As first reported in The Observer, the opening of a trio of exhibitions in the city that explore the legacy and impact of Robert Moses has touched off something of a feud between heavyweight historians Robert Caro and Kenneth Jackson. Caro, who literally wrote the book on the oft-hated builder (The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York), refers to Moses as an “evil genius”, but the shows seem to modify his role in shaping the city as we know it. Following comments from Jackson, who partially backed the exhibits, Caro’s editor Robert Gottlieb accused the famed historian/ Columbia prof of “suffering from Moses envy, as if he wanted to own Moses himself.”

Robert Moses and the Modern City: Remaking the Metropolis, at the Museum of the City of New York through May, surveys the vast impact of the man’s roads (most notoriously the Cross Bronx Expressway), parks (Riverside Park and the reshaping of Cenral Park) and structures (Lincoln Center and the U.N. building). The highlight here is the insider’s look at Moses’s failed efforts, such as the Brooklyn-Battery Bridge, which would have spanned Red Hook to the bottom of Manhattan; the Lower Manhattan Expressway, an elevated highway along Broome Street which would have linked the Holland Tunnel with the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges and slashed through the West Village, Chinatown, Soho and the Lower East Side; and the proposed 5th Ave Extension, which would have knocked out much of Washington Sq. Park and joined W. Broadway.

“The Road to Recreation” at the Queens Museum of Art focuses on the parks, playgrounds and roadways Moses was responsible for in his early years. “Slum Clearance and the Superblock Solution” at Columbia’s Wallach Art Gallery tracks Moses’s displacement of thousands of residents in his urban renewal phase in the ’50s, and is sure to be the least flattering of the exhibitions. As if to apologize for not inviting Caro to be a part of planning the sprawling showcase, the MCNY hosted a discussion with the author on Sunday the 11th. No word yet on whether Caro, 71, and Jackson, 67, are heading for a rumble in Hell’s Kitchen, but we’re pulling for Jackson, thanks to his mass-transit advocacy and famed all-night bike tours from Morningside Heights to the Brooklyn Promenade.

Photo from Parks Department Photo Archives via NY Times.