Changing (Part 2 of 7)

Core idea

The second part of Changing turns to race. Of the 255 playgrounds Moses built in his first six years as Parks Commissioner, exactly one was in a majority-Black neighborhood (Stuyvesant Heights), and exactly none was in South Jamaica, the other major Black neighborhood in Queens. The asymmetry was not statistical drift. It was a pattern. Caro spends the part documenting that the pattern held across pools, beaches, parks, and parkway access — the Black neighborhoods of New York received structurally less of Moses's output across every category.

Why it matters

The playground count

Moses built 255 playgrounds in his first six years. Exactly one was in Stuyvesant Heights. None in South Jamaica. None in Harlem (which received only park-renovation funding, not new playgrounds). Black-population neighborhoods received roughly 1% of new playground construction while representing roughly 5% of city population.

The pattern across categories

The pattern repeated in pools (one in Harlem, none in Brooklyn's Black neighborhoods), beaches (Jones Beach's transit access was structured to keep poor and Black New Yorkers out), and parkway bridges (low to keep buses out). Caro is careful: he is not arguing Moses was a Klansman. He is arguing the systematic pattern of his choices encoded racial exclusion.

Key takeaways

Mental model

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Practical application

Example

Modern algorithmic systems show the same asymmetry: an algorithm with 95% accuracy can be 99% accurate on the majority population and 70% accurate on the minority. The headline (95%) hides the distributional reality. Moses's playground allocation is the pre-algorithmic precedent.

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