Bronx Commissioner of Public Works
Moran was named Bronx Commissioner of Public Works by Borough President James J. Lyons on December 31, 1933. As commissioner, Moran was instrumental in the dredging and straightening of the Hutchinson River, the construction of a new Bronx House of Detention and the construction of Major Deagan Boulevard, the easterly approach to the Triborough Bridge, in time for the 1939 Worlds Fair. This approach would later be expanded to become the Major Deagan Expressway.
Moran retired from his position as commissioner in May 1942, under fire from District Attorney Samuel J. Foley in the Edward J. Flynn paving job investigation. Flynn, the Democratic National Chairman and Bronx party leader, had been nominated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to be ambassador to Australia. An investigation into his affairs revealed that timesheets of three employees of the Bronx Bureau of Sewer and Highway Maintenance had been altered to convey the impression that they were on “vacation” when in fact they were engaged in the construction of an antique Belgian courtyard at Flynn’s Lake Mahopac home, using second-hand city paving blocks. A grand jury would later clear everyone involved in the matter of any wrongdoing
Read more about this topic: Robert L. Moran (politician)
Famous quotes containing the words bronx, public and/or works:
“who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery
to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children
brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain and drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo,”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)
“They had their fortunes to make, everything to gain and nothing to lose. They were schooled in and anxious for debates; forcible in argument; reckless and brilliant. For them it was but a short and natural step from swaying juries in courtroom battles over the ownership of land to swaying constituents in contests for office. For the lawyer, oratory was the escalator that could lift a political candidate to higher ground.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Separatism of any kind promotes marginalization of those unwilling to grapple with the whole body of knowledge and creative works available to others. This is true of black students who do not want to read works by white writers, of female students of any race who do not want to read books by men, and of white students who only want to read works by white writers.”
—bell hooks (b. 1955)