The 99% Invisible Breakdown of The Power Broker
In 1974, two very significant things happened, if you are a fan of 99% Invisible. Number one is that 99PI host Roman Mars was born. And number two, The Power Broker by Robert Caro was published. Roman learned about The Power Broker when he first started to cover cities and infrastructure on the radio. This massive book is about 1200 pages long and is perhaps the most important and complete explanation of how cities are formed, how neighborhoods are destroyed, bridges are erected, roads are laid down, parks are designed, fortunes are made, lives are ruined, and power is amassed.
The Power Broker is a biography of Robert Moses, who built more structures and moved more earth than anyone in human history. And he did it without ever holding elected office.
Outside of New York City, Robert Moses wasn’t exceptionally well known. Inside of New York, he was mostly accepted by the media as simply the man who built all those nice parks. But The Power Broker, which is subtitled Robert Moses and The Fall of New York, changed all that. It is a tour de force of journalism, history, and biography. Roman also argues it’s really fun to read and is strongly in contention for the best book ever written.
In 2024, we spent the entire reading it together. We studied it. We broke it down. We reveled in the genius of its author, Robert Caro. We shook our fists in the sky at Robert Moses. Roman was joined by his co-host, Elliott Kalan (of the pioneering and very funny Flop House podcast as well as former head writer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart).
But this doesn’t mean you can’t read it with us still! So if you have it already, go ahead and pull it off the shelf; and if you don’t: go out and grab your very own copy of The Power Broker, and follow along.
You can find the 99% Invisible Breakdown of The Power Broker wherever you get your podcasts.
Merch
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Episodes
Series Credits
Hosts: Roman Mars and Elliott Kalan
Producer: Isabel Angell
Engineer: Dara Hirsch
Music: Swan Real
Series Art: Aaron Nestor
Schedule (for posterity)
