Movement: New York’s Long War to Take Back its Streets from the Car

This is an in-person program at the Museum's lower Manhattan gallery.

In her new book, Movement: New York’s Long War to Take Back Its Streets from the Car, Nicole Gelinas presents a gripping account of how the automobile has failed New York City and how mass transit and a revitalized streetscape are vital to the city's post-pandemic recovery. In a history that spans a century, Gelinas outlines how New Yorkers spent the first half of the twentieth century trying and failing to adapt its urban density to fit the private automobile, then, in the past fifty years, how advocates have been resisting and reversing those mistakes. Moving beyond the now-standard characterization of "Saint Jane" Jacobs versus the villain Robert Moses, Gelinas looks closely at the planners and protestors that both preceded and followed their actions and advocacy.

After her presentation, Gelinas will be engaged in dialogue with Lynne Sagalyn, a scholar of planning, policy, and real estate and author of Power at Ground Zero and recently, Times Square Remade: The Dynamics of Urban Change.

A regular columnist for the New York Post, Nicole Gelinas has covered New York’s transportation issues for over a decade. She is also a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal and the author of the 2009 book on the global financial crisis, After the Fall: Saving Capitalism from Wall Street—and Washington.

Image Credit: Fordham university press, 2024.