Bridge And Tunnel: How Robert Moses Built New York's Roadway Empire

De: Geoff Arrington

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Every New Yorker has a relationship with the city's streets, a daily interaction with a seemingly permanent landscape of asphalt and steel. But beneath every off-ramp and intersection lies a hidden history, a four-hundred-year story of how a wilderness was paved and transformed. This book unearths that story, revealing the epic struggles and forgotten compromises that shaped the five boroughs.

Beginning with the ancient Lenape footpaths that became the first winding lanes of Lower Manhattan, the narrative traces the city’s relentless growth. It chronicles the arrival of the automobile and the subsequent age of the master builder, Robert Moses, who remade the region with an empire of parkways, bridges, and expressways. Discover the engineering genius behind the Brooklyn Bridge and the brutal human cost of the Cross Bronx Expressway.

This is a story of immense power and the remarkable individuals who wielded it, from visionary engineers to ruthless political bosses. It is also the story of the resistance they sparked, culminating in the legendary battles led by activists like Jane Jacobs to save their neighborhoods from the bulldozer. Witness the dramatic turning points where communities fought back and forever changed the way the city was built.

From the unseen engineering of its tunnels to the controversial politics of congestion pricing, this book reveals the hidden logic of the city's circulatory system. It is a comprehensive, chronological history of how the simple act of getting from one place to another created the modern metropolis. After reading it, you will never see the streets of New York the same way again.