He was ingenious, brilliant and powerful. Despite early sympathies with the common person, Robert Moses' desires became extremely selfish and elitist, leaving no room for communities, for sense and sensibility, for history and continuity, for fantasies and creativity. According to Robert Caro, author of The Power Broker; Moses in order to build his highways dispossessed approximately 250,000 persons, destroying a large number of vital communities in New York. Consolidated neighborhoods that made of New York a home to its people. He also points out the fact that these communities were mostly Blacks, Puerto Ricans and the poor.

     The elevated highway was constructed atop the existing pillars of an old elevated subway on Third Avenue. Demolition of several homes and businesses was required along Third Avenue, promoting the decline of the blocks along the waterfront terminals. Not having done enough to blight the entire community, Third Avenue under the elevated structure was adapted to conduct local truck traffic. Moses' warped beliefs led him to make these devastating decisions. According to Caro, Moses told the Board of Estimate that "Sunset Park wasn't particularly worth saving because it was a `slum'" (p. 520)

     Today a decision has to be made: Do we stay mired in the past, condemning Sunset Park and Western Brooklyn to live forever hamstrung by Moses' views or with a new tunnel, can we reclaim our communities and throw off the shackless of neglect which have stunted their growth for over half a century? The construction of a tunnel instead of reconstructing the viaduct will assure great benefits to all our communities. It would bring divided communities back together; it would get rid of an urban blight and a major source of air pollution. It would eliminate the isolation and disenfranchisement which the elevated structure has forced on certain neighborhoods, primarily Sunset Park and Red Hook and free up a transportation corridor crucial to the northeastern United States.

     For forty years, as Robert Caro recalls, nothing stood in Moses' way but one U.S. President: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who refused to build a bridge from Red Hook to Manhattan, claiming national security interest during wartime. Ironically the result was the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.

     The Gowanus Expressway Community Coalition thinks this is a good idea. It calls to awaken Brooklyn communities, to unite creative ideas and stand against the machine that is Moses' legacy. A reconstruction of the elevated highway would continue to relegate Western Brooklyn to second class citizenry while a tunnel is surely the only fair and fiscally responsible way to go.