This is the 99% invisible breakdown of the powerbroker. I'm Roman Mars. And I'm Elliot Kalen.

Today is the day, my friends. We are finishing the book. If you want to get precise, we're covering

chapters 47 through 50, pages 182 through 1,162. Now we said last episode that we were not going to

cover the notes section after the end of the book,

but I guess you're just going to have to stick around to find out if I can keep that promise.

And later in this episode, our special guest is none other than Robert Caro himself.

As we closed the book and this series, we wanted to visit him again to get his perspective on the

ending and the book's legacy. So on the last power broker breakdown, we learned that Robert

Moses tried to put a parking lot in the tavern in the green on the tavern in the green,

in the tavern on the green, I'm not sure. One of those. Choose your own preposition.

And ran against some moms who did not want it there.

And it was kind of his first big New York newspaper defeat, which was a big deal, even though

the crime itself was probably not as big a deal.

And it sort of tarnished Moses' reputation for infallibility and incorruptibility.

The New York papers finally got off their duffs and started reporting on corruption in Moses'

public housing projects.

One of Moses's aides, The Mustache, tries to pick a fight or does pick a fight with Joe

Papp over allowing free Shakespeare

in the park. And this is another one of these just terrible, just fumbles that damages Moses'

reputation as the champion of the people. And the news media discovers some fairly sort of small

ball scandals that are kind of unfair to Moses, as Caro sort of freely admits, but they do actually

kind of stick to him for the first time. And it encourages him to drop housing as one of the

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