And these were only two pictures—two out of' a dozen with drama and pathos. The News alone used seven the next morning, one on page one, three on 'page three, three in the centerfold. Out at New York leapt scenes of a workman raising his ax next to a tree while three big policemen restrained one diminutive mother stretching her hands out toward the tree as if to protect it from the blade, of mothers turning away from the line of policemen in tears, of little boys peering through the fence slats at the bulldozer rooting at a tree while beside them a policeman stood sad-faced guard, of one dismembered tree, a sawn-through cross-section of its trunk very white in the picture, being loaded in sections onto a truck, of Stuart Constable striding past mothers and baby carriages with a self-satisfied little smirk on his face that, combined with the walrus mustache, made him look like nothing so much as the villain come to foreclose the mortgage in The Old Homestead —pictures worth not a thousand words but a million. And these pictures were flashed before the public not only in still life but in motion—on evening television newscasts on which they were, if possible, even more dramatic.
The outrage the press expressed was echoed by the public. Letters not by the hundreds but by the thousands poured into newspapers and the offices of public officials; on a single day, Mayor Wagner received close to four thousand. And if the public was outraged, they knew precisely whom they were outraged at. A single day's selection from a single newspaper shows the tone: in the Journal-American of April 26:
I have always admired Commissioner Moses, but he certainly pulled a
boo-boo on that Central Park deal.
—Ex-Moses Fan
So the great Moses had to stoop to pulling a sneak attack at night to out-maneuver the embattled Central Park mothers! What's the matter, didn't he have the courage to face them in the daylight? Of all the low-down tricks, that's just
about the lowest in my book. ^ ^ „
J —Mrs. C. Brown, Bronx
Those pictures of mothers weeping as they watched bulldozers tearing
down beautiful trees and destroying a children's playground for, of all things, a
parking lot for restaurant patrons, made me want to weep, too. Shame on you,
Commissioner Moses! „.
—Disgusted
"Sneak!" "Shame!" "£Z-Moses Fan!" Thirty years before, Robert Moses had leapt onto the front pages in a single bound—in stories that portrayed him as a fighter for parks, as a faithful, selfless public servant, a servant whose only interest lay in serving, as a hero. This portrait, painted in an instant, had survived for thirty years and had hardened into an image that had withstood, without so much as a crack, a dozen explosions that would have shattered the image of the ordinary public figure. Now, in a single day, over a single dispute
a dispute over a hollow in the ground and a few trees—that image had
cracked. Not wide-open, of course. Large parts of it remained untouched; it was still an image untarnished by scandal, untainted by compromise; Robert Moses was still the public official uninterested in money, unwilling to truck with bureaucrats or truckle to politicians. But for the first time he had been portrayed to the public at large not as a defender but as a destroyer of parks and as an official interested not in serving the people but in imposing his wishes upon them. The image would never be whole again. Tuesday, April 24, 1956, the day that Robert Moses sent his troops into Central Park, was Robert Moses' Black Tuesday. For on it, he lost his most cherished asset: his reputation. The Moses Boom had lasted for thirty years. Now it was over.
Surveying the battlefield on Tuesday night, Moses may have had at least one consolation. In one respect, at least, the Battle of Central Park appeared to have ended as his battles usually ended. However Pyrrhic his victory, it was still victory: press and public might yell, but the trees were coming down; his bulldozers were in operation, and no one in the city government was going to stop them, a fact that became clear on Thursday when Wagner's press secretary said, "Commissioner Moses has the right to do what he is doing. We have the right to stand behind the Park Commissioner," and the City Council shunted a Stanley Isaacs resolution demanding action off to a committee which scheduled a hearing for the following week—by which time the trees would all be down and the grass would be covered with concrete. (Moses declined the committee's invitation to attend. No councilman but Isaacs seemed to feel there was anything wrong with that.) On the judicial front, there was a development on Thursday that may have been of interest to students of the law concerned with the influence of public opinion on the judicial process. In 1934, with Moses at the peak of his popularity and the voice of the press a chorus in his praise, the five justices of the Appellate Division had heard an appeal for an injunction in a case (Moses' move against Jimmy Walker's Casino) turning on precisely the same basic question, the extent of Moses' authority over physical changes in Central Park, and had held, quickly and unanimously, that that authority was absolute. In 1956, with the voice of the press a chorus against him, State Supreme Court Justice Benjamin J. Hecht granted the mothers' request for an injunction halting work pending a full hearing the next morning. Justice Samuel H. Hofstadter, who presided over this hearing (and who could hardly have been unfamiliar with the Casino case, since as a state
senator he had chaired the "Seabury Committee" that broke up the "Walk-erian Court"), quoted poetry ("'The tree depicts divinest plan.' That is why I am taking cognizance of the trees") and paid a personal visit to the site—accompanied by half a hundred reporters, photographers and TV cameramen. And when he completed the visit, he continued the temporary injunction pending a hearing on whether or not to make it permanent—a hearing that would be held before another judge. But Moses knew what the law said; he had, after all, written it. He was confident that this setback was only temporary and would soon be ended. He told Corporation Counsel Peter Campbell Brown that he wanted the hearing scheduled immediately; if by any chance he lost, he said, he wanted the case appealed at once. To a newsman who asked if there was any possibility of a compromise, he replied: "No, no, nothing of that sort."
But even this consolation of victory was to be denied him. There were two points in the Tavern-on-the-Green battle on which the Commissioner was extremely vulnerable—and now Stanley Isaacs remembered one and discovered the other.
One was the resemblance between this fight and the one over the Casino. The mothers' attorney, Louis N. Field—probably at Isaacs' suggestion— looked up the Casino fight in the Times and found Moses' statements justifying his decision to tear down that old park landmark—that only restaurants with "reasonable" prices "within the reach of persons of average means" belong in public parks. The fact that Moses had never believed this argument—that he had used it because it was the only one available—did not matter. What mattered was that he had used it, and his words could be quoted against him. And when Field pointed out that at the Tavern a "simple hamburger and a glass of beer would cost $4.50," the press took up his point eagerly: soon stories were informing the public about the Tavern's alternating "society" orchestras, about the fashion shows "attended by women in fur capes" while "several chauffeur-driven Cadillacs waited" at the door, and about the "non-economy prices" that only "well-to-do residents . . . could afford"; as one story put it: "Dinner and tip for two came to nearly $23. There was another $5 at the bar for two drinks each. It's not a place to go the day before pay day." And the press coverage produced the fallout that could be expected. Soon, for example, the Rev. Dr. Ralph Curry Walker, of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church, was inveighing against the Tavern in sermons, and announcing that he would ask the Protestant Council of the Five Baptist Associations to adopt a resolution opposing the parking lot, because it would tend to encourage the sale of intoxicating liquor in a park.
The second issue—discovered by Isaacs—was the nature of the financial arrangement between Moses' Park Department and the restaurant's owner, old Moses favorite Arnold Schleiffer. Schleiffer paid the city only 5 percent of his gross inc
ome to operate a restaurant in the renovated sheepfold. This was a pittance compared to the rent most restaurant owners paid their landlords—even if Schleiffer had paid it all.
And, Isaacs discovered, he hadn't.
Studying Schleiffer's contract, the councilman found a provision that
allowed the restaurateur to "improve" (repair and renovate) his restaurant and deduct the cost of the improvements from his rent payments. Checking with the Comptroller's office, he found that the restaurateur had made full use of that provision. In one four-year period, for example, the gross income of the Tavern-on-the-Green had been $1,786,000. On that income, Schleiffer should have paid the city about $90,000—a low enough figure. Instead, he spent more than $80,000 on "improvements." On a gross income of $1,786,-000, he had paid the city only $9,000—half of 1 percent. Out of every thousand dollars that he collected, he handed the city a lone five-dollar bill. Isaacs had heard rumors that Schleiffer, who had been operating on a shoestring when he was first taken into the Moses empire, was now a man of considerable wealth. After he saw those figures, the councilman had no trouble believing those rumors. Moses had made the concessionaire rich. And he had made him rich at the city's expense.
The arrangement with Schleiffer was a typical Moses arrangement, no different from scores in effect for more than twenty years with the favored concessionaires who were so integral a part of his empire—no different, in fact, from the others in effect with Schleiffer, who, unknown to Isaacs, operated half a dozen other park concessions. There was nothing illegal about it. Moses certainly was not making a dime from it; he even insisted, to Schleiffer's voluble dismay, on paying for every meal he ate there. He favored it partly because it allowed him to circumvent the city's budgetary requirements for capital improvements—and mainly because by giving the concessionaires huge profits he was in a position to ask them to throw huge parties, the lavish dinners and receptions that were an integral part of his way of power. At many of his most elaborate receptions— receptions for guests in the hundreds or thousands—the Tavern-on-the-Green had provided not only plates, glasses, silverware, tablecloths, napkins and the finest of food and liquor but waiters and busboys and bartenders and chefs. The Board of Estimate would never have approved the expenditures for such parties, of course. It would have felt the city had more pressing needs that might be met with the thousands—tens of thousands—of dollars involved. But under this arrangement, the Board had nothing to say about them.
For more than twenty years, Moses had been boasting that he had ended all favoritism to concessionaires, and for more than twenty years, the press had been repeating and amplifying that boast, and ignoring Isaacs' attempts to present them with the facts that would have disproved it. But this time, when Isaacs talked, the press was listening. And when he provided facts on the Tavern-on-the-Green concession arrangement, reporters gobbled them up.
Suddenly there were editorials in a tone that had never been used in relation to Moses before. "At issue now is the Park Commissioner's latitude in dealing with concessionaires," the World-Telegram said. "The financial arrangements between the Tavern-on-the-Green and the city coffers need a lot more explaining than anyone has been willing to provide so far." park windfall: tavern pays only Vs rent, headlines blared, park tavern
YIELDS CITY ONLY 2%; MOSES DUCKS COUNCIL HEARING. MOSES DROPS
curtain on tavern park deal. "Windfall!" "Ducks!" "Deal!"—words that spelled scandal. The editorials, headlines—and stories—were oversimplified, so oversimplified as to be misleading. But whereas Moses had always used his image to make the press's bent for oversimplification work for him, now that bent was working against him. In the sense in which the public understood words like "windfall" and "deal"—illegalities, payoffs, bribes—there was no scandal in the Tavern-on-the-Green affair. But the press made it appear that there was. During more than thirty years of public service, the name of Robert Moses had never even been brushed by so much as the hint of scandal. But the hint of scandal was brushing it now.
He apparently did not realize at first the threat to his name in the controversy over the insignificant parking lot. He saw no need to change plans for a vacation; on the very morning on which Hofstadter issued his injunction, Moses was boarding the Italian luxury liner Cristoforo Colombo with Mary for a twenty-four-day trip to Spain. Reporters rushing to the dock to get his reaction found him smiling and relaxed. "We're just going to go right through with the action," he said. "We will pursue this to the last court." And those had, in fact, been his private instructions to Corporation Counsel Peter Campbell Brown.
But he realized it at last. His crossing was sunny, but, behind him, the storm he had expected to blow itself out raged harder than ever. For the press was being given a continuing supply of fresh meat on which to feed. Constable, trying as usual to out-Moses Moses, refused outright to provide reporters with detailed figures on the Tavern modernization program of which the parking lot was a part—a mistake that Moses would never have made, for not only were the figures public record, but they were available to the reporters in the City Comptroller's office. Reporters demanded that Wagner order the Park Department executive officer to release them—and a flustered Mayor did, telling his press secretary to deliver the order to Constable personally. The figures revealed nothing new, but the fact that the Mayor had ordered them released made a front-page story in the Times ("Mayor Wagner directed the Park Department yesterday to produce detailed figures . . ."). When they were produced, Wagner pointed out that "there was nothing to hide." But the press didn't concentrate on that statement. Reporters had pressed the Mayor as to whether the Board of Estimate would investigate the concession arrangement. Only after he had run out of evasions did he reply at all, and then he did so as circumspectly as possible: "I think we will discuss it. No doubt we will discuss it." But the press blew his words up into far more than they meant: a six-column headline across page one of the World-Telegram blared: mayor demands airing of park tavern finance. Such press coverage, and the continuing public response —letters poured in and were printed by editors day after day—coupled, possibly, with Moses' absence, encouraged politicians to make statements on the issue. And each statement made another meal for the press. One
1000
can almost see, day by day, the realization dawning among reporters and headline writers that even'though the public official involved was Robert Moses, this story could be handled like any other story. Day by day, their pens grew sharper. Appearing on WCBS-TV's "Let's Find Out," Wagner was asked about the financial arrangement. "There is nothing illegal about it," the Mayor said: Moses had "clearly" been acting within his powers under the City Charter. He went out of his way to defend the Park Commissioner; the controversy had been "rather amusing," he said, because "he has been the toughest one, if you remember, about holding on to park space and trying to acquire more." When reporters pressed him as to the possibility of Board action on the arrangement, he gave the minimal response possible; the Board would "review" the possibility of requiring bidding on all city concession contracts. But what the headlines said the next day was: moses' wings due for a clip and wagner and city weigh curb on moses. Corporation Counsel Brown had asked Wagner if he should go ahead with the appeal of Hofstadter's decision as Moses had asked. Do whatever Moses wants, the Mayor told him—and the ensuing appeal provided still more fresh meat—as well as fresh evidence of the interaction of public and judicial opinion. In 1934, when another Corporation Counsel had appealed the decision of a lower-court judge, the five justices of the Appellate Division had agreed unanimously that while the powers that the law granted to Moses were far too broad, the law as it stood was perfectly clear: they had no choice but to overrule the lower court's decision. In all relevant respects, the law was the same—but this time the five justices unanimously upheld the lower court. (When Brown argued that the restaurant was open to anyone, one of the justices said: "You mean anyone who can afford it. I'm not complaining about my salary, but I c
an't afford $5.85 steaks"— "more than i pay," says judge.) The criticism began to spread from the one isolated Tavern incident to the legend as a whole: "What I have not seen commented on," said one letter writer in the World-Telegram, pointing out that in Van Cortlandt Park alone more than 150 acres had been devoted to traffic use, "is the general policy of the commissioner. ... He seems to feel that as long as money can be saved by the use of park property, instead of condemning private land, any invasion of the parks is justified." Federal officials, long silent, released statements critical of the handling of Title I in New York. "The Battle of the Tavern-on-the-Green has already had a salutary effect on the city," the Post commented. "Men have begun to feel that it is safe to question Robert Moses." Moses had been receiving daily reports of the controversy in Spain. Returning—the circles under his eyes bigger and darker than when he had left three weeks before—he tried to smile for the photographers who had boarded a pilot's boat and crowded onto the Cristojoro Colombo as it was still steaming up the harbor toward its berth, posing him at the rail of the big liner, but the pictures showed a smile so forced that it was more of a grimace. Twenty-four days alone with the wife whose advice had helped him out of tight spots before had had some effect: he made an obvious effort to contain himself, greeting reporters genially and telling them, "I don't intend to get excited about this matter.
There is an enormous acreage in Central Park and this discussion is all over one-half an acre and the taking down of four [sic] trees." When reporters asked him about the price of a steak at the Tavern, he said, "I don't know anything about the price of steaks at the Tavern," and, still containing himself, added, "I'm not going to let them get my goat or get disturbed about it. I have other things to do. I don't propose to get excited about it. I know something about New York and its people, and I'm sure they all appreciate what we have done in the city." Turning to the skyline the liner was moving past, he said, the face creaking into a smile again: "Isn't this a wonderful city?" But the questions continued, questions of the kind that no reporter had asked Robert Moses since the gubernatorial campaign of 1934. And the outcome now was the same as the outcome then. For twenty-four days, bile had been rising in his gorge. Now, in a rush, it spilled over. "Oh, who are these critics anyway?" he demanded. "Troublemakers. A small, noisy minority. You have Mr. Isaacs and the Citizens Union and these childless women howling about their non-existent children. Take a woman like Fannie Hurst. Where are all her children? I've never heard of her having any children." He had been making similar attacks for years, but never had they been handled as these were handled. Not only the Post —"It had not previously occurred to most Americans that they had to give birth before disputing Robert Moses"—but other newspapers treated his words as the outburst of a cranky old man, almost as a joke not worth taking seriously. His victims even got what so many past victims had been denied: a chance to reply. Watching Moses on television, the Newmans suffered over the insult to the elderly woman they had persuaded to join the fight. "I don't know how Fannie Hurst took it, but I took it very badly," Augusta Newman would say. "Perhaps she had always wanted children and couldn't have any . . ." When reporters called for comments, Arnold Newman called Moses' statement "a proper greeting from a man with a concrete mind and a non-existent heart," and his wife invited the Park Commissioner up to "visit my non-existent children . . . aged four and six"—and these rebuttals were played high, as was the fact that the request for an injunction had been brought in the name of Mrs. Norma Rosen, "mother of two." On reaching his office that afternoon, moreover, Moses must have known that worse was to come. Waiting on his desk was a copy of a memo from Brown to Wagner summarizing a private conference the Corporation Counsel had held with Field. According to the memorandum, at that conference the mothers' attorney had noted that he had not yet revealed in court many of Moses' more damaging statements made under oath in the Casino case, or the full details of Moses' arrangements with many park concessionaires. "In the event of a trial," Field had said, "he would be compelled to amend his complaint to raise these issues and to present data 'that would undoubtedly tend to perpetuate the publicity received in the press and might prompt challenge to other activities of Commissioner Moses.' " Moses knew what his statements, and those arrangements, were. For one thing, he had authorized SchleifTer to spend $48,000 for a separate corridor for guests at plush private wedding parties. He must have known how his statements and arrangements would look in print.
The power broker : Robert Moses and the fall of New York Page 154