This is a ridiculous special bonus episode of the 99% Invisible Breakdown of the Power Broker.

I'm Roman Mars.

A few months ago, Elliot had an idea.

Roman, I just want to say you did an amazing job of condensing the last episode down really little.

And I just want to say, there should be a podcast called the 99% invisible power broker breakdown, breakdown, where it's just those

sections at the beginning, just the catch-up section. If you string those together, you could

digest this whole book probably in like, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes when the series is over.

So keep that in mind for the future for the ultra abridged edition.

Say you started the book, but you put it down for a while and you want to get back up to

speed before you dive back in. Or you read the whole book, but you want a little refresher.

For you, we present the 99% Invisible Power Broker Breakdown, Breakdown.

It starts with the summary of the first five chapters way back

in our second episode from February 2024. So let's just start where we left off last time.

At the end of Chapter 5, it's November, it's 1918. Robert Moses is about turned 30. His career

in public service has almost ended at this point.

Like he's a complete failure.

All of his different programs he has proposed have failed.

But then he gets a call from his former boss's wife, Bell Moskowitz.

Let's get to our recap of we're going to sort of pick up where we left off at the end of chapter 10.

It's 1924, and the New York State Legislature has just passed a bill written by Robert Moses,

giving him enormous, like, hidden power to appropriate and govern land to the new State Council of Parks

that is run by Robert Moses.

...