Evening star., 1962-09-30
FROM L'ENFANT TO THE MOTOR AGE


Robert Moses, New York City
planner who has handled hum
dreds Of millions OF dollars
worth Of transportation facili-
ties there, addressed the Re-
gional Transportation Advisory
Board ct q meeting here last
Tuesday night On his concep-
tion of WashingtOn's highway
situation. The text of the
speech follows:
Philosophers for ages have pic
tured remote, romantic islands
like the Lost and New Atlantis
and Utopia, mountainous havens
like Rasselas' Happy Valley, and
rose red cities half as old as time.
Feverish proSpectors dying Of
thirst have seen urban mirages
in the desert. Impatient academic
planners have dreamed Of capitals
in the wilderness where there
are no relics of the past to limit
their scope and suppress their
noble rage. Given free rein, they
produce dubious Canberras, New
Delhis and Brasilias which have
no individuality but that of their
builders. Had these advance guard
architects had their way, the
United Nations would have been
isolated in an uncontaminated
twenty square mile compound in
the open country.
LEnfant was in a sense lucky
to have a clean slate in Wash
ington. Those who succeeded him,
certainly since the advent Of the
automobile, have enjoyed q splen-
did Inheritance which, however,
requires considerable amendment
and modification to keep UP with
the times.
Washington, by definition, is a .
manufactured town, one of the
very few successfully planned
capitals. Many of its present diff
ficulties are traceable to a too
slavish conformity to tradition
and q too faithful worship of the
original design. In such cases the
blueprints Of the first architect
become q sort Of Bible for his
successors. This Is all very we'll
as to individual structures,
streets, parks and public places,
but it stems the flow Of traffic
and life, seals off the city from
its people, and tends to create
o museum rather than q living,
pulsating, evolving modern COM
munity.
Change Inevitable
Therefore when the inevitable
process of change begins, 1t is
inhibited, tentative, halfhearted
and debated almost to death.
There must be boldness in such
q context, and the hapless in
novator can expect little but
curses for his pains. He viii be
charged with laying inpious
hands on the Ark of the Cove
nant. His name win be anathema.
He win be pictured as barbarian
on a bulldozer. wantonly, ruth
lessly and sadistically destroying
landmarks where every stone is
sacred and only man is vile. I
urge that Congress create q Mar
tyr Memorial Medal for those
who wrestle with the problems Of
undermining Washington.
The sideline kibitzers and
critics who never build anything
are eloquent and plausible, If
nothing more. Some are woozy
with sentiment and care only
about antiquities, however dub
ious. Some want to abandon all
cities, scatter and disperse their
inhabitants and start fresh in
the open country. Of course in
ideal communities planned by
them. Some are against every
thing done recently because they
were not called in to do it. Most
of them are impotent-the eu-
nuchs of the planning seraglio.
They can't take q metropolis in
their stride because they have no
stride. There Is in fact something
in the good, realizable. nvable
metropolis for every taste, need
and point of view. Hysterical,
angry men improve nothing. The
urbs and suburbs are for the ur-
bane, not for the iconoclasts.
beatniks and revolutionaries.
How can you persuade those
who still think of the Potomac
as q placid backwater of Ameri-
can life, q place of unruffled
dignity, calm and reflection, not
as an American Danube mirror
ing the ceaseless flow of inter-