Podcasts about Cross Bronx Expressway

“Tell me your zip code, and I'll tell you your life expectancy” famously stated by Dr. Anthony Iton of University of California - Berkeley to describe the dynamic relationship between race, class, neighborhood design, and public health. This episode is about just Environmental Justice - defined in community organizing as “the right of all people to live, work, and play in a clean and healthy environment, regardless of race, class, gender, or geography”. The host of the Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast, Jasmine, is joined by Brittany Simmons, better known as @signedbritt to her 70,000+ followers on social media, to discuss environmental justice (injustice). Brittany is an urban planning professional with a content creation platform on Instagram, TikTok, and Substack. This episode is one of a 26-part series titled “The Planning Alphabet” on the for the city girls Substack website. In the episode the host and special guest discuss zip code 48217 in Detroit, known as Michigan's most polluted zip code. In which the neighborhood's predominantly Black residents have been in a decades-long fight with the adjacent oil refinery company over air pollution and related asthma, cancer, and mental health issues. The Flint Michigan Water Crisis, Cancer Alley in Louisiana, and the Cross-Bronx Expressway are a handful of examples of environmental injustice in the United States. These are cases of air, water, and soil pollution that result from policy decisions and disproportionately impact minority and low-income communities negatively. In the episode, the host and special guest Brittany Simmons discuss the evolution of environmental justice from smoke-stacks and waste dumping to highways and food deserts as well as the implications of environmental quality on human health outcomes. Brittany Simmons Bio:Brittany Simmons is a Detroit-based urban planner and storyteller who leads place-based, community-driven strategies to create more livable and equitable, vibrant cities. With experience in both New York City and Detroit, she brings a creative, interdisciplinary lens to urban planning, rooted in a deep understanding of people, place, and culture. Brittany's expertise in community engagement ensures that local voices are centered at every stage of planning and development. Beyond her professional practice, she is also a content creator who shares insights on urban planning and city life, making the field more accessible and inspiring new conversations about the future of our cities. Share this episode with a friend who cares about their neighborhood! Thank you for listening to The Four Degrees to the Streets Podcast! Follow us on Instagram @the4degreespod and send us an email at fourdegreestothestreetspod@gmail.com.Connect with Brittany on Instagram and TikTok @signedbritt and subscribe to the for the city girls Substack here.

This episode blends sacred aesthetics, urban design, dharmic leadership, and bhakti wisdom into one compelling conversation. A perfect listen for seekers, city dwellers, and anyone wondering why the world feels off—and how to realign it. Raghunath and Kaustubha explore a luminous vision of divine-centered living from the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam—where elephants spray perfume, love flows between citizens and leaders, and the architecture reflects a sacred inner life. But this isn't just some mythic utopia. It's a blueprint. Key Highlights: * Simone Weil's insight: “To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.” * What Ayodhya, Delhi and the Cross Bronx Expressway tell us about spiritual disconnection * The loop of degradation—and how to break it * Lessons from Christian cathedrals, Hindu temples

This episode blends sacred aesthetics, urban design, dharmic leadership, and bhakti wisdom into one compelling conversation. A perfect listen for seekers, city dwellers, and anyone wondering why the world feels off—and how to realign it. Raghunath and Kaustubha explore a luminous vision of divine-centered living from the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam—where elephants spray perfume, love flows between citizens and leaders, and the architecture reflects a sacred inner life. But this isn't just some mythic utopia. It's a blueprint. Key Highlights: * Simone Weil's insight: “To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.” * What Ayodhya, Delhi and the Cross Bronx Expressway tell us about spiritual disconnection * The loop of degradation—and how to break it * Lessons from Christian cathedrals, Hindu temples

One of the most powerful tools in the fight against climate change is the money sitting in investment portfolios - especially the trillions of dollars invested on behalf of public retirees. That's money that could continue to fund fossil fuel development, or help pay for  climate solutions instead.New York City has implemented an ambitious Net Zero plan for its public pensions. That plan includes divesting from some fossil fuel companies and investing billions of dollars in climate solutions. One company benefiting from that investment is NineDot Energy.   Wedged between an elementary school and a big box shopping center in the Northeast Bronx, NineDot Energy is operating a battery farm that the city's utility company, Con Ed, can call on to help relieve the grid when it gets overstressed. “The batteries hold a combined three megawatts of battery storage. That's enough to power about 3,000 New York City households for four hours on a hot summer day. Last summer, the battery farm was called half a dozen times, which was enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a combined 24 metric tons. That's the equivalent of nine thousand car trips on the Cross Bronx Expressway.Currently, the city has the dirtiest energy grid in the state. More than 90% of its power comes from fossil fuels. NineDot Energy is still in growth mode, but battery farms like this could eventually help the grid transition to renewable sources, like wind and solar.“The sun only shines when nature tells it to; the wind only blows when nature tells it to, but people use electricity when they decide to,” explained Adam Cohen, co-founder of NineDot Energy. “A battery helps mediate that process. It pulls in the extra power when it's available, and then puts it back out when people call for it.” On a recent visit to the Bronx facility, 12-year-old Virtue Onoja showed off a mural she helped paint along with other students from the elementary school across the street, envisioning a future powered by cleaner energy.“One thing about me, I'm definitely an artist,” she said. “I drew a clear blue sky, no pollution, no nothing [and] beautiful yellow flowers and the sun.”There are also drawings of windmills and electric school buses. “There's still a lot of pollution, not just in the Bronx, but just in New York in general,” Onoja said. “All of this is the goal that we want to achieve.”This is an excerpt from the latest season of How We Survive. Listen to the full episode here.

One of the most powerful tools in the fight against climate change is the money sitting in investment portfolios - especially the trillions of dollars invested on behalf of public retirees. That's money that could continue to fund fossil fuel development, or help pay for  climate solutions instead.New York City has implemented an ambitious Net Zero plan for its public pensions. That plan includes divesting from some fossil fuel companies and investing billions of dollars in climate solutions. One company benefiting from that investment is NineDot Energy.   Wedged between an elementary school and a big box shopping center in the Northeast Bronx, NineDot Energy is operating a battery farm that the city's utility company, Con Ed, can call on to help relieve the grid when it gets overstressed. “The batteries hold a combined three megawatts of battery storage. That's enough to power about 3,000 New York City households for four hours on a hot summer day. Last summer, the battery farm was called half a dozen times, which was enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a combined 24 metric tons. That's the equivalent of nine thousand car trips on the Cross Bronx Expressway.Currently, the city has the dirtiest energy grid in the state. More than 90% of its power comes from fossil fuels. NineDot Energy is still in growth mode, but battery farms like this could eventually help the grid transition to renewable sources, like wind and solar.“The sun only shines when nature tells it to; the wind only blows when nature tells it to, but people use electricity when they decide to,” explained Adam Cohen, co-founder of NineDot Energy. “A battery helps mediate that process. It pulls in the extra power when it's available, and then puts it back out when people call for it.” On a recent visit to the Bronx facility, 12-year-old Virtue Onoja showed off a mural she helped paint along with other students from the elementary school across the street, envisioning a future powered by cleaner energy.“One thing about me, I'm definitely an artist,” she said. “I drew a clear blue sky, no pollution, no nothing [and] beautiful yellow flowers and the sun.”There are also drawings of windmills and electric school buses. “There's still a lot of pollution, not just in the Bronx, but just in New York in general,” Onoja said. “All of this is the goal that we want to achieve.”This is an excerpt from the latest season of How We Survive. Listen to the full episode here.

Audrey is joined by Jaqi Cohen, Director of Climate and equity Policy at the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. TSTC advocates for increased mobility in the greater NYC region. Its priorities are expanding public transit, creating safer streets, transitioning away from fossil fuels, and fighting for equitable funding of transportation projects. Their approach is talking to communities to learn about the history of the neighborhood and what its residents' needs are. Jaqi's time at TSTC began when the pandemic decimated ridership and is currently in the exciting infancy of congestion pricing, two unprecedented milestones in transit.  ●     TSTC https://tstc.org/●     TSTC gala on May 9th, 2025 https://tstc.org/gala2025/●     NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign https://www.nypirg.org/straphangers/●     New York State Transportation Equity Alliance https://nystea.net/●     Congestion Relief Zone https://congestionreliefzone.mta.info/●     Cross Bronx Expressway project https://www.crossbronx.info/●     Bronx River Alliance https://bronxriver.org/●    Transportation Alternatives https://transalt.org/●    Riders Alliance https://www.ridersalliance.org/ 

New York teachers support Governor Hochul's proposal to ban student smartphone use during school hours, but school administrators are pushing back. Meanwhile, a North Jersey professor says his university lost his collection of 380-million-year-old fossils. Also, New York City is embarking on a multi-year effort to reconnect communities long divided by the Cross Bronx Expressway, while the Adams administration considers yet another redesign for the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. Plus, we continue our series on how COVID-19 has reshaped our lives. We hear from New Yorker Roland Tec's new morning ritual.

For those of us who live in New York, mass transit is the norm and traffic is a minor form of apocalypse. In response to this persistent issue, New York City implemented a new congestion pricing plan. https://youtu.be/TeObZEnjmv4?si=fQTxzRCe6b-sGH5F Besides the increased funds for badly-needed infrastructure improvements, the plan made other promises. These also include reduced commute times, better air-quality, and improved safety for all road users. https://www.amazon.com/Movement-Yorks-Long-Take-Streets-ebook/dp/B0CV9FNFWV/ Because the sample size is small, it is an open question of whether congestion pricing has delivered? Can it deliver? And how did we get from the horse and buggy, to the street car, to the train and automobile-based system we have now? Will it apply to other cities in the U.S.? Nicole Gelinas and I took some time to trace New York's transportation history in her new book and analyze the prospects for congestion pricing's effectiveness going forward. (*UPDATE: 20 minutes after we stopped recording on 2/19/25, President Trump announced that the U.S. Department of Transportation was pulling its approval of New York City's congestion pricing plan. Governor Holchul has met, apparently unsuccessfully, with President Trump on the topic. Litigation has already started. STAY TUNED.) NICOLE GELINAS, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder, is a Manhattan Institute senior fellow and contributing editor to City Journal. She lives in New York City. She is the author of the recent book, Movement: New York's Long War to Take Back Its Streets From the Car. Outline How did you get interested in congestion pricing and the development of transportation in NYC? New York City's Transit History What are some of the "tragedies" (Cross Bronx Expressway / death of streetcar) and "near misses" (The Saving of Washington Square Park and Grand Central Terminal) that we don't know about? How much credit or blame should we give Robert Moses? Congestion pricing- what is it trying to do (and is it trying to do too much)? As a revenue raiser To reduce congestion Help environment Quality of Life What are the early returns on its effectiveness?  (Anecdotally, to me it seems like it is having a positive congestion effect in Manhattan)  Uber/Taxis?  Notwithstanding these initiatives, what about these often empty cars? E-Bikes? Now that the city has addressed cars, what about the safety concerns of motorized bikes? How is the program affecting Westchester, Long Island, New Jersey and Connecticut?   As a result of these changes, has the air quality shown any improvement? Meanwhile, is London a Success?  Because of its heady reputation of being one of the most forward cities on congestion control, urban planners trot out London as an example for others. Is this warranted? (However, having been there in November, I thought the traffic was insane! ) Did they do other things to screw up a good initiative? Congestion Pricing's Future (*Before Trump's Involvement) I never met an automatic tax that a politician didn't see to expand and the tax is automatically going up by law, Regarding government's growing addiction to revenue, Will the program expand? Will the borders go north? Brooklyn? Queens?  Or can it go backward under Trump? Regardless, does the MTA have the will to cut costs? Notwithstanding the controversy, is there any political will to enhance safety? Wish list: What would be your favorite next NYC transportation initiative? If we want to learn more, what's the best way to get the book and keep track of your work? Further Details on NeW York's Congestion Pricing Plan https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Actually-Intelligent-Decision-Making-1-ebook/dp/B07FPQJJQT/

More than a dozen community and advocacy groups are joining forces against a $900 million “Five Bridges Project” to “transform” the Cross Bronx Expressway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the All Local afternoon update for November 25, 2024.

The New York City Council will question CUNY officials Monday about updates to its antisemitism policies after a third-party review. Meanwhile, transportation advocates and elected officials in the Bronx are protesting Governor Kathy Hochul's plan to add connector roads to the Cross Bronx Expressway during highway repairs. Also, severe drought in the Northeast has experts urging updates to water policies and conservation technologies. Plus, Mayor Eric Adams is pushing for changes to state law to make it easier to hospitalize people for psychiatric care against their will, following last week's deadly Manhattan stabbings. WNYC's Caroline Lewis has details on the mental health proposals being debated. Finally, Thanksgiving is near, and we want to hear your traditions! Nancy Peer of New Jersey shares her family's playful twist on the holiday.

Get up and get informed! Here's all the local news you need to start your day: Federal security agents were the first to confront the man accused of fatally stabbing three people in Manhattan on Monday. WNYC's Charles Lane reports. Meanwhile, a key City Council committee has approved Mayor Eric Adams' proposal to overhaul the city's zoning code, aiming to create tens of thousands of new homes. Also, the Sanitation Department is reminding New Yorkers to compost fallen leaves and yard waste instead of waiting for the city's annual leaf collection period. Plus, on this week's transportation segment of “On the Way,” WNYC's Stephen Nessen, Ramsey Khalifeh, and editor Clayton Guse discuss the MTA's phased congestion pricing plan, including toll hikes through 2031 and Republican opposition. They also examine plans for temporary connector roads during Cross-Bronx Expressway repairs and answer a listener's question about outdated Q train models and subway signal upgrades.

Former President Donald Trump made a swing through New York City this week to attend the annual Al Smith charity dinner. Plus, a new audit by New York State Comptroller says the State's Division of Human Rights routinely mishandled housing discrimination complaints. Also, the Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade returns Saturday with some changes to this year's event. And finally, WNYC's Michael Hill talks with Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez about the proposed redesign of the Cross Bronx Expressway.

This is the All Local 4 p.m. update for October 16, 2024.

New York City wants to redesign the Cross Bronx Expressway, long known for its pollution and noise issues. Meanwhile, the city is introducing new rules to limit emissions from large buildings. Plus, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has appointed Chauncey Parker, a former prosecutor and NYPD official, to replace Philip Banks, who resigned last week after the FBI raided his home. WNYC reporters Bahar Ostadan and Elizabeth Kim have more details.

Nick and Hannah both love board games. There I said it. So what are they doing in a Civics 101 episode? Well, from Student Council and Model UN to CIA intelligence acquisition scenarios, there is a fine line between games and simulation. We learn more about things when we pretend to do them. Today we talk to three designers about their civic-centric games; Tory Brown of Fort Circle Games discusses Votes for Women, Cole Wehrle of Wehrlegig Games breaks down John Company, and Non Breaking Space explains Cross Bronx Expressway, an upcoming game from GMT. CLICK HERE: Visit our website to donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more!

Send us a Text Message.Meg takes a drive on the Cross Bronx Expressway and spots Mayor Koch's Potemkin Village of decal covered bombed-out buildings. Jessica hops on her 10-speed and joins the bike messenger revolution, terrifying pedestrians and forever changing NYC cycling laws.Please check out our website, follow us on Instagram, on Facebook, and...WRITE US A REVIEW HEREWe'd LOVE to hear from you! Let us know if you have any ideas for stories HEREThank you for listening!Love,Meg and Jessica

A somewhat tongue in cheek conversation with Sebastian J. Bae. and Non-Breaking Space and two of Sebastian's professional war game cohorts - Rachel and Robert. We also talk about economic conflict, area control, exploitation, and coercion. This conversation was held during Circle DC '24 at the Franklin School building on the top floor of the Planet Word Museum.  Games mentioned in this episode:Root, Roads and Boats, Scrabble, Votes for Women, Chicago '68, Labyrinth, Cross Bronx Expressway, Littoral Commander, and Container. Support the showWe talk about board games and tabletop games!Follow us to stay in touch: Youtube.com/boardagaingamesFacebook.com/boardagaingaming

Get up and get informed! Here's all the local news you need to start your day: The NYPD is still searching for a suspect in connection to a double murder that happened in East Flatbush late Sunday. Also, New York City's Planning Department is asking Bronx residents what they'd want for the future of the Cross-Bronx Expressway. Plus, the MTA has begun activating on the subway's first OMNY vending machines.

Learn more at TheCityLife.org --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/citylifeorg/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/citylifeorg/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://thecitylife.org/2023/03/24/public-meetings-to-reimagine-the-cross-bronx-expressway-and-reconnect-communities-throughout-bronx-corridor/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/citylifeorg/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/citylifeorg/support

Speechwriter, novelist, essayist, and now memoirist Peter Quinn returns to Irish Stew to share tales from his home borough of New York City and beyond, captured in his new book, Cross Bronx: A Writing Life.Join us as Peter spins stories from his rise up through Irish American middle-class respectability in New York's northernmost borough, The Bronx, which Quinn describes as “a small-scale Yugoslavia. Ethnic enclaves were interspersed amid areas in which, though physically mingled; groups lived psychically apart. We thought of ourselves in terms of neighborhoods and parishes.”Quinn charts his shift from collaborative but anonymous work as a speechwriter at the highest echelons of political and corporate America, to his solitary, but no longer anonymous work writing Banished Children of Eve, Hour of the Cat, and other novels, and finally to the inward-looking, self-reflecting, warts-and-all odyssey of writing his memoir…a gift to his family and to us.We drive along Peter Quinn's personal Cross Bronx Expressway, though the twists and turns of his Irish American life, his family dynamics, his pull towards history, his dedication to the written word, his perceptions of the Irish in America, a few salty anecdotes on New York notables, and though it all, his on-again, off-again, ultimately eternally “on” love story with “The Girl from Hot Dog Beach.”Cross Bronx: A Writing Life is available at Fordham University Press and all major booksellers, including Amazon.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://thecitylife.org/2022/12/19/landmark-study-to-reimagine-cross-bronx-expressway/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/citylifeorg/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/citylifeorg/support

This is the All Local 5AM update for 11/29/22     

Wayne Cabot and Mack Rosenberg have the top stories from the WCBS newsroom, including a deadly crash on the Cross Bronx Expressway, the latest on the long-awaited LIRR East Side Access project, and unusual cyber activity in Suffolk County.

I had a fascinating discussion about Robert Moses and The Power Broker with Professor Kenneth T. Jackson.He's the pre-eminent historian on NYC and author of Robert Moses and The Modern City: The Transformation of New York.He answers:* Why are we so much worse at building things today?* Would NYC be like Detroit without the master builder?* Does it take a tyrant to stop NIMBY?Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here.Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.If you end up enjoying this episode, I would be super grateful if you share it, post it on Twitter, send it to your friends & group chats, and throw it up wherever else people might find it. Can't exaggerate how much it helps a small podcast like mine.A huge thanks to Graham Bessellieu for editing this podcast.Timestamps(0:00:00) Preview + Intro(0:11:13) How Moses Gained Power(0:18:22) Moses Saved NYC?(0:27:31) Moses the Startup Founder?(0:32:34) The Case Against Moses Highways(0:51:24) NIMBYism(1:03:44) Is Progress Cyclical(1:12:36) Friendship with Caro(1:20:41) Moses the Longtermist?.TranscriptThis transcript was produced by a program I wrote. If you consume my podcast via transcripts, let me know in the comments if this transcript was (or wasn't) an adequate substitute for the human edited transcripts in previous episodes.0:00:00 Preview + IntroKenneth Jackson 0:00:00Robert Moses represented a past, you know, a time when we wanted to build bridges and super highways and things that pretty much has gone on. We're not building super highways now. We're not building vast bridges like Moses built all the time. Had Robert Moses not lived, not done what he did, New York would have followed the trail of maybe Detroit. Essentially all the big roads, all the bridges, all the parks, the United Nations, Lincoln Center, the World's Fairs of 1939 and 1964, and hundreds of other things he built. And I think it was the best book I ever read. In broad strokes, it's correct. Robert Moses had more power than any urban figure in American history. He built incredible monuments. He was ruthless and arrogant and honest. Okay.Dwarkesh Patel 0:00:54I am really, really excited about this one. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Professor Kenneth T. Jackson about the life and legacy of Robert Moses. Professor Jackson is the preeminent historian on New York City. He was the director of the Herbert H. Lehman Center for American History and the Jock Barzun Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, where he has also shared the Department of History. And we were discussing Robert Moses. Professor Jackson is the author and editor of Robert Moses and the Modern City, the Transformation of New York. Professor Jackson, welcome to the podcast.Kenneth Jackson 0:01:37Well, thank you for having me. Okay.Dwarkesh Patel 0:01:40So many people will have heard of Robert Moses and be vaguely aware of him through the popular biography of him by Robert Caro, the power broker. But most people will not be aware of the extent of his influence on New York City. Can you give a kind of a summary of the things he was able to get built in New York City?Kenneth Jackson 0:02:03One of the best comparisons I can think of is that our Caro himself, when he compared him to Christopher Wren in London, he said, if you would see his monument, look around. It's almost more easier to talk about what Moses didn't do than what he did do. If you all the roads, essentially all the big roads, all the bridges, all the parks, the United Nations, Lincoln Center, the World's Fairs of 1939 and 1964, and hundreds of other things he built. I mean, he didn't actually do it with his own two hands, but he was in charge. He got it done. And Robert Caro wrote a really great book. I think the book was flawed because I think Caro only looked at Moses's own documents and Moses had a very narrow view of himself. I mean, he thought he was a great man, but I mean, he didn't pay any attention to what was going on in LA very much, for example. But clearly, by any standard, he's the greatest builder in American history. There's nobody really in second place. And not only did he build and spend this vast amount of money, he was in power for a long time, really a half century more or less. And he had a singular focus. He was married, but his personal life was not important to him. He did it without scandal, really, even Caro admits that he really died with less than he started with. So I mean, he wanted power, and boy, did he have power. He technically was subservient to governors and mayors, but since he built so much and since he had multiple jobs, that was part of his secret. He had as many as six, eight, ten different things at once. If the mayor fired him or got rid of him, he had all these different ways, which he was in charge of that the mayor couldn't. So you people were afraid of him, and they also respected him. He was very smart, and he worked for a dollar a year. So what are you going to get him for? As Caro says, nobody is ready to be compared with Robert Moses. In fact, compares him with an act of nature. In other words, the person you can compare him with is God. That's the person. He put the rivers in. He put the hills in. He put the island in. Compare that to Moses, what Moses did. No other person could compare to that. That's a little bit of exaggeration, but when you really think about Robert Moses and you read the Power Broker, you are stunned by the scope of his achievement. Just stunned. And even beyond New York, when we think of the interstate highway system, which really starts in 1954, 55, 56, and which is 40-something thousand miles of interstate highways, those were built by Moses' men, people who had in their young life had worked with the parkways and expressways in and around New York City. So they were ready to go. So Moses and Moses also worked outside New York City, mostly inside New York City, but he achieved so much. So probably you need to understand it's not easy to get things done in New York. It's very, very dense, much twice as dense as any place in the United States and full of neighborhoods that feel like little cities and are little cities and that don't want change even today. A place like Austin, for example, is heavy into development, not New York. You want to build a tall building in New York, you got to fight for it. And the fact that he did so much in the face of opposition speaks a lot to his methods and the way he… How did Moses do what he did? That is a huge question because it isn't happening anymore, certainly not in New YorkDwarkesh Patel 0:06:22City. Yeah. And that's really why I actually wanted to talk to you and talk about this book because the Power Broker was released in 1974 and at the time New York was not doing well, which is to put it mildly. But today the crisis we face is one where we haven't built significant public works in many American cities for decades. And so it's interesting to look back on a time when we could actually get a lot of public works built very quickly and very efficiently and see if maybe we got our characterization of the people at the time wrong. And that's where your 2007 book comes in. So I'm curious, how was the book received 50 years after, or I guess 40 years after the Power Broker was released? What was the reception like? How does the intellectual climate around these issues change in that time?Kenneth Jackson 0:07:18The Power Broker is a stunning achievement, but you're right. The Power Broker colon Robert Moses and the fall of New York. He's thinking that in the 1970s, which is the… In New York's 400-year history, we think of the 1970s as being the bottom. City was bankrupt, crime was going up, corruption was all around. Nothing was working very well. My argument in the subtitle of the 2007 book or that article is Robert Moses and the rise of New York. Arguing that had Robert Moses not lived, not done what he did, New York would have followed the trail of maybe Detroit and St. Louis and Cincinnati and Pittsburgh and most cities in the Northeast and Midwest, which really declined. New York City really hasn't declined. It's got more people now than it ever did. It's still a number one city in the world, really, by most of our standards. It's the global leader, maybe along with London. At one point in the 1980s, we thought it might be Tokyo, which is the largest city in the world, but it's no longer considered competitive with New York. I say London too because New York and London are kind of alone at the top. I think Robert Moses' public works, activities, I just don't know that you could have a New York City and not have expressways. I don't like the Cross Bronx expressway either and don't want to drive on it. How can you have a world in which you can't go from Boston to San Francisco? You had to have it. You have to have some highways and Carroll had it exactly wrong. He talked about Moses and the decline of public transit in New York. Actually what you need to explain in New York is why public transit survived in New York, wherein most other American cities, the only people who use public transit are the losers. Oh, the disabled, the poor and stuff like that. In New York City, rich people ride the subway. It's simply the most efficient way to get around and the quickest. That question needs, some of the things need to be turned on its head. How did he get it done? How did he do it without scandal? I mean, when you think about how the world is in our time, when everything has either a financial scandal or a sexual scandal attached to it, Moses didn't have scandals. He built the White Stone Bridge, for example, which is a gigantic bridge connecting the Bronx to Queens. It's beautiful. It was finished in the late 1930s on time and under budget. Actually a little earlier. There's no such thing as that now. You're going to do a big public works project and you're going to do it on time. And also he did it well. Jones Beach, for example, for generations has been considered one of the great public facilities on earth. It's gigantic. And he created it. You know, I know people will say it's just sand and water. No, no, it's a little more complicated than that. So everything he did was complicated. I mean, I think Robert Caro deserves a lot of credit for doing research on Moses, his childhood, his growing up, his assertion that he's the most important person ever to live in and around New York. And just think of Franklin Roosevelt and all the people who lived in and around New York. And Moses is in a category by himself, even though most Americans have never heard of Robert Moses. So his fame is still not, that book made him famous. And I think his legacy will continue to evolve and I think slightly improve as Americans realize that it's so hard, it's hard to build public works, especially in dense urban environments. And he did it.0:11:13 How Moses Gained PowerDwarkesh Patel 0:11:33Yeah. There's so much to talk about there. But like one of the interesting things from the Power Broker is Caro is trying to explain why governors and mayors who were hesitant about the power that Moses was gaining continued to give him more power. And there's a section where he's talking about how FDR would keep giving him more positions and responsibilities, even though FDR and Moses famously had a huge enmity. And he says no governor could look at the difficulty of getting things built in New York and not admire and respect Moses' ability to do things, as he said, efficiently, on time, under budget, and not need him, essentially. But speaking of scandal, you talked about how he didn't take salary for his 12 concurrent government roles that he was on. But there's a very arresting anecdote in the Power Broker where I think he's 71 and his daughter gets cancer. And for the first time, I think he had to accept, maybe I'm getting the details wrong, but he had to accept salary for working on the World's Fair because he didn't have enough. He was the most powerful person in New York, and he didn't have enough money to pay for his daughter's cancer. And even Caro himself says that a lot of the scandals that came later in his life, they were just kind of trivial stuff, like an acre of Central Park or the Shakespeare in the park. Yeah, it wasn't... The things that actually took him down were just trivial scandals.Kenneth Jackson 0:13:07Well, in fact, when he finally was taken down, it took the efforts of a person who was almost considered the second most powerful person in the United States, David Rockefeller, and the governor of New York, both of whom were brothers, and they still had a lot of Moses to make him kind of get out of power in 1968. But it was time. And he exercised power into his 70s and 80s, and most of it was good. I mean, the bridges are remarkable. The bridges are gorgeous, mostly. They're incredible. The Throgs Neck Bridge, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, the Triborough Bridge, they're really works of art. And he liked to build things you could see. And I think the fact that he didn't take money was important to it. You know, he was not poor. I wouldn't say he's not wealthy in New York terms, but he was not a poor person. He went to Yale as a Jewish person, and let's say in the early 20th century, that's fairly unusual and he lived well. So we can't say he's poor, but I think that Carol was right in saying that what Moses was after in the end was not sex and not power, and not sex and not money. Power. He wanted power. And boy, did he get it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:14:37Well, there's a good review of the book from, I'm not sure if I remember the last name, but it was Philip Lopgate or something. Low paid, I think.Kenneth Jackson 0:14:45Okay.Dwarkesh Patel 0:14:46And he made a good point, which was that the connotation of the word power is very negative, but it's kind of a modern thing really to have this sort of attitude towards power that like somebody who's just seeking it must necessarily have suspicious motivations. If Moses believed, and in fact, he was probably right in believing that he was just much more effective at building public works for the people that live in New York, was it irrational of him or was it selfish of him to just desire to work 14 hour days for 40 years on end in order to accumulate the power by which he could build more public works? So there's a way of looking at it where this pursuit of power is not itself troubling.Kenneth Jackson 0:15:36Well, first of all, I just need to make a point that it's not just New York City. I mean, Jones Beach is on Long Island. A lot of those highways, the Northern State Parkway, the Southern State Parkway are built outside the city and also big projects, the Power Authority in upstate New York. He also was consultant around the world in cities and transportation. So his influence was really felt far beyond New York City. And of course, New York City is so big and so important. I think also that we might want to think about, at least I think so, what do I say, the counterfactual argument. Can you imagine? I can remember when I was in the Air Force, we lived next door to a couple from New York City. We didn't know New York City at the time. And I can't remember whether she or he was from the Bronx or Brooklyn, but they had they made us understand how incredibly much he must have loved her to go to Brooklyn or the Bronx to see her and pick her up for days and stuff like this. You couldn't get there. I mean, it would take you three hours to go from the Rockaways in Brooklyn to somewhere in the Northern Bronx. But the roads that Moses built, you know, I know at rush hour they're jammed, but you know, right this minute on a Sunday, you can whiz around New York City on these expressways that Moses built. It's hard to imagine New York without. The only thing Moses didn't do was the subway, and many people have criticized him because the subways were deteriorated between the time they were built in the early part of the 20th century in 1974 when Carol wrote to Power Broker. But so had public transit systems all over the United States. And the public transit system in New York is now better than it was 50 years ago. So that trajectory has changed. And all these other cities, you know, Pittsburgh used to have 600,000 people. Now it has 300,000. Cleveland used to have 900,000 and something. Now it's below five. Detroit used to have two million. Now it's 600 something thousand. St. Louis used to have 850,000. Now it's three hundreds. I mean, the steep drop in all these other cities in the Midwest and Northeast, even Washington and even Boston and Philadelphia, they all declined except New York City, which even though it was way bigger than any of them in 1950 is bigger now than it was then. More people crammed into this small space. And Moses had something to do with that.0:18:22 Would NYC Have Fallen Without Moses?Dwarkesh Patel 0:18:22Yeah, yeah, yeah. You write in the book and I apologize for quoting you back to yourself, but you write, had the city not undertaken a massive program of public works between 1924 and 1970, had it not built the arterial highway system and had it not relocated 200,000 people from old law tenements to new public housing projects, New York would not have been able to claim in the 1990s that it was a capital of the 20th century. I would like to make this connection more explicit. So what is the reason for thinking that if New York hadn't done urban renewal and hadn't built the more than 600 miles of highways that Moses built there, that New York would have declined like these other cities in the Northeast and the Midwest?Kenneth Jackson 0:19:05Well, I mean, you could argue, first of all, and friends of mine have argued this, that New York is not like other cities. It's a world city and has been and what happens to the rest of the United States is, I accept a little bit of that, but not all of it. You say, well, New York is just New York. And so whatever happens here is not necessarily because of Moses or different from Detroit, but I think it's important to realize its history has been different from other American cities. Most American cities, especially the older cities, have been in relative decline for 75 years. And in some ways New York has too. And it was its relative dominance of the United States is less now than because there's been a shift south and west in the United States. But the prosperity of New York, the desire of people to live in it, and after all, one of its problems is it's so expensive. Well, one reason it's expensive is people want to live there. If they didn't want to live there, it would be like Detroit. It'd be practically free. You know what I mean? So there are answers to these issues. But Moses' ways, I think, were interesting. First of all, he didn't worry about legalities. He would start an expressway through somebody's property and dare a judge to tell him to stop after the construction had already started. And most of the time, Moses, he was kind of like Hitler. It was just, I don't mean to say he was like Hitler. What I mean is, but you have such confidence. You just do things and dare other people to change it. You know what I mean? I'm going to do it. And most people don't have that. I think there's a little bit of that in Trump, but not as much. I mean, I don't think he has nearly the genius or brains of Moses. But there's something to self-confidence. There's something to having a broad vision. Moses liked cities, but he didn't like neighborhoods or people. In other words, I don't think he loved New York City. Here's the person who is more involved. He really thought everybody should live in suburbs and drive cars. And that was the world of the future. And he was going to make that possible. And he thought all those old law tenements in New York, which is really anything built before 1901, were slums. And they didn't have hot and cold water. They often didn't have bathrooms. He thought they should be destroyed. And his vision was public housing, high-rise public housing, was an improvement. Now I think around the United States, we don't think these high-rise public housing projects are so wonderful. But he thought he was doing the right thing. And he was so arrogant, he didn't listen to people like Jane Jacobs, who fought him and said, you're saying Greenwich Village is a slum? Are you kidding me? I mean, he thought it was a slum. Go to Greenwich Village today. Try to buy anything for under a million dollars. I mean, it doesn't exist. You know what I mean? I mean, Greenwich Village, and he saw old things, old neighborhoods, walking, is hopelessly out of date. And he was wrong. He was wrong about a lot of his vision. And now we understand that. And all around the country, we're trying to revitalize downtowns and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and gasoline and cars. But Moses didn't see the world that way. It's interesting. He never himself drove a car. Can you believe that the man who had more influence on the American car culture, probably even than Henry Ford, himself was always driven. He was chauffeured. In fact, he was so busy that Carol talks about him as having two limousines behind each other. And he would have a secretary in one, and he would be dealing with business and writing letters and things like this. And then she would have all she could do. They would pull off to the side of the road. She would get out of his car. The car that was following would discharge the secretary in that car. They would switch places. And the fresh secretary would get in the backseat, Moses, and they would continue to work. And the first secretary would go to type up whatever she had to do. He worked all the time. He really didn't have much of a private life. There are not many people like Robert Moses. There are people like Robert Moses, but not so many, and he achieved his ideal. I think that there are so many ironies there. Not only did he not drive himself, he didn't appreciate so much the density of New York, which many people now love, and it's getting more dense. They're building tall buildings everywhere. And he didn't really appreciate the diversity, the toleration. He didn't care about that, but it worked. And I just think we have to appreciate the fact that he did what was impossible, really impossible, and nobody else could have done what he did. And if we hadn't done it then, he sure as heck wouldn't be able to do it in the 21st century, when people are even more litigious. You try to change the color of a door in New York City, and there'll be—you try to do something positive, like build a free swimming pool, fix up an old armory and turn it into a public—there'll be people who'll fight you. I'm not kidding this. And Moses didn't care. He says, I'm going to do this. When he built the Cross Bronx Expressway, which in some ways is—it was horrible what he did to these people, but again, Carol mischaracterizes what happened. But it's a dense working class—let's call it Jewish neighborhood—in the early 1950s. And Roses decides we need an interstate highway or a big highway going right through it. Well, he sent masses of people letters that said, get out in 90 days. He didn't mean 91 days. He meant—he didn't mean let's argue about it for four years. Let's go to legit—Moses meant the bulldozers will be bulldozing. And that kind of attitude, we just don't have anymore. And it's kind of funny now to think back on it, but it wasn't funny to the people who got evicted. But again, as I say, it's hard to imagine a New York City without the Cross Bronx Expressway. They tore down five blocks of dense buildings, tore them down, and built this road right through it. You live—and they didn't worry about where they were going to rehouse them. I mean, they did, but it didn't work. And now it's so busy, it's crowded all the time. So what does this prove? That we need more roads? But you can't have more roads in New York because if you build more roads, what are you going to do with the cars? Right now, the problem is there are so many cars in the city, there's nothing to do. It's easy to get around in New York, but what are you going to do with the car? You know, the car culture has the seeds of its own destruction. You know, cars just parking them or putting them in a garage is a problem. And Moses didn't foresee those. He foreseed you're all going to live in the Long Island suburbs or Westchester suburbs or New Jersey suburbs. Park your car in your house and come in the city to work. Now, the city is becoming a place to live more than a place to work. So what they're doing in New York as fast as they can is converting office buildings into residential units. He would never have seen that, that people would want to live in the city, had options that they would reject a single family house and choose high rise and choose the convenience of going outside and walking to a delicatessen over the road, driving to a grocery store. It's a world he never saw.0:27:31 Moses the Startup Founder?Dwarkesh Patel 0:27:31Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like the thing you pointed out earlier about him having the two limousines and then the enormous work ethic and then the 90 day eviction. I mean, I'm a programmer and I can recognize this trope immediately. Right. Robert Moses was a startup founder, but in government, you know, that attitude is like, yeah, it's like Silicon Valley. That's like we all recognize that.Kenneth Jackson 0:27:54And I think we should we should we should go back to what you said earlier about why was it that governors or mayors couldn't tell him what to do? Because there are many scenes in the power broker where he will go to the mayor who wants to do something else. And Moses would, damn it. He'd say, damn it, throw his pages on the desk and say, sign this. This is my resignation. You know, OK. And I'm out of here because the mayors and governors love to open bridges and highways and and do it efficiently and beautifully. And Moses could do that. Moses could deliver. And the workers loved him because he paid union wages, good wages to his workers. And he got things done and and things like more than 700 playgrounds. And it wasn't just grand things. And even though people criticize the 1964 World's Fair as a failure and financially it was a failure, but still tens of millions of people went there and had a good time. You know, I mean, even some of the things were supposedly were failures. Failures going to home, according to the investment banker, maybe, but not to the people who went there.Dwarkesh Patel 0:29:20Right. Yeah. And I mean, the point about the governors and mayors needing him, it was especially important to have somebody who could like work that fast. If you're going to get reelected in four years or two years, you need somebody who can get public works done faster than they're done today. Right. If you want to be there for the opening. Yeah, exactly.Kenneth Jackson 0:29:36And it's important to realize, to say that Moses did try public office once.Dwarkesh Patel 0:29:41Yeah.Kenneth Jackson 0:29:42And I think it's true that he lost by more than anybody in the history of New York. He was not, you know, he was not an effective public speaker. He was not soft and friendly and warm and cuddly. That's not Robert Moses. The voters rejected him. But the people who had power and also Wall Street, because you had to issue bonds. And one of the ways that Moses had power was he created this thing called the Traverse Bridge and Tunnel Authority to build the Traverse Bridge. Well, now, if in Portland, Oregon, you want to build a bridge or a road, you issue a couple hundred million dollars worth of bonds to the public and assign a value to it. Interest rate is paid off by the revenue that comes in from the bridge or the road or whatever it is. Normally, before, normally you would build a public works and pay for it itself on a user fees. And when the user fees paid it off, it ended. But what Moses, who was called the best bill drafter in Albany, which was a Moses term, he said he was somewhere down in paragraph 13, Section G, say, and the chairman can only be removed for cause. What that meant was when you buy a bond for the Traverse Bridge or something else, you're in a contract, supported by the Supreme Court. This is a financial deal you're making with somebody. And part of the contract was the chairman gets to stay unless he does something wrong. Well, Moses was careful not to do anything wrong. And it also would continue. You would get the bond for the Traverse Bridge, but rather than pay off the Traverse Bridge, he would build another project. It would give him the right to continually build this chain of events. And so he had this massive pot of money from all these initially nickels and dimes. Brazil made up a lot of money, the 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s, to spend more money and build more bridges and build more roads. And that's where he had his power. And the Wall Street, the big business loved him because they're issuing the bonds. The unions loved him because they're paying the investors. Now what Carroll says is that Moses allowed the investors an extra quarter percent, I think a quarter percent or half percent on bonds, but they all sold out. So everybody was happy. And was that crooked? It wasn't really illegal. But it's the way people do that today. If you're issuing a bond, you got to figure out what interest am I going to pay on this that will attract investors now.0:32:34 The Case Against Moses HighwaysDwarkesh Patel 0:32:34And the crucial thing about these tales of graft is that it never was about Moses trying to get rich. It was always him trying to push through a project. And obviously that can be disturbing, but it is a completely different category of thing, especially when you remember that this was like a corrupt time in New York history. It was like after Tammany Hall and so on. So it's a completely different from somebody using their projects to get themselves rich. But I do want to actually talk in more detail about the impact of these roads. So obviously we can't, the current system we have today where we just kind of treat cities as living museums with NIMBYism and historical preservation, that's not optimal. But there are examples, at least of Carroll's, about Moses just throwing out thousands of people carelessly, famously in that chapter on the one mile, how Moses could have diverted the cross Bronx expressway one mile and prevented thousands of people from getting needlessly evicted. So I'm just going to list off a few criticisms of his highway building and then you can respond to them in any order you want. So one of the main criticisms that Carroll makes is that Moses refused to add mass transit to his highways, which would have helped deal with the traffic problem and the car problem and all these other problems at a time when getting the right of way and doing the construction would have been much cheaper. Because of his dislike for mass transit, he just refused to do that. And also the prolific building of highways contributed to urban sprawl, it contributed to congestion, it contributed to neighborhoods getting torn apart if a highway would crossKenneth Jackson 0:34:18them.Dwarkesh Patel 0:34:19So a whole list of criticisms of these highways. I'll let you take it in any order you want.Kenneth Jackson 0:34:27Well first of all, Moses response was, I wasn't in charge of subways. So if you think the subways deteriorated or didn't build enough, find out who was in charge of them and blame that person. I was in charge of highways and I built those. So that's the first thing.Dwarkesh Patel 0:34:41But before you answer that, can I just ask, so on that particular point, it is true that he wasn't in charge of mass transit, but also he wasn't in charge of roads until he made himself responsible for roads, right? So if he chose to, he could have made himself responsible for mass transit and taken careKenneth Jackson 0:34:56of it. Maybe, although I think the other thing about it is putting Moses in a broader historical concept. He was swimming with the tide of history. In other words, history when he was building, was building Ford Motor Company and General Motors and Chrysler Corporation and building cars by the millions. I mean, the automobile industry in the United States was huge. People thought any kind of rail transit was obsolete and on the way out anyway. So let's just build roads. I mean, that's what the public wanted. He built what the public wanted. It's not what I was looking historically. I don't think we did the right thing, but we needed to join the 20th century. New York could have stayed as a quaint, I don't know, quaint is not the right word, but it's a distinctly different kind of place where everybody walks. I just don't think it would have been the same kind of city because there are people who are attached to their cars in New York. And so the sprawl in New York, which is enormous, nobody's saying it wasn't, spreads over 31 counties, an area about as large as the state of Connecticut, about as large as the Netherlands is metropolitan New York. But it's still relatively, I don't want to say compact, but everybody knows where the center is. It's not that anybody grows up in New York at 16 and thinks that the world is in some mall, you know, three miles away. They all know there is a center and that's where it is. It's called Manhattan. And that's New York and Moses didn't change that for all of his roads. There's still in New York a definite center, skyscrapers and everything in the middle. And it's true, public transit did decline. But you know those, and I like Chicago, by the way, and they have a rail transit from O'Hare down to Dan Ryan, not to Dan Ryan, but the JFK Expressway, I think. And it works sort of, but you got to walk a ways to get on. You got to walk blocks to get in the middle of the expressway and catch the train there. It's not like in New York where you just go down some steps. I mean, New York subway is much bigger than Chicago and more widely used and more. And the key thing about New York, and so I think what Carol was trying to explain and your question suggests this, is was Moses responsible for the decline of public transit? Well, he was building cars and roads and bridges. So in that sense, a little bit, yes. But if you look at New York compared to the rest of the United States, it used to be that maybe 20 percent of all the transit riders in the United States were in the New York area. Now it's 40 percent. So if you're looking at the United States, what you have to explain is why is New York different from the rest of the United States? Why is it that when I was chairman or president of the New York Historical Society, we had rich trustees, and I would tell them, well, I got here on a subway or something. They would think, I would say, how do you think I got here? Do you know what I mean? I mean, these are people who are close to billionaires and they're saying they used the subway. If you're in lower Manhattan and you're trying to get to Midtown and it's raining, it's five o'clock, you've got to be a fool to try to get in your own limousine. It isn't going to get you there very quickly. A subway will. So there are reasons for it. And I think Moses didn't destroy public transit. He didn't help it. But his argument was he did. And that's an important distinction, I think. But he was swimming with history. He built what the public wanted. I think if he had built public transit, he would have found it tougher to build. Just for example, Cincinnati built a subway system, a tunnel all through the city. It never has opened. They built it. You can still see the holes in the ground where it's supposed to come out. By the time they built it, people weren't riding trains anymore. And so it's there now and they don't know what to do with it. And that's 80 years ago. So it's a very complicated—I don't mean to make these issues. They're much more complex than I'm speaking of. And I just think it's unfair to blame Moses for the problems of the city. I think he did as much as anybody to try to bring the city into the 21st century, which he didn't live to. But you've got to adopt. You've got to have a hybrid model in the world now. And I think the model that America needs to follow is a model where we reduce our dependence on the cars and somehow ride buses more or use the internet more or whatever it is, but stop using so much fossil fuels so that we destroy our environment. And New York, by far, is the most energy efficient place in the United States. Mainly because you live in tall buildings, you have hot floors. It doesn't really cost much to heat places because you're heating the floor below you and above you. And you don't have outside walls. And you walk. New Yorkers are thinner. Many more people take buses and subways in New York than anywhere else in the United States, not just in absolute terms, in relative terms. So they're helping. It's probably a healthier lifestyle to walk around. And I think we're rediscovering it. For example, if you come to New York between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there's so many tourists in the city. I'm not making this up. That there is gridlock on the sidewalks around. The police have to direct the traffic. And in part, it's because a Detroit grandmother wants to bring her granddaughter to New York to see what Hudson's, which is a great department store in Detroit or in any city. We could be rich as in Atlanta, Fox, G Fox and Hartford. Every city had these giant department and windows where the Santa Claus is and stuff like this. You can still go to New York and see that. You can say, Jane, this is the way it used to be in Detroit. People ringing the bells and looking at the store windows and things like that. A mall can't recapture that. It just can't. You try, but it's not the same thing. And so I think that in a way, Moses didn't not only did he not destroy New York. I think he gets a little bit of credit for saving it because it might have been on the way to Detroit. Again, I'm not saying that it would have been Detroit because Detroit's almost empty. But Baltimore wasn't just Baltimore, it's Cleveland. It's every place. There's nobody there anymore. And even in New York, the department stores have mostly closed, not all of them. And so it's not the same as it was 80 years ago, but it's closer to it than anywhere else.Dwarkesh Patel 0:42:16OK, so yes, I'm actually very curious to get your opinion on the following question. Given the fact that you are an expert on New York history and you know, you've written the encyclopedia, literally written the encyclopedia on New York City.Kenneth Jackson 0:42:30800 people wrote the encyclopedia. I just took all the credit for it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:42:34I was the editor in chief. So I'm actually curious, is Caro actually right that you talked about the importance just earlier about counterfactual history. So I'm curious if Caro is actually right about the claim that the neighborhoods through which Moses built his highways were destroyed in a way that neighborhoods which were in touch by the highways weren't. Sorry for the confusing phrasing there. But basically, was there like a looking back on all these neighborhoods? Is there a clear counterfactual negative impact on the neighborhoods in which Moses built his highways and bridges and so on?Kenneth Jackson 0:43:10Well, Moses, I mean, Caro makes that argument mostly about East Tremont and places like that in the Bronx where the Cross Bronx Expressway passed through. And he says this perfectly wonderful Jewish neighborhood that was not racially prejudiced and everybody was happy and not leaving was destroyed by Moses. Well, first of all, as a historian of New York City, or for that matter, any city, if a student comes to you and says, that's what I found out, you said, well, you know, that runs counter to the experience of every city. So let's do a little more work on that. Well, first of all, if you look at the census tracts or the residential security maps of S.H.A. You know, it's not true. First of all, the Jews were leaving and had nothing to do with the thing. They didn't love blacks. And also, if you look at other Jewish, and the Bronx was called the Jewish borough at the time, those neighborhoods that weren't on the Cross Bronx Expressway all emptied out mostly. So the Bronx itself was a part of New York City that followed the pattern of Detroit and Baltimore and Cleveland. Bronx is now coming back, but it's a different place. So I think it's, well, I've said this in public and I'll pay you for this. Carol wouldn't know those neighborhoods if he landed there by parachute. They're much better than he ever said they were. You know, he acted like if you went outside near the Bronx County Courthouse, you needed a wagon train to go. I mean, I've taken my students there dozens of times and shown them the people, the old ladies eating on the benches and stuff like this. Nobody's mugging them. You know, he just has an outsider's view. He didn't know the places he was writing about. But I think Carol was right about some things. Moses was personally a jerk. You can make it stronger than that, but I mean, he was not your friendly grandfather. He was arrogant. He was self-centered. He thought he knew the truth and you don't. He was vindictive, ruthless, but some of those were good. You know, now his strategies, his strategies in some were good. He made people building a beach or a building feel like you're building a cathedral. You're building something great and I'm going to pay you for it and let's make it good. Let's make it as best as we can. That itself is a real trick. How do you get people to think of their jobs as more than a job, as something else? Even a beach or a wall or something like that to say it's good. He also paid them, so that's important that he does that and he's making improvements. He said he was improving things for the people. I don't know if you want to talk about Jane Jacobs, who was his nemesis. I tend to vote with Jane Jacobs. Jane Jacobs and I agree on a lot of things or did before she died a few years ago. Jane Jacobs saw the city as intricate stores and people living and walking and knowing each other and eyes on the street and all these kinds of things. Moses didn't see that at all. He saw the city as a traffic problem. How do we tear this down and build something big and get people the hell out of here? That was a mistake. Moses made mistakes. What Moses was doing was what everybody in the United States was doing, just not as big and not as ruthless and not as quick. It was not like Moses built a different kind of world that exists in Kansas City. That's exactly what they did in Kansas City or every other city. Blow the damn roads to the black neighborhoods, build the expressway interchanges, my hometown of Memphis crisscrossed with big streets, those neighborhoods gone. They're even more extensive in places like Memphis and Kansas City and New Orleans than they are in New York because New York builds relatively fewer of them. Still huge what he built. You would not know from the power broker that Los Angeles exists. Actually Los Angeles was building freeways too. Or he says that New York had more federal money. Then he said, well, not true. I've had students work on Chicago and Chicago is getting more money per person than New York for some of these projects. Some of the claims, no doubt he got those from Moses' own records. If you're going to write a book like this, you got to know what's going on other places. Anyway, let's go back to your questions.Dwarkesh Patel 0:48:10No, no. That was one of the things I was actually going to ask you about, so I was glad to get your opinion on that. You know, actually, I've been preparing for this interview and trying to learn more about the impact of these different projects. I was trying to find the economic literature on the value of these highways. There was a National Bureau of Economic Research paper by Morgan Foy, or at least a digest by Morgan Foy, where he's talking about the economic gains from highways. He says, the gains tend to be largest in areas where roads connect large economic hubs where few alternative routes exist. He goes on to say, two segments near New York City have welfare benefits exceeding $500 million a year. Expanding the Long Island Expressway had an estimated economic value of $719 million, which I think was Moses. He says, of the top 10 segments with the highest rate of return, seven are in New York City area. It turns out that seven of the top 10 most valuable highway segments in America are in New York. Reading that, it makes me suspect that there must have been... The way Cairo paints Moses' planning process, it's just very impulsive and feelings-based and almost in some cases, out of malice towards poor people. Given that a century later, it seems that many of the most valuable tracks of highways were planned and built exactly how Moses envisioned, it makes you think that there was some sort of actual intelligent deliberation and thought that was put into where they were placed.Kenneth Jackson 0:50:32I think that's true. I'm not saying that the automobile didn't have an economic impact. That's what Moses was building for. He would probably endorse that idea. I think that what we're looking at now in the 21st century is the high value put on places that Moses literally thought were something. He was going to run an expressway from Brooklyn through lower Manhattan to New Jersey and knock down all these buildings in Greenwich Village that people love now. Love. Even movie stars, people crowd into those neighborhoods to live and that he saw it as a slum. Well, Moses was simply wrong and Cairo puts him to task for that. I think that's true.0:51:24 The Rise of NIMBYismDwarkesh Patel 0:51:24Okay. Professor Jackson, now I want to discuss how the process of city planning and building projects has changed since Moses' time. We spent some good amount of time actually discussing what it was like, what Moses actually did in his time. Last year, I believe, you wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal talking about how the 27-story building in Manhattan was put in limbo because the parking lot, which we would replace, was part of a historic district. What is it like to actually build a skyscraper or a highway or a bridge or anything of that sort in today's New York City?Kenneth Jackson 0:52:06Well, I do think in the larger context, it's probably fair to say it's tougher to build in New York City than any other city. I mean, yeah, a little precious suburb, you may not deploy a skyscraper, but I mean, as far as the city is concerned, there'll be more opposition in New York than anywhere else.It's more dense, so just to unload and load stuff to build a building, how do you do that? You know, trucks have to park on the street. Everything is more complicated and thus more expensive. I think a major difference between Robert Moses' time and our own, in Robert Moses' time, historic preservation was as yet little known and little understood and little supported. And the view generally was building is good, roads are good, houses are good, and they're all on the way to a more modern and better world. We don't have the same kind of faith in the future that they did. We kind of like it like it is. Let's just sit on it. So I think we should say that Moses had an easier time of it than he would have had he lived today. It still wasn't an easy time, but easier than today. Yeah.Dwarkesh Patel 0:53:40Well, actually, can you talk more about what that change in, I guess, philosophy has been since then? I feel like that's been one of the themes of this podcast, to see how our cultural attitude towards progress and technology have changed.Kenneth Jackson 0:53:54Well, I think one reason why the power broker, Robert Carroll's famous book, received such popular acclaim is it fits in with book readers' opinions today, which is old is better. I mean, also, you got to think about New York City. If you say it's a pre-war apartment, you mean it's a better apartment. The walls are solid plaster, not fiber or board and stuff like that. So old has a reverence in New York that doesn't have in Japan. In Japan, they tear down houses every 15 years. So it's a whole different thing. We tend to, in this new country, new culture, we tend to value oldness in some places, especially in a place that's old like New York City. I mean, most Americans don't realize that New York is not only the most dense American city and the largest, but also really the oldest. I mean, I know there's St. Augustine, but that's taking the concept of what's a city to a pretty extreme things. And then there's Jamestown and Virginia, but there's nobody there, literally nobody there. And then where the pilgrims landed in Massachusetts, Plymouth plantation, that's totally rebuilt as a kind of a theme park. So for a place that's a city, it's Santa Fe a little bit in New Mexico, but it was a wide place on the road until after World War II. So the places that would be also, if you think cities, New York is really old and it's never valued history, but the historic preservation movement here is very strong.Dwarkesh Patel 0:55:33What is the reason for its resurgence? Is it just that, because I mean, it's had a big impact on many cities, right? Like I'm in San Francisco right now, and obviously like you can't tear down one of these Victorian houses to build the housing that like the city massively needs. Why have we like gained a reverence for anything that was built before like 80 years?Kenneth Jackson 0:55:56Because just think of the two most expensive places in the United States that could change a little bit from year to year, but usually San Francisco and New York. And really if you want to make it more affordable, if you want to drop the price of popsicles on your block, sell more popsicles. Have more people selling popsicles and the price will fall. But somehow they say they're going to build luxury housing when actually if you build any housing, it'll put downward pressure on prices, even at super luxury. But anyway, most Americans don't understand that. So they oppose change and especially so in New York and San Francisco on the basis that change means gentrification. And of course there has been a lot of gentrification. In World War II or right after, San Francisco was a working class city. It really was. And huge numbers of short and longshoremen live there. Now San Francisco has become the headquarters really in Silicon Valley, but a headquarters city is a tech revolution and it's become very expensive and very homeless. It's very complex. Not easy to understand even if you're in the middle of it.Dwarkesh Patel 0:57:08Yeah. Yeah. So if we could get a Robert Moses back again today, what major mega project do you think New York needs today that a Moses like figure could build?Kenneth Jackson 0:57:22Well if you think really broadly and you take climate change seriously, as I think most people do, probably to build some sort of infrastructure to prevent rising water from sinking the city, it's doable. You'd have to, like New Orleans, in order to save New Orleans you had to flood Mississippi and some other places. So usually there is a downside somewhere, but you could, that would be a huge project to maybe build a bridge, not a bridge, a land bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan to prevent water coming in from the ocean because New York is on the ocean. And to think of something like that's really big. Some of the other big infrastructure projects, like they're talking about another tunnel under the river, Hudson River from New Jersey to New York, the problem with that is there are already too many cars in Manhattan. Anything that makes it easier to bring cars into Manhattan because if you've not been to New York you don't really understand this, but there's no place for anything. And if you bring more cars in, what are you going to do with them? If you build parking garages for all the cars that could come into the city, then you'd be building over the whole city. There'd be no reason to come here because it would all be parking garages or parking lots. So New York City simply won't work if you reduce the density or you get rid of underground transportation because it's all about people moving around underneath the streets and not taking up space as they do it. So it won't work. And of course, it's not the only city. Tokyo wouldn't work either or lots of cities in the world won't work increasingly without not just public transportation but underground public transportation where you can get it out of the way of traffic and stuff like that. Moses probably could have done that. He wouldn't have loved it as much as he loved bridges because he wanted you to see what he built. And there was an argument in the power broker, but he didn't really want the Brooklyn battle very tunnel built because he wanted to build a bridge that everybody could see. So he may not have done it with such enthusiasm. I actually believe that Moses was first and foremost a builder. He really wanted to build things, change things. If you said, we'll pay you to build tunnels, I think he would have built tunnels. Who knows? He never was offered that. That wasn't the time in which he lived. Yeah. Okay.Dwarkesh Patel 1:00:04And I'm curious if you think that today to get rid of, I guess the red tape and then the NIMBYism, would it just be enough for one man to accumulate as much influence as Moses had and then to push through some things or does that need to be some sort of systemic reform? Because when Moses took power, of course there was ours also that Tammany Hall machine that he had to run through, right? Is that just what's needed today to get through the bureaucracy or is something more needed?Kenneth Jackson 1:00:31Well, I don't think Robert Moses with all of his talents and personality, I don't think he could do in the 21st century what he did in the middle of the 20th century. I think he would have done a lot, maybe more than anybody else. But also I think his methods, his really bullying messages, really, really, he bullied people, including powerful people. I don't think that would work quite as easy today, but I do think we need it today. And I think even today, we found even now we have in New York, just the beginnings of leftists. I'm thinking of AOC, the woman who led the campaign against Amazon in New York saying, well, we need some development. If we want to make housing more affordable, somebody has got to build something. It's not that we've got more voter because you say you want affordable housing. You got to build affordable housing and especially you got to build more of it. So we have to allow people, we have to overturn the NIMBYism to say, well, even today for all of our concern about environmental change, we have to work together. I mean, in some ways we have to believe that we're in some ways in the same boat and it won't work if we put more people in the boat, but don't make the boat any bigger. Yeah.Dwarkesh Patel 1:01:59But when people discuss Moses and the power accumulated, they often talk about the fact that he took so much power away from democratically elected officials and the centralized so much power in himself. And obviously the power broker talks a great deal about the harms of that kind of centralization. But I'm curious having studied the history of New York, what are the benefits if there can be one coordinated cohesive plan for the entire city? So if there's one person who's designing all the bridges, all the highways, all the parks, is something more made possible that can be possible if like multiple different branches and people have their own unique visions? I don't know if that question makes sense.Kenneth Jackson 1:02:39That's a big question. And you've got to put a lot of trust into the grand planner, especially if a massive area of 20, 25 million people, bigger than the city, I'm not sure what you're really talking about. I think that in some ways we've gone too far in the ability to obstruct change, to stop it. And we need change. I mean, houses deteriorate and roads deteriorate and sewers deteriorate. We have to build into our system the ability to improve them. And now in New York we respond to emergencies. All of a sudden a water main breaks, the street collapses and then they stop everything, stop the water main break and repair the street and whatever it is. Meanwhile in a hundred other places it's leaking, it's just not leaking enough to make the road collapse. But the problem is there every day, every minute. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.1:03:44 Is Progress CyclicalDwarkesh Patel 1:03:44I'm curious, as a professor, I mean you've studied American history. Do you just see this as a cyclical thing where you have periods where maybe one person has too much power to periods where there's dispersed vitocracy and sclerosis and then you're just going to go through these cycles? Or how do you see that in the grand context of things, how do you see where we are, where we were during Moses and where we might be in the future?Kenneth Jackson 1:04:10Well you're right to say that much of life is cyclical. And there is a swing back and forth. But having said that, I think the person like Robert Moses is unusual, partly because he might have gone on to become a hedge fund person or didn't have hedge funds when he was around. But you know, new competitor to Goldman Sachs, I mean he could have done a lot of things, maybe been a general. He wanted to have power and control. And I think that's harder to accumulate now. We have too much power. You can demonstrate and you can stop anything. We love demonstrations in the United States. We respect them. We see it as a visible expression of our democracy, is your ability to get on the streets and block the streets. But you know, still you have to get to work. I mean at some point in the day you've got to do something. And yeah, Hitler could have done a lot of things if he wanted to. He could have made Berlin into a... But you know, if you have all the power, Hitler had a lot of it. If he turned Berlin into a colossal city, he was going to make it like Washington but half-sive. Well Washington has already got its own issues. The buildings are too big. Government buildings don't have life on the street and stuff like this. Like Hitler would destroy it forever because you build a monumental city that's not for people. And I think that was probably one of Moses' weak points is unlike Jane Jacobs who saw people. Moses didn't see people. He saw bridges. He saw highways. He saw tunnels. He saw rivers. He saw the city as a giant traffic problem. Jane Jacobs, who was a person without portfolio most of her life except of her own powers of judgment and persuasion, she thought, well what is the shoe repairman got to do with the grocery store, got to do with the school, got to do with something else? She saw what Moses didn't see. She saw the intricacies of the city. He saw a giant landscape. She saw the block, just the block.Dwarkesh Patel 1:06:45Yeah there's a common trope about socialist and communist which is that they love humanity in the abstract but they hate people as individuals. And it's like I guess one way to describe Robert Moses. It actually kind of reminds me of one of my relatives that's a doctor and he's not exactly a people person. And he says like, you know, I hate like actually having to talk to the patients about like, you know, like ask them questions. I just like the actual detective work of like what is going on, looking at the charts and figuring out doing the diagnosis. Are you optimistic about New York? Do you think that in the continuing towards the end of the 21st century and into the 22nd century, it will still be the capital of the world or what do you think is the future ofKenneth Jackson 1:07:30the city? Well, The Economist, which is a major publication that comes out of England, recently predicted that London and New York would be in 2100 what they are today, which is the capitals of the world. London is not really a major city in terms of population, probably under 10 million, much smaller than New York and way smaller than Tokyo. But London has a cosmopolitan, heterogeneous atmosphere within the rule of law. What London and New York both offer, which Shanghai doesn't or Hong Kong doesn't at the moment is a system so if you disagree, you're not going to disappear. You know what I mean? It's like there's some level of guarantee that personal safety is sacred and you can say what you want. I think that's valuable. It's very valuable. And I think the fact that it's open to newcomers, you can't find a minority, so minority that they don't have a presence in New York and a physical presence. I mean, if you're from Estonia, which has got fewer people than New York suburbs, I mean individual New York suburbs, but there's an Estonian house, there's Estonian restaurants, there's, you know, India, Pakistan, every place has got an ethnic presence. If you want it, you can have it. You want to merge with the larger community, merge with it. That's fine. But if you want to celebrate your special circumstances, it's been said that New York is everybody's second home because you know if you come to New York, you can find people just like yourself and speaking your language and eating your food and going to your religious institution. I think that's going to continue and I think it's not only what makes the United States unusual, there are a few other places like it. Switzerland is like it, but the thing about Switzerland that's different from the United States is there are parts of Switzerland that are most of it's Swiss German and parts of it's French, but they stay in their one places, you know what I mean? So they speak French here and they speak German there. You know, Arizona and Maine are not that different demographically in the United States. Everybody has shuffled the deck several times and so I think that's what makes New York unique. In London too. Paris a little bit. You go to the Paris underground, you don't even know what language you're listening to. I think to be a great city in the 21st century, and by the way, often the Texas cities are very diverse, San Francisco, LA, very diverse. It's not just New York. New York kind of stands out because it's bigger and because the neighborhoods are more distinct. Anybody can see them. I think that's, and that's what Robert Moses didn't spend any time thinking about. He wasn't concerned with who was eating at that restaurant. Wasn't important, or even if there was a restaurant, you know? Whereas now, the move, the slow drift back towards cities, and I'm predicting that the pandemic will not have a permanent influence. I mean, the pandemic is huge and it's affected the way people work and live and shop and have recreation. So I'm not trying to blow it off like something else, but I think in the long run, we are social animals. We want to be with each other. We need each other, especially if you're young, you want to be with potential romantic partners. But even other people are drawn. Just a few days ago, there was a horrible tragedy in Seoul, Korea. That's because 100,000 young people are drawn to each other. They could have had more room to swing their arms, but they wanted to crowd into this one alley because that's where other people were. They wanted to go where other people were. That's a lot about the appeal of cities today. We've been in cars and we've been on interstate highways. At the end of the day, we're almost like cats. We want to get together at night and sleep on each other or with each other. I think that's the ultimate. It's not for everybody. Most people would maybe rather live in a small town or on the top of a mountain, but there's a percentage of people. Let's call it 25% who really want to be part of the tumble in the tide and want to be things mixed up. They will always want to be in a place like New York. There are other places, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia a little bit. They're not mainly in the United States, but in Europe, Copenhagen. Copenhagen is not a big city, neither is Prague, but they have urbanity. New York has urbanity. I think we don't celebrate urbanity as much as we might. The pure joy of being with others.1:12:36 Friendship with CaroDwarkesh Patel 1:12:36Yeah. I'm curious if you ever got a chance to talk to Robert Caro himself about Moses at someKenneth Jackson 1:12:45point. Robert Caro and I were friends. In fact, when the power broker received an award, the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians, it turned out we lived near each other in the Bronx. And I drove him home and we became friends and social friends. And I happened to be with him on the day that Robert Moses died. We were with our wives eating out in a neighborhood called Arthur Avenue. The real Little Italy of New York is in the Bronx. It's also called Be

In the last couple of years, I've been looking to interview more designers of games that have something to say about history and through history about the world we currently live in. Tory Brown, designer of Votes for Women, joined me on the podcast to talk about the design of her new game from Fort Circle Games. I think there is a lot of learn from this conversation about designing games that tackle much deeper issues than your standard board game content. I've felt the same way about the forthcoming Stonewall Uprising, Bloc by Bloc, and Cross Bronx Expressway. Let's make more games about real world issues that can help us demystify these kinds of issues in our modern day or even provide more context for them. Tory Brown had a ton to say about the real life issue of women's rights and the way she incorporated that history into this game. I probably could have talked to her for another hour or two. Check out Fort Circle Games here: Link

Hey Everyone! Enjoy our last episode in our studio. We will continue our show on a webcam format until we are able to find another studio. Bodega Kat , Trillboy and Jimbo Da Kid appreciate all of you! Please join Trillboy & Jimbo Da Kid this episode, where they discuss Kanye West documentary on Netflix, Cross Bronx Expressway strip club and the current situation in Ukraine. Thank you for watching/ listening! INSTAGRAM: @THELASTSLICESHOW LINKTREE: LINKTREE.COM/THELASTSLICEPODCAST

This week on the pod, Non Breaking Space (@nbsp1618) tells us about his upcoming game from GMT, Cross Bronx Expressway. In it, he invites players to build up the Bronx from 1940-2000, while also trying to serve their own factional interests. This game is currently available at a discounted price through GMT's P500 program, and will soon go to print: https://www.gmtgames.com/p-953-cross-bronx-expressway.aspxBeyond Solitaire is now proudly sponsored by Central Michigan University's Center for Learning Through Games and Simulations, where learning can be both playful and compelling. Check them out here: https://www.cmich.edu/colleges/class/Centers/CLGS/Pages/default.aspxAll episodes of my podcast are available here: https://beyondsolitaire.buzzsprout.com/Enjoy my work? Consider getting me a "coffee" on Ko-fi! https://ko-fi.com/beyondsolitaireContact Me: Email: beyondsolitaire at gmail.comTwitter: @beyondsolitaireInstagram: @beyondsolitaireFacebook: www.facebook.com/beyondsolitaireWebsite: www.beyondsolitaire.net

Good news for your Friday: A new project is mapping out the extent of carbon-sucking fungi networks, and New York City is upgrading its most polluting freeway. Listen to the Optimist Daily Update with Summers & Kristy - Making Solutions the News!

U.S. Representative Ritchie Torres (D-NY15, South Bronx) talks about the postponed vote on Build Back Better, and the just-passed infrastructure bill, including what that means for a proposal to cap the Cross-Bronx Expressway.

Eric Adams, NYC Mayor-Elect and current Brooklyn Borough President talks about his plans for office and the launch of the transition process, plus hears from one caller from each of the five boroughs.   "I'm excited about the future, I'm excited about the future of New York," @ericadamsfornyc tells @BrianLehrer in his first interview as Mayor-elect — Brigid Bergin (@brigidbergin) November 10, 2021 .@BrianLehrer asks @ericadamsfornyc about comment he will look at emotional intelligence, not just IQ, when putting together a team. Adams says it's imperative to hire ppl who understand troubles ppl who need government services face, ppl who have empathy-not just fancy degrees. — Sally Goldenberg (@SallyGold) November 10, 2021 "Love it," @ericadamsfornyc says on @BrianLehrer of idea of capping the Cross Bronx Expressway & creating more green, community space. Also cites idea of capping the BQE. @SenSchumer & @RitchieTorres just held an event, with others, on the CBE. — Ben Max (@TweetBenMax) November 10, 2021 "Let's fix the bias in the court system," Adams says but stresses it should not be done at the risk to public safety — Brigid Bergin (@brigidbergin) November 10, 2021 "I'm going to spend a lot of time on Staten Island. I'm not going to be a Manhattan-centric mayor," @ericadamsfornyc tells @BrianLehrer — Sally Goldenberg (@SallyGold) November 10, 2021 .@BrianLehrer asks @ericadamsfornyc about @lizkimtweets' article which he says, he agrees with. "We need to stop a dysfunctional city." https://t.co/4GaEP0gltT — Brigid Bergin (@brigidbergin) November 10, 2021

NBSP, designer of the P500 game Cross Bronx Expressway, joined me to talk about his game. We focused on its design, its importance in telling a story not many will know, and its creation as a whole. I was drawn to interviewing this designer because I have grown a fondness for the Bronx since being a teacher there for the last 5 years.

Vaccinations, ending persistent poverty and the Cross Bronx Expressway... These are some things on the mind of new Congressman Ritchie Torres. He joined Congress in an unusual year, in the midst of Covid-19, and following the January 6th attacks on Washington. He’s advocating for his constituents in the Bronx on everything from housing to pollution to job growth to make sure New York City has the best future possible.

On Friday April 23rd U.S. Congressman Ritchie Torres (NY-15) delivered a press conference in the Bronx's Parkchester neighborhood calling for The American Job's Plan, President Biden's infrastructure bill, to include funding to transform The Cross Bronx Expressway. After the press conference Ritchie Torres joined Healthy Bronx for an interview to discuss why now is the time to reimagine The Cross Bronx Expressway.

Nilka Martell, founder and director of the community-based non-profit organization Loving the Bronx, and Peter Muennig, professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, discuss a proposal to cap portions of the Cross-Bronx Expressway in favor of new green spaces and housing.

Nilka Martell is a community organizer and an environmental activist in the Bronx. She founded an organization called #Loving The Bronx, which is leading efforts to advocate for capping an exposed portion of the Cross Bronx Expressway, in her neighborhood, in Parkchester. Nilka tells us the story of how she went from being a concerned neighbor to leading environmental justice work throughout our borough over the past decade. Through an unrelenting, yet optimistic approach, Nilka fiercely advocates for environmental justice, to rectify Robert Moses's infamous construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway. Other voices are joining the call and helping to build the case for why it is time to reimagine the Cross Bronx Expressway. Dr. Peter Muennig, a physician and public health researcher at The Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, published an article in 2018 in The American Journal Of Public Health that argued that capping the Cross Bronx Expressway will save money and lives. Justin Sanchez, Director of External Affairs at the Bronx Borough President's Office, is working to elevate proposals to cap the highway in local and municipal politics. Tune in to hear from Nilka, Dr. Muennig & Justin. This episode was produced by Emily Nadal, a journalist for The Mott Haven Herald & Hunts Point Express, and Alexander Levine, a third year medical student at The Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Greetings! Thanks for standing by me. All this love during February means a lot. I have a wonderful Deep House mix by @Udiproduction out of NEW YORK CITY. Don't sleep more to come by him. 1. Intro-0:19 2. Visions -3:31 Gregory Del Piero FT Billy Love 3. Wonderful Things-4:24 Timmy Dee 4. Caught Up-5:10 Intense Soul 5. You Got Me-3:35 Fusion FT Wallace Gary 6. Must Be The Music-Harley & Muscle 7. Born To Fly-3:20 Lisa Shaw 8. Her First Time By-4:36 Shifty Johnson & Terry Swift 9. Still In Luv With You (Part 1)-4:18 J. Haystax 10. Shame-4:25 Mark Grant FT Swalyo 11. Salsa House-3:54 Soul Purpose 12. Can't Get Away-4:11 Mood 2 Swing 13. I Can't Stop-3:30 Sandy Rivera 14. The Turkish-4:22 DJ Marky 15. I Remember 3:45 Deadmau5 + Kaskade 16. Life Story-3:49 Leviticus 17. Helpless--3:55 Decaff FT Roland Clark 18. A Better Way-3:39 Darryl D'Bonneau 19. I Am-2:46 Lina 20. Je' Ne' Veux plus Etre-3:29 Hanna Hais 21. Poulets Paradise-2:19 Cross Bronx Expressway 22. Sume Sigh Say-4:12 Masters At Work 23. Dat Rowdy Shit-4:40 Bucket Beetleg 24. El Carnaval-2:27 AV8 25. El Canto-4:14 DJ Lucho 26. No More Sun-3:50 Kerri Chandler 27. Soul Chu Cha-4:56 Rosabel 28. Forever And A Day-3:59 Mena Keys FT Frankie Estevez & Tabia 29. Church Lady-4:56 Dennis Ferrer 30. Need You Now-4:10 Soul Central 31. Baby Gets High-3:13 Soul Creation 32. No More Love-3:10 Carla Prather 33. Simple Life-3:48 Vibe Travelers 34. It Must Be Life-4:27 Lyfe Jennings 35.Tranz-4:45 Masters At Work 36. What You Gonna Do About It-3:14 Behind The Groove FT Carla Prather 37. Come Into My Life-4:58 Mena Keys 38. What Is House Music-9:11 Stavey Mallory   Total Time:2:31:12   add me on instagram @1indienation support the show via venmo @rachaeldepp Each donation no matter how small or big is deeply appreciated. LOVE YOU :) xo Rachael Depp

SPONSOREM WIADOMOŚCI DNIA JEST firma Allstate – kupując razem ubezpieczenie na dom i samochód, możesz zaoszczędzić nawet do 25%! Zadzwoń w języku polskim: 718 389 5533. www.MullenAgency.comPOLONIA – słuchaj Radio RAMPA w internecie na stronie www.RadioRAMPA.com lub poprzez aplikację RAMPA na telefony komórkowe. W sobotę, słuchaj Radio RAMPA na fali 620 AM od 3 p.m. Na antenie Radio RAMPA prezentujemy informacje na temat dystrybucji szczepionek przeciwko koronawirusowi w mieście Nowy Jork. NOWY JORK – osiem osób zostało rannych, w wyniku wypadku autobusu MTA na Bronxie - autobus zjechał z Cross Bronx Expressway, przejechał przez barierki i "zwisał" z drogi. / Senator Chuck Schumer zapowiedział, że miasto Nowy Jork i stan Nowy Jork otrzymają pieniądze federalne, kiedy senat kontrolowany będzie przez Demokratów - łącznie, dodatkowe 2 miliardy dolarów.  USA – Prezydent-elekt Joe Biden przedstawił w czwartek program “America Rescue Plan,” którego wartość szacuje się na 1.9 biliona dolarów. Plan nakierowany jest na stymulację ekonomii, osłabionej pandemią koronawirusa.  Jego najważniejsze założenia to m.in. wypłaty bezpośrednie w wysokości $1400, dodatek do zasiłku dla bezrobotncyh w wysokości $400 tygodniowo czy podniesienie minimalnej stawki godzinowej do $15.Szczegóły na stronie Radio RAMPA. / Od 26 stycznia, USA wymagać będą negatywnego testu na obecność koronawirusa, przed wlotem do kraju. Wszystko co wiemy o nowych zasadach, przeczytasz na stronie Radio RAMPA.ŚWIAT – Rosyjska służba więziennictwa potwierdziła, że zamierza zatrzymać Aleksieja Nawalnego, gdy ten pojawi się w Rosji. Polityk zapowiedział, że wróci do kraju 17 stycznia. Przez ostatnie pięć miesięcy opozycjonista przebywał w Niemczech, gdzie leczył się po zamachu na jego życie. / Papież Franciszek zaszczepił się przeciw koronawirusowi. Wiadomość o tym podało watykańskie biuro prasowe. / Premier Włoch Giuseppe Conte podpisał nowy dekret bezpieczeństwa definiujący restrykcje wprowadzone w związku z pandemią, które będą obowiązywać do 5 marca. Utrzymano godzinę policyjną od 22.00 i zakaz podróży między regionami. / Federalna Agencja Morska wyraziła zgodę na natychmiastowe wznowienie budowy gazociągu Nord Stream 2. Wcześniej zakładano, że niemiecki urząd podejmie tę decyzję dopiero wiosną. Swój protest zapowiedzieli między innymi działacze ekologiczni. (IAR)POLSKA – O północy ruszyła rejestracja seniorów powyżej 80. roku życia i zgłaszanie gotowości do szczepienia. Szef Kancelarii Premiera Michał Dworczyk poinformował, że do tej pory zarejestrowało się ponad 127 tysięcy seniorów. 474 tysiące osób zgłosiło gotowość na szczepienie. Mniej szczepionek firmy Pfizer dotrze w najbliższych tygodniach do Polski i innych krajów europejskich. Jak na razie nie ma precyzyjnych informacji, o ile zostaną zmniejszone dostawy. Wiąże się to z koniecznością wprowadzenia modyfikacji w fabryce - tak, by w przyszłości możliwości produkcyjne były większe. (IAR)

Music Is People 5/5; expanded 7/7 by Kofi Burbridge † ​My parents were on top of culture, influenced by it, and fired up by it. In 1961 they were already headstrong about receiving any information about Africa, anything that had to do with the influence on African Americans. They wanted to open that up to us, seeing that we were so hyped on music. They wanted to open our minds to the rest of life, besides “this American way.” They wanted to include it, since we are here. They wanted us to have a broader perspective of what we were involved with and who we are. ​My dad was really into collecting records. Music fired him up. I believe he snuck a tape recorder into Birdland at that time. He was that kind of guy. ​By collecting all this music, over time, over time, over time, the way it sunk in was that we started gravitating to these records. They were lined up on the wall, and the album covers were really part of the attraction. There was all kinds of music that he collected, from Fela Kuti, to The Impressions, to Beethoven, to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, back to John Coltrane and we’re bringing on Kool & The Gang. Our dad was the gateway into everything and he made us feel that we could be a part of all of this, which in turn was “Hey, you can be a part of all people, because music is people.” You hear Afro-Cuban music, you’re not thinking Austria, and vice versa. It’s about people—at least to me it is. ​Even though we didn’t know these cultures or many of the people from those cultures at the time, we were hearing the music and it was just draining us and we were in awe of the whole thing. That’s primarily what opened our minds up to pursuing what we wanted to get into. ​I was two years old when I moved out of The Bronx, although I am hip to a lot of the culture that came out of there. One big thing for me was learning about the history of the actual gang life, Robert Moses, the Cross Bronx Expressway, and people dispersing. Then The Bronx went completely down, and the people trying to survive in those conditions afterwards—that was a heavy thing for me to learn. This is pre-Afrika Bambaataa. ​The one thing that stopped the violence was the music. The movie The Warriors from 1979 is based on a true story about gangs and gang violence in The Bronx. There was a guy who came up to give peace talks about stopping all violence and he was killed on the spot. The movie tries to portray this in many different ways. ​What happened after that was that most gangs realized, look, we’re coming down on each other just trying to survive, but we should really be putting our heads together and fighting in a different way. That was one of the most enlightening things I learned about The Bronx. Eventually it led to bringing more people together and one side of the borough able to go visit people on the other side of the borough. ​What opened the door was dancing—street dancing. Twirling on your hands, twirling on your head, which became the new competition along with Kurtis Blow and Afrika Bambaataa and so many others. There were spinners and guys playing records. Dancing was the street thing. You’ll find this a lot in the documentary Rubble Kings (2015), which is so informative about how they got into it, how it changed over time into music, and how the music itself healed that violence. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jake-feinberg/support

Part 1: First Aid (starts 7:15) 10:57 The GLSEN activity about using "gay" as an insult is here 14:49 Julie uses this video from Jay Smooth to help students understand why not to use the n-word 20:54 The book Jean is reading is We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina Love Part 2: Design and Planning (21:30) 22:04 The person who gave Julie the idea to start from data is Ayo Heinegg Magwood. Follow her on Twitter at @UprootingInequi 22:54 The teacher who shares data about the Cross-Bronx Expressway is Edrick Macalaguim. Follow him on Twitter at @EdrickMac 24:38 The article Julie reads with her students Philando Castile is here 28:40 Julie worked with Nuvia Ruland to create the Social Justice Project Think Tank as a tool for project design 29:14 Here are the Stanford D. School Liberatory Design Cards 29:24 Ana de Almeida Amaral and Izadora McGawley, co-founders of High Tech High Chula Vista’s Ethnic Studies program, created this Culturally Responsive Project Tuning protocol 32:36 Read more about the poet Natasha Hooper here 38:35 The book Julie’s reading is Not Light but Fire by Matthew R. Kay 39:41 The University of Michigan activity about identities is the Social Identity Wheel 42:57 You should read the comment piece that High Tech High Chula Vista Ethnic Studies co-founder Ana de Almeida Amaral wrote for the San Diego Union Tribune 47:28 To find out more about student consulting, read For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood (And the Rest of Y’All Too) by Chris Emdin, and Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching by Alison Cook-Sather, Catherine Bovill, and Peter Felten 50:10 The book Julie’s talking about is The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander Part 3: The Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) (43:50) 43:51 GLSEN has great resources for starting your own GSA here 51:46 Follow Julie on twitter at @julieruble 52:12 Follow Zaretta Hammond (@readyforrigor) and Cornelius Minor (@MisterMinor) on twitter You can find all our podcasts, videos, articles, and "project essentials" toolkits at High Tech High Unboxed. If you have ideas for stories, get in touch with Alec on Twitter: @alecpatton

Learn about New York's various famous groundhogs, hear the first review of 'The Raven', and follow Waze underground on AGBC News episode 6! Visit agreatbigcity.com/support to learn how to support New York City local news and allow us to keep bringing you this podcast. If you are a New York-based business and would be interested in sponsoring our podcasts, visit agreatbigcity.com/advertising to learn more. 74 years ago on February 1, 1945 — The north tube of the Lincoln Tunnel opens to traffic Staten Island Chuck — a second female 'hog named Charlotte died in September 2018 of kidney disease — Buffalo Bert 173 years ago January 29, 1845: 'The Raven' by Edgar Allen Poe is first published in the New-York Evening Mirror — Competing plaques claiming two different locations for where the home where he wrote 'The Raven' once stood. After surviving since 1984 in the East Village, world famous St. Mark's Comics will be closing at the end of February Waze Beacons installed in tunnels AGBC News Episode 5: Subway Car Problems, A Long-Distance Phone Call, and Ride a Lime — Bombardier resumes subway car deliveries to New York City after manufacturing problems caused a temporary halt in deliveries last week. Bombardier has delivery about half of the initial 300 cars ordered by the MTA, but the delivery schedule is now years behind. Lime has a new, rugged scooter that the company says is built for New York City roads Park of the day Havemeyer Playground: "Triangle park near the Cross-Bronx Expressway in Unionport, Bronx. Features a playground, basketball court, and spray shower. Located at the Cross Bronx Exwy and Havemeyer Ave and has been a city property since 1946-01-31 It's a bit too cold to play a game of basketball at Havemeyer Playground, so check out a Parks Department rec center: Starting next week on February 3rd, NYC Parks will be holding their rec center open house week. Everyone is welcome to try out any of Manhattan's 13 recreation facilities that have exercise equipment, swimming pools, sports fields, and a calendar full of classes like Zumba, yoga, and water aerobics. The Parks Department rec centers offer a fantastic alternative to gyms, at a fraction of the cost: The most you would pay is just $150 for a year, which is $12.50 per month, then there are discounts for people young and old, veterans, and people with disabilities. You even get a 10% discount if you have a New York City ID card! Concert Calendar Bring Me the Horizon, The Fever 333, and Thrice are playing the Hammerstein Ballroom in Midtown on Wednesday, January 30th starting at 7pm. Infected Mushroom is playing the Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg on Wednesday, January 30th at 8pm. Igloo Ghost, Umru, and Dasychira are playing Elsewhere in Bushwick on Wednesday, January 30th at 8pm. Brasstracks, Pell, and Kemba are playing Brooklyn Steel in Greenpoint on Thursday, January 31st at 8pm. White Rope, Upsetter, Blood Blush, and Amen are playing Alphaville in Bushwick on Thursday, January 31st at 8pm. Sad Baxter, Long Neck, Keep Score, and Benchmark are playing Gold Sounds Bar in Bushwick on Friday, February 1st at 7pm. Ted Leo, Slingshot Dakota, and Supernatural Psycho are playing the Brooklyn Bazaar in Greenpoint on Friday, February 1st at 8pm. Poppy is playing Irving Plaza in Union Square on Saturday, February 2nd at 7pm. The Roots are playing the Highline Ballroom at the final Highline Ballroom show on Tuesday, February 5th at 8pm. Find more fun things to do at agreatbigcity.com/events. If you're a street artist who wants to paint without keeping an eye out for the cops or if you just have an idea for a joyful mural, the NYC Dept of Transportation is searching for artists to brighten up some of the city's concrete surfaces. Submit your idea for a piece of public art by February 15th and you may be selected to receive up to $12,000 for the project. Visit nyc.gov/dotart for more info. Weather The extreme highs and lows for this week in weather history: Record High: 69°F on January 29, 2002 Record Low: -3°F on February 2, 1881 Weather for the week ahead: Mixed precipitation throughout the week, with high temperatures bottoming out at 17°F on Thursday. Thanks for listening to A Great Big City. Follow along 24 hours a day on social media @agreatbigcity or email contact@agreatbigcity.com with any news, feedback, suggestions, or corrections. If you enjoy the show, subscribe and leave a review wherever you're listening and visit agreatbigcity.com/podcast to see show notes and extra links for each episode. Intro and outro music: 'Start the Day' by Lee Rosevere

Brand New Episode this week featuring songs by Jhene Aiko with Rae Sremmurd, Carter Burwell, Richie Havens, Malo, A-Ha, Barbara Streisand, The Police, The  O'Neill Brothers, Gorillaz with D.R.A.M., Bad Wolves, and Cross Bronx Expressway! SUBSCRIBE: iTunes TWITTER: @MusicFirstPcast FACEBOOK: Music First Podcast INSTAGRAM: MusicFirstPodcast EMAIL: MusicFirstPodcast@gmail.com

Señorlobo se queda solo y decide hacer todo el programa solo con preciosos vinilos de tamaño reducido. Pequeños discos misteriosos que esconden temarracos del demonio de Magdy El Hossainy, Cross Bronx Expressway, BottleTree y Moodymann entre muchos otros.

The Bronx was burning. The Bronx is now rising. In the third and final part of our Bronx history series, we tackle the most difficult period in the life of this borough -- the late 20th century and the days and nights of urban blight. The focus of this show is the South Bronx, once the tranquil farmlands of the Morris family and the location of the first commuter towns, situated along the new railroad.  By the 1950s, however, a great number of socio-economic forces and physical changes were conspiring to make life in this area very, very challenging. Construction projects like the Cross Bronx Expressway and shifts in living arrangements (from new public housing to the promise of Co-Op City) had isolated those who still lived in the old tenements of the South Bronx. Poverty and high crime rendered the neighborhood so undesirable that buildings were abandoned and even burned. Mainstream attention (from notable television broadcasts to visits by the President of the United States) did not seem to immediately change things here. It would be up to local neighborhood activists and wide-ranging city and state programs -- not to mention the purveyors of an energetic new musical force -- to begin to improve the fortunes of this seemingly doomed borough. FEATURING an interview with Inside Out Tours founder and chief tour guide Stacey Toussaint about the new Bronx renaissance. ALSO: Appearances by Howard Cosell, Sonia Sotomayor, Robert Moses, Grand Wizzard Theodore, and Jimmy Carter!   www.boweryboyshistory.com Support the show.

Episode 30 is here and we have a great fantasy football talk for you podcast listeners out there in Pyromaniac.com land: PyromaniacMo sits down to chat about the 2016 world of fantasy football. The guest for this episode is none other than League Safe’s creator and owner Mr. Paul Charchian. You can hear him during the season on the longest running fantasy football radio show in the country, “Fantasy Football Weekly”. The discussion on the Pyro Light Podcast Episode 30 ranges from draft philosophy to ways of improving dynasty leagues. They talk about the expectations for some of this year's notable RBs such as Thomas Rawles, Karlos Williams, Spencer Ware, and Jeremy Lanford. Plus, they weigh in on the long awaited expectations for the likes of Kevin White and Breshad Perrimen. They even discuss a little Tight End action with Gronk, Ladarius Green, and Coby Fleener. Finally, like the famous John Lee Hooker song "One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Beer", Paul names one bounce-back, one sleeper, and one bust for the 2016 fantasy football season. The opening and closing music is performed by the Cross Bronx Expressway. If you like what you hear, give Mo a follow on Twitter, @PyromaniacMo, and of course you can find Paul on Twitter, @PaulCharchian. As always, thanks for being a part of the Pyromaniac fantasy football movement. We are here to win you your league, and as always, enjoy some Vaaal-Verdes while spilling the fantasy football goo along the way! The artwork comes from Minnesota artist, Derek Wehrwein. Check out more of his work at http://derekwehrwein.com/ ---> click here to subscribe to us on iTunes: apple.co/1DtoGV4 ---> listen to the podcast on our site here: http://www.pyromaniac.com/podcast - or click here to get an RSS of podcast: http://pyromaniac.buzzsprout.com

Author Phil Coltoff guides us to "The Block: One Block in the South Bronx, 19402-1980s" near Crotona Park, where he grew up, played soft ball, met friends, and with memories, moved on. The Bronx-post Cross Bronx Expressway and Coop City is discussed.

This week we have The Commodores, Cross Bronx Expressway, Hotel Buenavida, Peter Gabriel, Jens Lekman, The Monkees, Jambo, Vampire Weekend, Jose Feliciano, Wilco, The Beatles, Glenn Miller, and Kid n' Play itunes: http://bit.ly/Hg2RdK Facebook: http://on.fb.me/IzhiJV Email us at MusicFirstPodcast@gmail.com

It's almost impossible to overstate the impact Robert Moses ("Master Builder") had on New York City, Long Island, and New York State.  Head of the Parks Commission plus countless other titles, he's the man who brought us the Brooklyn- Queens Expressway, the Long Island Expressway, the Cross- Bronx Expressway, the Triboro Bridge, the U.N., the 1964 World's Fair, hundreds of parks and beaches, massive block- like housing projects, and much much MUCH much more.   This is just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, this iceberg is so huge, we had to split all the Robert Moses info into two separate podcasts.  Enjoy!  Don't forget to check out the Facebook page for more pictures of the unbelievable devastation he wrought (or the glorious developments he accomplished, depending on your point of view).

EPISODE 100 We obviously had to spend our anniversary show with the Power Broker himself, everybody's favorite Parks Commissioner -- Robert Moses. A healthy debate about Moses will divide your friends, and we provide the resources to make your case for both sides. Robert Moses was one of the most powerful men in New York from the late 1920s until the late 1960s, using multiple appointed positions in state and local government to make his vast dream of a modern New York comes to fruition. That dream included glorious parkways and gravity-defying bridges. It also included parking lots and the wholesale destruction of thousands of homes. World's fairs and innovative housing complexes. Elevated highways plowed through residential neighborhoods -- straight through Harlem, midtown Manhattan, and SoHo.We get into the trenches of some of Moses's most renown and controversial projects -- the splendor of Jones Beach; the revolutionary parks and pools; the tragedy of the Cross Bronx Expressway, and his signature project, the Triborough Bridge. What side will you come down on -- did Robert Moses give New York City the resources it needs to excel in the 20th century, or did he hasten its demise with short-sighted, malignant vision? www.boweryboyspodcast.com Support the show.