Robert Moses NYC Parks Commissioner Editorial | Problems with WW II War Monuments by Robert Moses 1944
1944, Home Front, Pageant Magazine

War Memorials Don’t Have to be Ugly
(Pageant Magazine, 1944)

Robert Moses (1888 – 1981) was an American urban planner who worked as the New York City Parks Commissioner between 1934 and 1960. During the Second World War his phone was ringing off the hook:


“All over the country plans are being hatched for war memorials. Demands upon public officials for space in parks and public places are daily becoming more insistent. [But] if truth be told, most gestures of patriotism are pathetic, third-rate, inadequate [and] ugly…”