Sing of the Master Builder
By ROBIN POGREBIN
A musical about Robert Moses?
How do you break into song about a guy who built and bulldozed much of the New York metropolitan area? And why would anyone want to see a production today about a public figure who reigned some 40 years ago?
Well, who better to consider these questions than Robert A. Caro, who wrote the definitive doorstop of a Moses biography that won the Pulitzer and continues to be required reading for anyone who wants to understand how power works in cities.
So a reporter invited Mr. Caro to join her for a sneak peek at the budding musical, “Robert Moses Astride New York,†a work in progress that will have its world premiere in a one-night-only free performance at 7 p.m. on Saturday at the World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan.
Bridges rise;
Roads blast through;
Parks blossom:
Triborough, Whitestone, Throgs Neck, Verrazano;
Northern State, Southern State, Saw Mill, Henry Hudson;
Jones Beach, Riverside Park.
To be sure, the musical is considerably less comprehensive than Mr. Caro’s 1,286-page 1974 book, “The Power Broker,†which follows Moses’ career as city parks commissioner and chairman of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. “Robert Moses Astride New York†moves through major chapters of history in just a few stanzas, and the piece to be performed Saturday is only a sampling of what the composer, Gary Fagin, ultimately hopes will become a full-fledged production featuring additional characters like the neighborhood activist Jane Jacobs and Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia. Saturday’s concert will feature the Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra (Mr. Fagin is its music director and conductor), which will also perform classics by American composers like Aaron Copland, Charles Ives, Leonard Bernstein and Bob Dylan.
At a piano rehearsal the other day the work sounded like an opera. It is sung through, performed by a booming tenor (Rinde Eckert), and there are no dance numbers. And Mr. Caro understandably seemed a little self-conscious, seeing it in the intimate setting of a music studio, sitting in a single straight-back chair, with only a reporter and a photographer joining him as audience. Even as Mr. Caro was observing the performance, he was being observed by them, not to mention Mr. Fagin and Mr. Eckert, who were pretty psyched to have him there.
But Mr. Caro said he enjoyed himself nonetheless. The piece took him back into the book, with its references to pivotal Moses battles like that over Central Park (Moses wanted to expand Tavern on the Green’s parking lot; parents wanted to save their playground; they won) or Moses’ bitterness at having Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller accept his resignation.
Mr. Caro said he was particularly pleased by the musical’s last section, which recalls Moses’ dedication of a bench in Flushing Meadows, one of the parks he’d built. It is the poignant scene that concludes “The Power Broker,†in which Moses wonders why he wasn’t sufficiently appreciated.
Someday, let us sit on this bench
And reflect on the gratitude of man.
And when someone asks,
“Who built this road, this bridge, this park?â€
Say: A giant, a genius.
Moses.
He built it all.
He built New York.
Mr. Caro said the bench dedication inspired the last line of the book — “Why weren’t they grateful?†— and enabled him to organize an otherwise overwhelming seven years of research and to start writing.
“In all the stuff that’s ever been written about ‘The Power Broker’ no one has ever written about the bench,†Mr. Caro told Mr. Fagin after the rehearsal. “The bench was the great moment as a writer, an epiphany: I can do this. I have the last sentence.â€
Most of all, Mr. Caro said, he was excited by the musical because it attested to the endurance of “The Power Broker,†that 37 years after it was published “we are talking about this book as if it’s a new book.â€
“All the time I was writing it, people were saying, ‘Who’s going to read a book about Robert Moses?’ because he was already being forgotten,†he added. “I said, ‘People will read this book, if I can do it right,’ and it mattered to me that the book went on beyond a couple of years. I didn’t want just one generation to know it.
“Now here they are, singing about him. It’s transmuting itself into another form of art. You feel, in a way, you did it, what you set out to accomplish.â€
Not that Mr. Caro didn’t have any quibbles with the musical. The third section, about the protests to preserve Central Park, starts with the line, “Childless women howling about your nonexistent children.†Mr. Caro said this was inaccurate. “All of these women were young mothers who rolled their baby carriages in front of the bulldozers,†he told Mr. Fagin.
Mr. Fagin pointed out that it was a quotation of Moses’ from the book. But Mr. Caro said the song made it sound like a fact. Mr. Fagin said later that he planned to change that part. “He was absolutely right,†he said of Mr. Caro.
Mr. Fagin, 59, said he had been inspired by the book since it was published. “It’s a big, big story,†he said, “not only of a man in his time but of a city, of a state.â€
Mr. Fagin himself has been involved in civic affairs — he helped fight developers’ plans for the South Street Seaport — the kinds of issues that animate “The Power Broker.â€
“For me and the people that I talk to, it’s a huge icon for us,†Mr. Fagin said.
As a result, he said, it was thrilling to have Mr. Caro at his rehearsal, adding that he was grateful for his input: “I hope this is the beginning of an opportunity where I’m able to spend some more time with him and get some more insight.â€
Whether Mr. Caro will be able to accommodate such wishes is unclear; he is deep into the fourth and final installment of his Lyndon B. Johnson opus. Taking time off from work to see the rehearsal had been hard enough; Mr. Caro doesn’t like to be far from his Smith Corona. (Yes, he still uses a typewriter.)
Yet, as the musical demonstrates, it will probably be difficult for Mr. Caro ever to move completely past “The Power Broker.†It has never been out of print in hardcover or paperback since it was first published. When President Obama presented Mr. Caro with the National Humanities Medal at the White House last year, he said, “I think about Robert Caro and reading ‘The Power Broker’ back when I was 22 years old and just being mesmerized, and I’m sure it helped to shape how I think about politics.â€
Even the men involved in the musical couldn’t help be a little awed. Both Mr. Fagin and Mr. ckert had copies of the book at the rehearsal, Mr. Fagin’s yellowed and dog-eared, with multiple Post-its sticking out of the pages. Before Mr. Caro departed, Mr. Eckert quickly went from being a leading man to being a fan, asking, “Can I get you to sign my book?â€
