Robert Moses State Park - Long Island
Friday, June 27, 2008 - Sunday, June 29, 2008

All Fields celebrate the 100th Anniversary beginning Friday, June 27 through Sunday, June 29, 2008. Activities on Friday include ribbon cutting ceremony at Field #3, celebration cake, family bbq in evening, steel drum band, free ferry boat tours. Saturday and Sunday take part in a treasure hunt/dig, sandcastle contest, and free ferry boat rides. Enjoy children's shows, and local artists' paintings and photographs. For more information, please call 631-669-0470.

Robert Moses (December 18, 1888–July 29, 1981) was the "master builder" of mid-20th century New York City, Long Island, and other suburbs. As the shaper of a modern city, he is sometimes compared to Baron Haussmann of Second Empire Paris, and he was easily the most polarizing figure in the history of urban planning in the United States. Although he never held elected office, Moses was arguably the most powerful person in New York City government from the 1930s to the 1950s. He literally changed shorelines, built roadways in the sky, and transformed vibrant neighborhoods forever. His decisions favoring highways over public transport formed the modern suburbs of Long Island and influenced a generation of engineers, architects, and urban planners who spread his philosophies across the nation.

Moses and his works remain strongly criticized in certain circles, to the point of tainting his legacy as a public figure. The most common criticisms include the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in New York City, contributing to the ruin of the South Bronx and the amusement parks of Coney Island, the departure of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the decline of public transport through disinvestment and neglect. On the other hand, Moses's projects were also considered by many to be necessary for the region's development, and Moses participated in the construction of two huge World's Fairs: one in 1939 and the other in 1964. Moses was also in large part responsible for the United Nations' decision to headquarter in Manhattan as opposed to San Francisco. To Moses's critics, however, he will always be remembered for believing that "cities are for traffic" and "if the ends don't justify the means, what does?"

Three major exhibits in 2007 helped rehabilitate his image among intellectuals, as they realized the magnitude of his achievements. According to the Columbia University architectural historian Hilary Ballon and assorted colleagues, Moses deserves better. Ballon and other scholars argue that his legacy is more relevant than ever. All around New York State, she says, people take for granted the parks, playgrounds and housing Moses built, now generally binding forces in those areas, even if the old-style New York neighborhood was of no interest to Moses himself. And were it not for Moses’ public infrastructure and his resolve to carve out more space, she argues, New York might not have been able to recover from the blight and flight of the 1970s and ’80s and become the economic magnet it is today, she suggests.[1] “Every generation writes its own history,” said Kenneth T. Jackson, a historian of New York City. "It could be that The Power Broker was a reflection of its time: New York was in trouble and had been in decline for 15 years. Now, for a whole host of reasons, New York is entering a new time, a time of optimism, growth and revival that hasn’t been seen in half a century. And that causes us to look at our infrastructure," said Jackson. “A lot of big projects are on the table again, and it kind of suggests a Moses era without Moses,” he added.