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had begun building the Long Island Expressway, Mumford launched a spirited attack on the project—and on Moses—in the pages of The New Yorker . Moses’ New York, Mumford thought, had “become steadily more frustrating and unsatisfactory to raise children in, and more difficult to escape from for a holiday in the country.” By now, both men were diametrically opposed in their core beliefs. While Moses famously claimed that “cities are created by and for traffic,” Mumford firmly believed and repeatedly stated that highways do not mitigate traffic; they create it. “A city exists, not for the constant passage of motorcars, but for the care and culture of men,” said Mumford, who in 1961 published his award-winning book, The City in History.
    Not that Moses cared. He lumped Mumford in with the academic critics “who build nothing.” In the meantime, Moses continued to accumulate positions—and power—like trophies; La Guardia’s successor, Mayor William O’Dwyer, added Construction Coordinator and Chairman of the Emergency Committee on Housing to his growing portfolio. By the 1950s it was impossible to build anything in New York without Moses’ consent. If he opposed a project—as he did when Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley wanted to build a new ballpark in Brooklyn—it never happened; if he wanted a project realized—a baseball stadium in his favored Flushing Meadow Park in Queens—it was built.
    But for all his power and influence,Title I almost proved Moses’ undoing. Each time he embarked on the construction of new housing, streets and neighborhoods had to be condemned, and the unfortunate souls who called those neighborhoods home had their lives upended. Over the course of his Title I reign, Moses uprooted tens of thousands of New Yorkers, old and young alike, replacing neighborhoods with concrete-slab towers. “There is nothing wrong with these buildings,” Mumford wrote after taking a tour of a few newly created housing projects, “except that, humanly speaking, they stink.”
    In 1959 a scandal revealed that notorious mob boss Frank Costello, button man Vinny “the Chin” Gigante, and other assorted mafiosi were involved in one of Moses’ Title I public housing programs. While Moses didn’t know of the mob connection, the incident stained his reputation and, most infuriating, allowed his media critics an opportunity to publicly tar and feather him. Costello Pal Got Title 1 Deal, roared the New York Post ; Banker Had Warning on Costello Pal, clamored the New York World-Telegram.
    Moses was incensed. Mayor Wagner and Governor Rockefeller were under pressure to do something with the aging Master Builder, to strip him of some of his titles at least, which wouldn’t be easy, as Wagner could testify. In 1954, right after taking the oath of office, Wagner swore in Moses as City Parks Commissioner and City Construction Coordinator. When he was done, Moses stood at attention waiting for Wagner to swear him in as Chairman of the City Planning Commission.
    After all the other administration appointees took their oaths, the mayor still hadn’t done so. Moses followed Wagner into his private office. What the Master Builder didn’t know was that Wagner’s aides had been pressuring the mayor not to allow Moses to head the Planning Commission. Holding all three positions would give Moses the power to propose and green-light public works projects with little to no oversight—far too much power in one man’s hands.
    Behind closed doors, Moses informed Wagner that if he wasn’t reappointed the head of the Planning Commission, he would resign his other posts, immediately. Wagner froze. He said it was just a clerical oversight; give it a few days, he promised, and the situation would all be sorted out. Moses walked out, grabbed a blank application form from a nearby office, filled it out,