2024-11-20
44 分钟What makes The Power Broker endure 50 years on? Roman Mars and Elliott Kalan sit down with legendary author Robert Caro to explore the humanity, drama, and untold stories behind his iconic book. Recorded live from the New York Historical Society.
This is 99% invisible.
I'm Roman Mars.
In the 50 years since the Power Broker was published, the book has endured in ways that few biographies have.
First and foremost, it completely upended how the public viewed the former New York City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses.
He went from being the man who built all those nice parks to an urban design villain.
If you've been following along with the 99% visible breakdown of the Power Broker, you know what I'm talking about.
And you also know that last month I was at the New York Historical Society with my co host Elliot Kalin to interview Robert Caro, the author of the Power Broker, live on stage.
The New York Historical Society holds Robert Caro's archives, which include his research for the Power Broker, as well as the papers for his four volume biography of President Lyndon Johnson.
At 89 years old, Caro is still working on the fifth and final installment to celebrate 50 years of the powerbroker.
The Society went into their archives and curated a special exhibit that is a must see for any Power Broker reader.
There are so many amazing documents on display.
There's Caro's handwritten notes from his interview with Lillian Edelstein, who tried and failed to stop Moses from tearing down her home in East Fremont to make way for the Cross Bronx Expressway.
And next to that, there's notes from Caro's interview with Robert Moses on his side of the story.
You can see in his notes where Moses told Caro Caro that the opposition was, quote, a political thing that stirred up the animals there.
There's also pages from early drafts of the Power Broker with huge slashes through entire paragraphs made by Caro's editor, Robert Gottlieb.
Caro often says that he cut 350,000 words around a third of his initial draft of the Power Broker, partly because the publisher could not bind a book that would hold that many pages.
It was physically impossible to release a book of that size.
And woven throughout the exhibit are examples of Caro's famous attention to detail, which just floored Elliot and me when we saw it.
One of the things that I admire so much about Robert Caro's work is that he goes everywhere and that these notes here about the West Bathhouse at this beach.
West Bathhouse beach is practically deserted at 10:38.