Pub In The Park

Robert Moses forever changed not only the city of New York, but the concepts regarding public space and public parks, throughout the entire United States.  He created unprecedented escapes, concerned with the health and the well being of his fellow New Yorkers.  He knew the benefits of the retreat from busy city life, the benefits to the soul, the benefits to a healthy state of mind, and he put them, his ideas and his notions, into practice in the 1920′s. 

For more than fifty years, Robert Moses contributed to his city and to his communities.  One would be hard pressed to find a swing set seat in Manhattan, that this man did not have some part in providing.  To talk a walk today, along the streets, through parks and the alleys behind the best restaurants, New York City is different than what it could have been, could have become, because of the vision of this one man.  Moses’s first project as Parks Commissioner, was the Jones Beach State Park. This resulted in the unprecedented attendance for a park or public beach, outnumbering the attendance for the opening of Central Park seventy years earlier.  From this day forward, his designs became the standard model for parks in New York City in the decades that followed. 

In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated the New Deal.  The publicly and federally funded project put innovative and artistic people to work, in a program that affected not only the city parks, but the highways and the public spaces as well.  This was no more evident than in the city of New York.  Hundreds upon hundreds of playgrounds were created for the youth of the city, along with golf courses, public pools, zoos and recreational facilities. 

After three years of planning, the 1939 World’s Fair opened.  This was located in an area that had been a swampland and dump…but later became the Flushing Meadows Park.  From Battery Park to Coney Island, from the Upper West Side to the East Village, Robert Moses changed his city for the better, for the good of the people.  His legend is not only remembered, but replicated throughout the country.  The ingenious projects of a thoughtful man, a good man…a man of New York City.

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