Robert Moses’s modern reputation solidified in the 1970s amid the publication of The Power Broker and New York’s period of crime, deindustrialization, and white flight.

“More importantly, no mayor or governor wanted to fire him. The way we remember Robert Moses today is based on a reputation that was calcified in the 1970s when The Power Broker came out and when New York was experiencing a dark age of crime, deindustrialization, and white flight.”