Many threads come together to make a book: people and sources and inspiration and, in this case, the city itself—with all its complexity and beauty—which is finally, I believe, taking its rightful place at the top of the American and global agendas.

Richard Abate was the first to see that this epic battle over the future of the city had not yet been told with Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses sharing a stage. His guidance was invaluable to tell this story from start to finish in a work of narrative nonfiction. Tim Bartlett at Random House, ably assisted by Lindsey Schwoeri, who kept me organized, did what good editors do: he took the manuscript and made it better.

I have special gratitude for the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy; its president and chief executive, Gregory K. Ingram; board chair Kathryn J. Lincoln; Armando Carbonell, senior fellow and chair of the Department of Planning and Urban Form; and all the people of this great organization, which has supported my writing and research on urbanism. Because it is an institution concerned with cities and land use, it is perhaps unsurprising that it would have connections to this work: the Lincoln Institute gave an award to Lewis Mumford, and Jane Jacobs was among those providing praise; the institute’s work in community land trusts is grounded in a foundation of neighborhood stewardship that Jacobs established. Outside my office is a gallery featuring Raymond Moley, and signed photographs to him of Nixon and FDR; Moley was an adviser to David C. Lincoln and helped bring about the founding of the Lincoln Institute, and, as I discovered, he was the very same man who knew Robert Moses and wrote the foreword to Public Works: A Dangerous Trade.

I read The Power Broker as a student at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and, like many journalists, was awestruck by Robert Caro’s standard-setting biographical research, sourcing, and eye for narrative detail. More than twenty years later, Columbia’s Kenneth T. Jackson and Hilary Ballon artfully revived a consideration of the master builder, and sparked an important civic dialogue, with the Moses exhibitions at the Museum of the City of New York, Columbia University, and the Queens Museum of Art. The scholars who contributed to the exhibitions and Robert Moses and the Modern City revealed new perspectives and untold stories, notably Robert Fishman, professor at the University of Michigan, who identified the battles of Washington Square Park and the Lower Manhattan Expressway as particular turning points. Laura Rosen at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Special Archives was a kind and indispensable guide through Moses’s remarkable career as head of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority.

Jane Jacobs never cooperated with biographers. Her sons, Jim and Ned, were protective but extremely gracious in answering my questions. Scholarship on her life and work is led by Christopher Klemek and Peter Laurence, the latter especially generous in meeting with me to discuss her early career. I owe thanks to Justine Hyland, David Horn, and Robert O’Neill at the John J. Burns Library at Boston College, guardians of the Jane Jacobs Papers; the New-York Historical Society; the Villager, the Village Voice, the Boston Globe, and the New York Times; Carol Greitzer, Ed Koch, Roberta Brandes Gratz, Albert LaFarge, Jason Epstein, Nathan Glazer, Carol Gayle, Elizabeth Werbe, Lex Lalli, and Matt Postal, who led the lively walking tours through Greenwich Village and SoHo as part of the Municipal Art Society’s exhibition on Jane Jacobs; James Stockard, Sally Young, and the inestimable network that is the Loeb Fellowship, and Alex Krieger and Mary Daniels at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design; Eugenie Birch at the University of Pennsylvania; Robert Yaro and Alex Marshall at the Regional Plan Association; David Goldberg at Smart Growth America and Transportation for America; Steve Filmanowicz and John Norquist at the Congress for the New Urbanism; and Sarah Henry, Charles McKinney Bill Shutkin, Kennedy Smith, and Ken Greenberg. I am also indebted to my friends John and Stacey Fraser, Tim and Mimi Love, Chris Lutes, Brian McGrory Mitchell Zuckoff and Suzanne Kreiter, John King, Hamilton Hackney, Paul Quinlan, Brad Frazee, Steve Moynahan, James Burke, Josh Rabinowitz, Kate Zernike, and Phil Huffman; and my supportive family, Mary Alice Flint, Julia Flint, Melissa and Chris Cappella, Martha Flint, George and Emily Flint, and Jack and Gloria Cassidy.

And finally, my wife, Tina Ann Cassidy, a fellow journalist and author, who went through the manuscript and encouraged me at every turn, putting up with late nights at the keyboard and trips to New York on the Acela, and giving me the time to write this book after she gave birth, at home, to our son Harrison, who with his brothers, George and Hunter, now has her engaged in an ongoing test of patience. This book would not be possible without her.

   ANTHONY FLINT
   Boston