Robert Caro

The prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters has announced eight new inductees, including historian Robert Caro, New Yorker humorist Calvin Trillin and poet Paul Muldoon. Founded in 1898, the academy is "an honor society of 250 architects, composers, artists, and writers," according to its web site, with new members voted in as "vacancies occur." The academy's goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in the arts. Last year, Mr. Trillin released a best-selling memoir about his late wife, Alice Trillin based on the New Yorker essay that "seemed to trip some kind of secret wire in urban romantics’ hearts," wrote the Observer's Lizzy Ratner. And Mr. Caro, he of The Power Broker fame, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and wrote a multivolume series on Lyndon Johnson. More inductees, courtesy of the Associated Press, after the jump.  read more »

"It's a Princeton versus Yale thing."

That's Edward Tenner, the author of Why Things Bite Back, summing up the rivalry between Robert Caro and the master builder.

Mr. Caro graduated Princeton in 1957; Moses finished Yale in 1909.

Mr. Tenner told The Real Estate:

There is a certain kind of ultra-industrious Princetonian that does everything in a most thorough way and is totally obsessed with doing it right. Then there is the Yalie who loves to spread his feathers and bask in the limelight and Moses was extremely Yalie in that sort of way. I can just see Caro getting dressed up in his coat and tie to beaver this Yalie down to size.

Other Yalies: William F. Buckley Jr.; Cole Porter; George W. Bush; Jennifer Beals.

Other Princetonians: George Kennan; Woodrow Wilson; Samuel Alito; Brooke Shields.

Mr. Tenner has a whole anatomy of the Ivies which you can find via his website. He, by the way, is Princeton '65.

- Matthew Schuerman

Robert Caro, he of The Power Broker fame, started off his lecture on Sunday praising the exhibition which challenges his pre-eminence in Moses scholarship if it doesn't also challenge his interpretation of the city's master builder. "I think it's a fair and even-handed job."

But throughout the next hour, Mr. Caro kept making subtle suggestions about how that exhibit, "Robert Moses and the Making of the Modern City," came up short.

While the exhibit emphasizes the impact Moses had on "the built environment" without regard for his methods, Mr. Caro argued, "The way that Robert Moses left his mark on New York has to do with the way he treated the people of the city"--in particular how he diverted money from health clinics to his construction projects.

And to those who had found Mr. Caro's subtitle (Robert Moses and the Fall of New York) to be incongruous with the city's renaissance, he replied, "I meant that the city had fallen, not that it was fallen forever."

And for those who feel the ends justify Moses' means, Mr. Caro said:

For several years now I am constantly being approached at parties by large gentlemen, usually of the real estate persuasion, but sometimes from government--they come up to me and say to me, 'Don't you think it's time for a new Robert Moses?' And because I don't want to argue with people at cocktail parties, I say to these people, 'No!' Which happily cuts the conversation short.

The overflow crowd jumped to its feet to give the guy a standing ovation.

- Matthew Schuerman

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Sometime last fall, the biographer Robert Caro got a phone call from Roger Hertog, then vice chairma  read more »

For those who cannot wait until the Robert Moses retrospective opens next week, The Bridge and Tunnel Club has reproduced the 23-page rebuttal that The Power Broker himself wrote in 1974, when The Power Broker and excerpts from it in The New Yorker first came out:

Here and there in the Profiles there are broad hints that my associates and I were not always ultra refined in our actions. They say on occasion we quietly after hours smoothed the paths for our parkways. They insinuate that old trees were whisked away by ingenious stump pullers to allay the apprehensions of nervous environmentalists. [...]

As the city folk ride into the open country, we shall, I trust, be forgiven. The original railroad builders too were in a sense fuel merchants and chopped down some spindly woods to stoke their engines.

For more, including Moses' prediction that he doubted "many well-heeled readers will fork out $17.95, plus sachet, to read the unexpurgated Caro" (Robert Caro's tome has sold 315,000 copies so far), go to the cyber version on The Bridge and Tunnel Club's site.

For The Observer's piece this week on the exhibit, go here.

Timber!

- Matthew Schuerman

Jason Horowitz reports on the unparalleled Hillary Clinton fund-raising network as it roars to life and leaves her competitors with the scraps.

Matt Schuerman chronicles a difference of opinion between historians Robert Caro and Kenneth Jackson over the legacy of Robert Moses.

Steve Kornacki writes about the way that John Edwards is using his status as a former elected official to make life difficult for his fellow presidential candidates in the senate.

And Joe Conason thinks that the president's State of the Union address was shop-worn and unrealistic.

-- Josh Benson

Hudson Square Grabs Viacom Lease "Media behemoth Viacom has a lease out for as much as 250,000 square feet at 345 Hudson Street in the long-struggling commercial area of Soho's Hudson Square." New York Sports Club Parent Leases in Penn Plaza "Take that, Equinox! Town Sports, which controls omnipresent gym New York Sports Club, has found its new headquarters. Town Sports will move into a 28,000-square-foot home at 5 Penn Plaza." Go to Commercial Breaks by John Koblin. Bank Branches Disappearing? What Corner You Live On? "Not long ago, some retail brokers were predicting a sort of cataclysmic bubble-bursting for the city's seemingly never-ending bank-branch boom. At least at street level, these forecasts of a recession in the recent retail-leasing dominance of banks appear quite premature." Go to Counter Espionage by Chris Shott. Moses Envy: Caro, Columbia Battle Over The Ghost of Moses "Sometime last fall, the biographer Robert Caro got a phone call from Roger Hertog, vice chairman of Alliance Capital Management and a rich and powerful New York City history buff. Columbia was planning a big exhibit on Robert Moses, New York's master builder from the mid-20th century, and he wanted to know if Mr. Caro would give a lecture as part of it. It was the first time, Mr. Caro said, that he had heard from anyone connected to the massive three-part exhibit opening next week, 'Robert Moses and the Modern City,' which includes among its backers noted historian Kenneth T. Jackson." Go to story by Matthew Schuerman. Johnson & Johnson Heiress Libet Sells Last Trump Condo for $18.5M "After a five-year wait, heiress Libet Johnson has finally sold off the brassiest penthouse in the brassiest tower in town. According to city records, she parted with Penthouse 51-B at Trump International on Central Park West for $18.5 million." Andre to Wally: Comfort Can Be Dangerous! "Wallace Shawn and Deborah Eisenberg, the exceedingly literary local power couple, have bought the duplex penthouse in a West 23rd Street brownstone near 10th Avenue. According to city records, they paid $2,158,530." Go to Manhattan Transfers by Max Abelson. Sky-High Property Taxes Give Renters the Shaft "Renters, beware! You are about to get shafted--thanks to property taxes. For many years now, rental landlords (and commercial-building owners) have been paying disproportionately more in property taxes; and they often pass these higher taxes on to tenants through higher rents." Go to The Lab by Tom Acitelli.

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Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson , by Robert Caro. Alfred A.  read more »

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