, along Delancey, up the Bowery, pass over to Mott Street. They walk through the crowds of people huddled over goods for sale in the street market stalls. Smith stops to shake a few people by the hand.

  Al! they say. How’s Katie? Let me shake your hand.

  Smith says to Moses, This is how a city is run. You have to be prepared to shake hands with ordinary people.

  Moses visits one Long Island farm on a number of occasions. At first, he is the most charming man the family has ever met, suit jacket slung casually over his shoulder as his broad figure strolls across the open fields. He stops to take in a deep breath of air. The family are waiting for this important man to speak. It is as if he has seen a little piece of heaven in what they are doing here. Hell, they think he is going to give them money to see the whole place preserved as it is. Inside the house, Moses helps the mother to make the coffee and talks about his childhood in Connecticut, how wonderful it was to live in all that open space. He asks the mother about her own children: Are they healthy? Do they enjoy living in the country? He explains that for Manhattan’s children it’s not so easy – the lack of space, the dirt, disease. If the children were taken out of Manhattan and shown this farm they just wouldn’t believe it.

  But it won’t stay that way for long, says Moses. The developers will get here sooner or later and they’ll tear this land up to build new houses. Soon the whole of New York State will be a sight to see, nothing but houses. The thing to do is to make parts of this region accessible to everyone. Allow those who live in the city to visit here once in a while. You should see the faces of these children. If you did, it would break your heart. All I need to do to improve their lives is to build one straight road from Brooklyn to Long Island. This is where I’m building my beach. How’s the farm doing? Moses asks, not to the father but to the mother. Her hesitation says it all. I’ll give you a good deal on this land. The road won’t be anywhere near the house. You’ll have enough money to buy more land elsewhere.

  We don’t want more land, the father says. We don’t want your money.

  I’ll let you think it over, Moses says.

  We’re not selling, says the father.

  Moses picks up his jacket and his hat. He thanks the mother for the coffee and wishes them all goodbye.

  Next time, Moses brings with him an army of suited men. He walks into the kitchen and drops the new plans onto the table. He says that the money he is offering is now half the original amount. And the road, which before ran up over the brow of the hill, now runs beside the house.

  The father says, You can’t do this – I’ll get a lawyer, I’ll—

  Moses laughs.

  Within six months they lose the farm.

  Merrick Road needs to be widened and turned into a parkway, and two other parkways must be built to connect Long Island to the sandbar. He will need to build a bridge across the water to the island, and he will need to raise the sandbar to make it high enough to build upon. He does not seek the approval from the owners of the estates on Long Island. Moses comes onto their land and measures up. They see him from their bedroom windows and call security. Moses returns with an armed guard and approval from the governor. The landowners take Moses to court, and for a while it looks like Moses might lose his precious beach. He is criticized for not going through the proper channels, for not negotiating with the other side. He has just waded in with fists flying.

  Being reasonable doesn’t get things done, he says.

  Moses waits for the season to turn hot when everyone is in the mood for beaches. Then he addresses the court, describing the conditions for ordinary people on sweltering New York days with no space for recreation or refreshment while the richest families in America use Long Island for their private playground. Now the papers have a story. Savior Moses. Hero Moses. He is one for the people. Where’s Our Beach?! Dying for the sake of a little fresh air! Moses has realized that if you are for beaches then you are for the public. It’s so hot that everyone is for beaches. The whole city has gone beach mad.

  What the courts don’t know is that Moses has already started to build his beach. He has bulldozed the woodland and laid the foundations for access roads. He has measured out the perimeter dimensions and brought in all the materials. Now what court in this country is going to order the reversal of hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of work?

  He says, Once you sink that first stake, they’ll never make you pull it up.

  4

  Richard Maurice Bucke is standing on a railway platform on a crisp, clear morning in 1891. He is waiting for Walt Whitman. What he sees is the hustle and bustle of people waving through the polluted air with hands and pocket books. Other passengers climb aboard the train for the beginning of their journey but this moment marks the beginning of the end of Bucke’s, for he and Walt will part company when they reach New York City.

  In his hand Bucke is holding a notebook in which he will write another biography of Walt. Thinking of the original biography now, it seems inadequately slim and out of date. He could write five or six more volumes about his friend.

  Bucke first encountered Leaves of Grass when he heard it being read at a party. Afterwards he felt a series of impressions held together like beads on a string. It was no longer the real world he knew but the world left behind in the wake of poetic revelation. Bucke rested in a valley between exact reality and poetic truth, for suddenly he possessed the words but not the man. Bucke wanted the man. He found him eventually in his home in Camden. He spoke with Walt at length about his poetry. Bucke has been trying to describe his friend ever since, but the more Bucke writes the more he finds he cannot prove him. He cannot set him on the page, pin him down, pin him to the ground. Walt is magnificent. Bucke remembers riding home from the party and experiencing a feeling of light and fire. He felt the world fall down. This feeling has remained. It is not easy to live with the sudden knowledge of possibility, to feel it in the blood, hot and terrible.

  Bucke moves to the centre of the platform. Beyond the railway the horizon is a shimmering line. Porters throw bags on and off the train. What Bucke is seeing are the definite actions of strangers about to form new lives, perhaps he is also. He is ready. He is waiting. But Walt is always late.

  Walt is watching a porter leaning against a stack of trunks. It is as if the trunks are an extension of his body; they are as tall and as solid as he is. This man is lost in a dream. He hears no noise, no hiss of steam, no voices. These trunks will eventually be separated and restacked within the carriage and this man will be left upon the platform. Walt will sit within the train and the train itself will depart. Perhaps he will see this man from inside the train, waiting on the platform as the train moves on.

  His friend Bucke is writing another biography. It will be another souvenir of Walt’s life. Walt wants this great book to be written. It will help Walt remember the places he’s been.

  He was born on Long Island. He often stood on the shores there and felt the great spray of ocean spatter his face. He walked across the sand and sat down in the beach grass. This was where he read his books. He explored the coves and beaches. He found rare shells and milkstones there. He kept them all as souvenirs of the place he loved most.

  The first ships landed at Long Island. Sailors pinned their shaky steps onto its golden shores and headed west to Brooklyn. Brooklyn was lush and hilly then with wild open space and undulating vistas. What the men saw was possibility. They realized they could use the land. They looked at Manhattan and they said, No one lives there. It is too hard to live there. It is difficult to get to. Nothing will ever grow there. Brooklyn was where the crops were grown. Brooklyn was where the seeds were sown. Brooklyn was soft and penetrable. Grass grew. Men built
houses, churches, beaches, ports and piers. This is where Walt is from, from Long Island and from Brooklyn. Walt is going home to that hilly, fertile place.

  5

  Patti and Robert drag a mattress back to their apartment in Brooklyn and scrub it with a scrubbing brush and bicarbonate of soda. Robert picks out black sheets. He jokes that Patti is his sacrifice. They set up altars and paint the walls.

  They adopt a routine called ‘One Day–Two Day’. If one of them is down the other has to be up. This is the only way they can survive. It is a great responsibility. The presence of one makes the other feel whole.

  One day Robert goes to a gallery and Patti stays home. The next day Patti goes to a gallery and Robert stays home. They describe to one another what they saw. Patti is better at this than Robert. Often, Robert spends so long getting dressed up that by the time he arrives at the gallery the building has closed.

  The best artworks Patti makes are the gifts she gives to Robert. She makes Robert an advent calendar. Behind every door is a picture of her.

  Patti once stole an encyclopaedia from the local store in her hometown. She stuffed it under her shirt, but the fucking thing was huge.

  Show us what you have there, miss.