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On a sunny morning this month, I met the writer Robert Caro at the New-York Historical Society beside Central Park. We were there to walk around a new exhibit celebrating the 50th anniversary of his book “The Power Broker,” a biography of the urban planner Robert Moses. The book is practically sacred among journalists, biographers and historians — revered for its meticulous research, elegant prose and insights into the nature of political power.
As a writer for The New York Times Book Review, I wanted to revisit the book through the eyes of the man who crafted it. I wrote about our time together for an article that was published online this month.
I first picked up “The Power Broker” when I was in journalism school in New York about 20 years ago. I remember feeling intimidated by its sheer size — four pounds and 1,286 pages. Moses’ influence on New York is something I’ve long noticed. I hike over Moses’ Prospect Expressway nearly every day to get to my block in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.
Still, when I began reporting this article, I was surprised to find that both Moses and “The Power Broker” still provoked such strong feelings in people all these years later. It seemed like almost too obvious an indicator of the book’s legacy when I saw a woman carrying a tote bag that read “Repeal Robert Moses” while on my way to interview Caro. (In his book, Caro painted Moses as a power-hungry megalomaniac who reshaped New York City with his bridges and expressway, displacing hundreds of thousands of people, many of them people of color and residents of low-income communities.)
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTWhen I met Caro that day at the historical society, he was dressed in his customary blazer and tie. I expected him to be excited about the exhibit — a celebration of his book and its enduring relevance. But to my surprise, when he saw relics from the years he had spent working on “The Power Broker,” it made him feel not only proud but also profoundly sad. “Sad” was a word he used repeatedly in the hour and a half we spent together.
As he peered at documents from his archives, Caro, 88, was reminded of the difficult years he had spent working on the book — when his family ran out of money and he doubted it would ever be published — and of the painful editing process; he had to cut about 350,000 words from the million-plus words in his manuscript. Most of all, he said he felt sad and worried that the lessons in “The Power Broker” about the dangers of “unchecked power” had gone largely unheeded.
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During our time together, Caro was soft-spoken, reflective and keenly aware of the weight of his words, but he grew more animated as we made our way through the installation. He was particularly elated to see glowing reviews of his book from his idols — among them David Halberstam, Gay Talese and Theodore H. White — blown up to poster size.
It quickly became clear that Caro would rather be on the other side of the interview. He often preferred to ask questions, and was less comfortable talking about himself. He repeatedly wondered aloud if he was talking too much and worried that he sounded as if he was bragging when he reflected on the legacy of “The Power Broker.”
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENT“Too much of what I’m saying to you is very boastful,” he said at one point.
I was reminded of one of Caro’s tricks for getting an interview subject to open up, which he described in his book “Working”: being comfortable with silence. When he conducts interviews, Caro writes “SU” as a coded message to himself in his notebooks — shorthand for “shut up.” No wonder he felt strange talking about himself.
Luckily, I didn’t have to deploy his strategy. It took little prompting to get Caro going on subjects he’s passionate about — the way power works, his reporting and writing methods, why he loves archival research.
After walking through the exhibit, Caro and I sat on the stage of an empty auditorium. For about an hour, we talked about his research and writing process, his desire to write a proper memoir one day, his sense of urgency about completing the final volume of his biography on Lyndon B. Johnson and why he had changed his mind about issuing an e-book edition of “The Power Broker.” (For years, he worried that a digital version would spoil the reading experience.)
When my article was published this month, it prompted a flood of emails and comments from readers. Some shared their memories of reading “The Power Broker” and how it had shaped their understanding of political power. Some called Caro “an American treasure.”
Several other readers clamored for a “director’s cut” edition of “The Power Broker” with the 350,000 missing words restored. (Readers shouldn’t get their hopes up: Caro told me he had never even opened the boxes containing material that was cut because it was “too painful.”)
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTBut a handful of readers expressed frustration that Caro had wasted his time talking to me, when he could have been writing. “Please, Mr. Caro, no more interviews,” one commenter wrote. “Finish that Johnson book!”
I, on the other hand, am grateful that Caro spent the morning with mejbet88, looking back on his monumental work.