Everyone is Watching (20 page)

It’s like watching my own funeral, he says.

In the hospital Robert has his own room with a TV. The nurse sets a vase of flowers on his bedside table. The card reads
With Love, from Mom and Dad.
But his mom is
also ill. This means it must have been his father who sent the flowers. It must have been his father who wrote the card.

The nurse comes back.

I’m sorry, she says. These flowers were meant for another patient.

She takes them away. He watches them go.

The film Edmund is watching in the Museum of the City of New York is describing the construction of Brooklyn Bridge in the late nineteenth century.

Brooklyn Bridge represents not an external ‘thing’ but an internal process, an act of consciousness
, the narration says
. It shows the ambition of human will.

Next, the building of the Empire State Building in 1931, steel beams swinging into place, the skyward ballet of the men who fixed them, standing on tiptoes on the edges of beams and hammering
bolts into place. The men in the picture are smiling as they eat their lunch sitting on beams, high in the air. Now the men are gone but the building remains.

The manufacturing of weapons during the Second World War and prosperity, then the slump, waning New York, economic decline – Edmund’s era – the 1970s – the famous
newspaper headline:
Ford to City: Drop Dead
.

The construction of the World Trade Center, monoliths balanced on impossible struts. The clouded sky, not a building in sight except for the tops of those towers reaching.

The exterior of the tower that has replaced them reflects the sky.

The exhibition in the next room is about single-occupancy housing. The charts on the walls explain that only 1.5 per cent of New York City’s rental housing stock is a studio or one-bedroom
apartment ready for occupancy. This is inadequate for a modern population that wants to live alone. On display is an example of a new breed of apartment designed to meet the shortfall of
single-occupancy housing. This apartment utilizes space by ensuring each piece of furniture performs a variety of functions. A woman is demonstrating all the places in the apartment where objects
can be stored. The fold-out chairs can be hung on the wall when your guests have gone. The sofa folds down. A bed can be lowered from the wall. The footstool can be opened and a table taken out.
The TV slides over to reveal a closet filled with regulated kitchenware. Edmund doesn’t want to live alone. He crosses the room and looks out the window. Fifth Avenue has been closed to
traffic. Outside, there is no space to move. It is teeming with people.

It is close to sunset. Soon it will be possible to see the black silhouette of the Eldorado Building on the other side of the park.

Edmund’s phone vibrates.

An email from T.

Let’s have dinner tonight, 8pm. Trattoria Spaghetto, Father Demo Square xx

Gordon Matta-Clark climbs onto the stone ledge of the clock face and pulls himself up. He is hundreds of feet above New York. He reaches for the minute hand and steadies
himself. On making contact with the minute hand a shower of water begins to fall. Gordon positions himself beneath the water, letting the water fall onto the rim of his black hat and then onto his
coat and then his body then down his legs. He moves left and right to get the full flow of water directly onto his body. He moves the minute hand left and right so that the full flow of water
drenches him. He reaches towards the clock face, and, from a fixed shelf there, he takes a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste from a water glass then he squeezes the toothpaste onto the toothbrush
and he brushes his teeth. After he has brushed his teeth he takes the water glass from the shelf and holds the water glass directly under the running water. He drinks water from the water glass
then places the water glass back onto the shelf. He then takes a brush covered in shaving cream and he rubs the shaving cream over his cheeks and chin. He begins to shave. He starts with one cheek
then the other then he moves onto his chin and then his upper lip. He rinses his face in the water. He lies down under the clock face. He is covered head to toe in cream. Slowly, he sits up and
moves the minute hand left and right to activate the water. He swings the minute hand back and forth and washes the cream away. He holds his leg up and washes the cream away. He sits up and directs
the water onto his body, washing the cream away. He stands under the water. He takes an umbrella from the shelf and he holds it above his head so that he is protected from the falling water.

The camera pulls back, revealing New York City beneath him, the busy avenues and rivers of vehicles, the tiny people walking up and down the sidewalks, people crossing streets, the smoke and
smog of industry, the distant view of ships in the harbour, water tanks and fire escapes, the grey sky above.

For the World’s Fair in 1939 Robert Moses transformed Flushing Meadows in Queens from a landfill site into useable parkland with smooth lawns, recreational pavilions and
landscaped walkways. He covered over trash with turf. He drained the marshes. He filled in the holes and landscaped the parkland, levelled out the avenues and boulevards, connected pathways,
throughways and parking lots. But when he looked at the park left behind in 1940 he saw something unfinished, grass growing over unused ground, paths laid out but leading nowhere. All the parking
lots were empty. The fair came and then it left. Nothing remained of it afterwards except the outline of a park.

The Chicago Fair in 1893 exhibited the technology behind the most recent phenomena – moving pictures, travelators, phosphorescent lamps. The World’s Fair in Paris
in 1889 exhibited a Wild West show, a human zoo and the Eiffel Tower. The fair in San Francisco in 1915 displayed exhibits about the Panama Canal, the aeroplane and the motorcar. In New York in
1939 the subject was ‘The World of Tomorrow’. The theme of the 1964–65 New York World’s Fair is ‘Peace Through Understanding’. This time Robert Moses is in
charge of it all. He organizes the building of a Walt Disney ‘Small World’ ride, a colour television studio, a Kodak Pavilion, the Westinghouse time capsule, a Transportation and Travel
Pavilion. There is a ‘Moon and Beyond’ Cinerama. General Motors has an autoride into the future. The Amphitheatre puts on stage and water shows. There is a circus and a music hall with
entertainers from Jones Beach. There’s a Better Living Center, Pavilion of American Interiors, The House of Good Taste, a Little Old New York restaurant, a 7up International Sandwich Gardens,
and a Coca-Cola’s World of Refreshment. There is a Swiss Sky Ride, a Protestant Pavilion, a Mormon Pavilion, a Christian Science Pavilion and a Billy Graham Pavilion. The Vatican has a
pavilion. The Federal Building contains a ‘Challenge to Greatness’ theatre and tributes to American heritage. The Carousel of Progress features life in the 1880s, 1920s, 1940s, and
1960s. There is a model of the plan for the World Trade Center. Chrysler exhibits an auto-production line. At the Illinois Pavilion there is an animatronic Abraham Lincoln and the Gettysburg
Address.

Has there been much criticism, Commissioner? the reporter asks.

People like to criticize. Criticism doesn’t build anything. Criticism is always negative. Always some fellow thinking he knows better than everybody else. Just look at what we’ve
built here. You can’t build something like this by listening to critics.

Will the fair be a success, Commissioner?

I believe it will be a success. All major structures and highways are complete. These were finished six weeks ahead of schedule. We had trouble getting the Belgian Village started. It has a very
complicated structure – a lot of work has gone into its historical accuracy – but we’ve done it. We’ve already sold fourteen hundred tickets. The critics can’t argue
with that. The thing about critics is that they don’t build anything themselves. Now how can you trust a man who doesn’t create anything?

Robert Moses is sitting with the reporter in the rear of a convertible as it travels slowly through a crowd of people down a pedestrianized street.

Moses says,
Girls get confused over the numbers in memos. It’s not their fault. They’re not used to them. Some of these figures are very large. When we call this a billion-dollar
fair, we mean a billion-dollar fair. We’ve widened the Grand Central Parkway without closing it to traffic. The Clearview Expressway has been completed. The Van Wyck Expressway has been
widened. The Northern Boulevard has been given an elevated boulevard. The Whitestone Expressway has been extended. These changes will benefit New York long into the future. It is for the good of
the city that we have made these changes.

Of course, there are always critics. I have a female friend, for example, who complained to me about the congestion surrounding the fair site. She said she was stuck in traffic for two hours
outside the park. I said to her, ‘Why did you go through at five o’clock on a Friday?’ She said, ‘I wanted to see what was going on.’ There’s nothing you can do
about people like that.

A member of the public leans into the car and asks Robert Moses for his autograph. Moses signs the paper and hands it back.

Are you satisfied with dedicating your life to building? asks the reporter.

Oh yes, I wouldn’t do it otherwise, says Moses. I get appreciative letters from the public all the time. There’s one man who has come to this fair thirty times. That experience is
not uncommon. But there’s a pathological desire in people to criticize. They say we’ve spent too much money on the fair and that the roads weren’t needed. The press criticize
because they’re unhappy. Someone should look into their childhoods. All the fellow wants to know about are the states that didn’t join the fair. The story is never about the states that
did. Now, what do you do with a fellow like that? It makes no sense for New Yorkers to criticize New York. They are spreading the rumour that New York City is just a city of goons and thugs. People
listen to gossip. Riots have kept people away from New York and that’s the fault of the press. We’ve roamed these United States looking for pavilions and exhibits that will reflect the
achievements of all men within industry, culture, the arts and entertainment. We confidently expect more than seventy million visitors to an unforgettable pageant.

Do you consider yourself a tough man, Commissioner?

Oh no, very mild.

The New York State Pavilion at the 1964 – 65 World’s Fair will be a permanent new feature of Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. A circular area roofed with
colourful Plexiglas tiles and two observation towers from where the public will view the fair.

As Moses and the reporter ride the Skystreak elevator to the top observation deck, the reporter asks,
How have you risen above your critics?

I don’t like to stay on their level, says Moses, laughing.

The reporter looks out over the fair. The expressways to the west of the park are jammed with vehicles, the automobiles as small as toys packed into traffic lanes. Crowds of people stream down
the fair’s many pathways.

There have been criticisms of your other projects, Commissioner. What do you say to critics like Jane Jacobs?

What do we care about the complaints? says Moses.

Some people say you’ve built this fair for yourself. Is this a monument to Robert Moses?

It isn’t a monument to anyone.

They ride the carousel in the Belgian Village together. Moses is laughing as he tries to hang on.

I’m getting very friendly with the cashier, Moses says. By the third trip around, you’ve either made the conquest or you haven’t!

Robert Moses is standing above the Panorama of the City of New York, a scale model of the city, two hundred and seventy-three blocks built by two hundred people over three
years. Moses can see everything he ever built – the roadways, the housing, the beaches, the bridges. All the buildings in the model are made from wood and plaster but the bridges that Moses
built are made from brass and built on a larger scale than the rest. The model shows the city as a system of neatly interconnected roadways, parkways and bridges. There are no people on the
streets.

The reporter strolls around the model’s perimeter walkway. The light effect changes from dawn to dusk. A lonely plastic aeroplane takes off and lands at La Guardia airport as the fake sun
moves over. The model of the Unisphere, a great globe, is directly beneath him. Pavilions surround it. There are designated areas for refreshments and souvenir stalls. There is the General Motors
Pavilion and an International Plaza. There is the Fountain of the Planets and a Belgian Village.

Robert Moses also built Jones Beach on Long Island. The reporter remembers visiting when he was young. He remembers the clear blue water of the diving pools and the changing rooms that had never
been used. But he has been through this with his editor already.
Now don’t get all gooey-eyed about this guy; just stick to the facts.

Robert Moses is tall and broad, standing behind a lectern, looking casually over his audience. Behind him is the giant Unisphere positioned on its axis in the centre of a
fountain.

This Fair is dedicated to man’s achievement on a shrinking globe in an expanding universe, Moses says. The ambition of the fair is to provide good wholesome family fun, no cheap amusements
or freak shows, no shabby games or bawdy entertainment. The central emblem of the fair is this steel Unisphere, a steel skeleton of the globe, hanging suspended over the central fountain, as tall
as a twelve-storey building and made of corrosion-resistant steel. It is the largest replica of this planet ever constructed and will serve as a reminder of man’s achievement long after the
fair has gone. Bulldozers and builders, like poets, are incurable romantics at heart. This fair is the result of a pursuit of a dream. The dreamer is only as good as his dream.

The audience applauds. Moses turns to shake the hand of the representative from United States Steel Corporation. He accepts a large steel certificate.