Rexford Tugwell employer New York City
Director of New York City Planning Commission
In 1938 Tugwell was appointed as the first director of the New York City Planning Commission.  New York's reformist mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, created the commission as part of a city charter reform aimed at reducing corruption and inefficiency.  The Planning Commission had relatively limited powers: all actions needed approval from the legislative Board of Estimate. Tugwell tried to assert the commission's power.  He tried to retroactively enforce nonconforming land uses, despite a lack of public or legal support.  His commission sought to establish public housing at moderate densities, yet repeatedly approved FHA requests for greater density. Robert Moses killed Tugwell's proposed fifty-year master plan with a fiery public denouncement of its open-space protections.
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