Did Robert Moses Put His Racism on Display in a Harlem Playground?
The infamous New York parks commissioner allegedly placed decorations in Riverside Park to mock Black residents in the 1930s. An urban historian looks at the evidence.
Longtime NYC parks commissioner Robert Moses (center) in Berlin in 1945.
Credit: New York Public Library
Sign up here for the CityLab Daily newsletter.
On Randall’s Island in New York City, near the headquarters from which parks commissioner Robert Moses once ruled his asphalt empire, four iron monkeys await their fate in a Parks Department storage yard. The creatures were cut from their longtime perch on a comfort station trellis in Riverside Park’s Ten Mile River Playground in November, after a well-trod passage in Robert Caro’s 1974 biography of Moses, The Power Broker, went viral on social media.