"The city in which the shaping by his hand is most evident is New York, Titan of cities, collosal synthesis of urban hope and urban despair. It has b… - Robert A. Caro

"The city in which the shaping by his hand is most evident is New York, Titan of cities, collosal synthesis of urban hope and urban despair. It has become a cliché by the mid-twentieth century to say that New York was "ungovernable," and this meant, since the powers of government in the city had largely devolved on its mayor, that no mayor could govern it, could hope to do more than merely stay afloat in the maelstrom that had engulfed the vast metropolis. In such a context, the cliché was valid. No mayor shaped New York; no mayor — not even La Guardia — left upon its roiling surface more than the faintest of lasting imprints.

But Robert Moses shaped New York."