Economic Recession and Moses

¶ … Fiorello Laguardia: Robert Moses

Fiorello La Guardia took part in American politics. He was the New York Mayor, and then a Congress member from 1916 to 1918 and then from 1922-1930. Robert Moses, a Town Planner, worked predominantly for the Metropolitan area of New York. Moses is known to be the Master Planner of the mid-1900s city of New York. He and Fiorello worked autonomously in the city area of New York from the 20s, throughout their careers. While Fiorello was the Mayor, Robert was the highly admired planner of New York. Fiorello therefore worked with Moses to develop the infrastructure needs of New York.

In the 30's during the economic recession, there was a New Deal, which led Franklin Roosevelt, the President of the U.S. to give 20% of all the urban infrastructure money to Fiorello, to develop the city. Fiorello then worked with Robert, with the help of the governor, Herbert Lehman (Democrat) in upgrading the infrastructure, which was in bad condition.

The admirers of Fiorello La Guardia praise him for, among other factors, resurrecting the economy of the city of New York after and at the time of the Great Economic Depression. Fiorello is also praised for numerous great programs for public works that were administered by Robert Moses, his great Parks Commissioner. The programs led to the employment of many voters. Fiorello's administration, with the help of Robert Moses was the reason for the great infrastructure in New York (Shefter, 1992). Fiorello was an efficient politician while Robert was a visionary urban expert. The two share the praise for their vision to develop the city of New York as well as its infrastructure.

2. Chrysler Building: Empire State building

Amongst the most popular skyscrapers in New York is Chrysler Building. It has an architectural demonstration of the automobile era and Art Deco age. The construction of Chrysler building was finished in the 1931. The building was the tallest for almost 11 months. Another popular building, Empire State, got its name from New York's nickname, Empire State. The building was the tallest in the world for almost 40 years, since it was completed in 1931, right up to 1970, when the original Centre for World Trade's North Tower was built.

In late 1928, the Chrysler car firm's founder, Walter Chrysler, visited the city of New York, where he purchased a piece of land. There, he built what he named "a monument to me." Van Alen was already planning for the former owner of the piece of land. Chrysler hired him to come up with a plan for what then became the famous Chrysler Building. Chrysler loved architecture and art, and he was really close to Van Alen, an expert in Beaux Arts (A Tale of Two Skyscrapers, 2014). Despite the fact that Empire State beat his building, Chrysler's exclusive steel spire of 185 feet is still its main architectural feature; it surprised the rivals who tried to out-do the building then. After completing the plan for what was meant to be a skyscraper of 1050 feet, chairman of construction and former governor of New York, Al Smith, chose to work on an extra 200 feet to make it even better. Smith claimed that he made a practical decision; he intended for the spire to be used as an anchor for airships to dock, considering that nearest dirigible port was in New Jersey at Ocean County. However, most people thought of his decision as a plot to take away the world record earned by the Chrysler build, which was 1046 feet tall (Arbeiter, 2016).