Philip Mark Plotch and Jen Nelles, Mobilizing the Metropolis: How the Port Authority Built New York
Reviewed by Elizabeth M. Marcello and Gail Radford
Mobilizing the Metropolis: How the Port Authority Built New York
by Philip Mark Plotch and Jen Nelles
University of Michigan Press
May 2023, 386 pp.
The New York City metropolitan area boasts an impressive infrastructural network that moves people, trains, motor vehicles, freight, ships, and airplanes. At the center of this network is the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the subject of Philip Mark Plotch and Jen Nelles’s Mobilizing the Metropolis, which they offer as a “reflective history” of this particular agency, but also as a series of “lessons” for other agencies around the country built on the public authority model. [1] The book is organized semi-chronologically, following the stories of significant “moments, projects, battles, and turning points in the Port Authority’s history.” [2] In explaining the Authority’s history, the authors reference four key factors – resources, autonomy, culture, and leadership – that enabled it to innovate and be successful.
Plotch and Nelles begin with the Authority’s establishment and early accomplishments, drawing closely on (and often referring to) Jameson Doig’s definitive history of the Port Authority in his Empire on the Hudson (2001). Unlike Doig, however, the authors never seriously confront the dilemma integral to the structure of the Port Authority, as well as the entire class of semi-autonomous, government-created agencies that we know as “authorities”: the tension between efficiency and accountability. Key themes of the Progressive Era in American politics were essential to shaping the Authority’s early success. Principles of rational planning, an isolation from partisan politics, and the strong influence of business interests, combined with the Authority’s “entrepreneurial and optimistic spirit,” empowered and legitimized the organization. [3] In its early years, the Port Authority moved quickly and creatively; it developed and constructed the Goethals Bridge, the Outerbridge Crossing, the Bayonne Bridge, the George Washington Bridge, and the Lincoln Tunnel, and it gained control of the Holland Tunnel, with its considerable income from tolls.
Next, the authors recount the history of the region’s airports. It is during this period that we start to see that the Port Authority was not immune to failure. Most obviously, the Authority struggled–and continues to struggle – with capacity at its airports. Further, the Authority’s attempt to build a new airport in New Jersey was foiled by environmentalists, suggesting that acting in isolation and ignoring public sentiment was perhaps not always a savvy approach to achieving its own goals, whatever other downsides of such behavior one might perceive.
As regards seaports, “among the Port Authority’s most enigmatic assets,” the Authority was more successful. [4] A tangle of divergent strategies long governed the management and development of New Jersey ports and New York ports. For instance, in the early 1950s, the Port Authority was in the process of redeveloping the Port of Newark’s terminal facilities, while New York City maintained local control of theirs. Eventually the Authority gained control of ports in Brooklyn, and development of New Jersey ports continued; by the 1970s, the container terminal at Port Elizabeth was the largest container terminal in the world. Later, the Authority undertook efforts to dredge channels to accommodate larger ships. This proactive stance to the revolutionary changes in global supply chains meant that the harbors of New York and New Jersey would continue to be “a bulwark of prosperity” for the region. [5]
Shifting from physical infrastructure, the authors focus on the career of Lou Gambaccini, whose four noteworthy initiatives demonstrate the Authority’s commitment to coalition-building and innovation. Gambaccini, an “architect of adaptation,” worked at the Port Authority for 32 years. [6] During that period, he revitalized ferry services; established a coalition of 16 agencies (“TRANSCOM”) to share data and information about incidents or delays; established TransitCenter, which handled transit vouchers as a unit of the Port Authority; and helped launch E-Z Pass, “the world’s largest compatible electronic tolling system.” [7] These Port Authority efforts did not necessarily “bolster its bottom line,” but instead aided the mobilization of the entire metropolitan area and further exemplified the organization’s commitment to professionalism and collaboration, ideals that evaporated in the 1990s. [8]
According to Plotch and Nelles, the election of George Pataki as governor of New York and Christine Todd Whitman as governor of New Jersey marked a “turning point” for the Port Authority. [9] The Authority was put under the control of political appointees who were beholden to gubernatorial priorities and not necessarily those of the organization or the region. The governing board of commissioners was similarly tainted as it increasingly acted as a “rubber stamp for decisions made in Albany and Trenton.” [10] Pataki went so far as to suggest dissolving the Port Authority.
Late in the book, the authors (somewhat confusingly) circle back chronologically to recount in detail the history of the Authority’s three bridges that connect New Jersey and Staten Island. Their story illustrates the ever-evolving slate of political, regulatory, financial, and engineering challenges the Port Authority has faced over the years. In the 1920s, shortly after the Authority’s founding, the organization enjoyed widespread support from elected officials, businesses, and civic groups to build these bridges. By the mid-2010s, when it became clear the Bayonne Bridge’s low clearance would impede modern ships from entering the port, Authority official Bill Baroni was forced to create his own political coalitions rather than relying solely on the credibility of the Authority itself.
Having considered the external pressures on the Authority throughout its existence, the authors turn to an analysis of its deteriorating internal dynamics in a chapter devoted to the planning and construction of the of the two World Trade Centers, the Twin Towers in the 1960s and 70s, and the Freedom Tower following the 2001 terrorist attack. The contrast is jarring. Once a mighty organization able to impose its will on numerous opponents as it transitioned into a property developer on a grand scale, the Authority, by the early 2000s, had become embedded in a messy political landscape in which it was forced to take a “back seat to more powerful players.” [11]
Despite their stated intention of providing insight and guidance to those who create and manage agencies similar to the Port Authority, Plotch and Nelles devote little effort to explaining and evaluating public authorities more generally. Doig, in his very positive account of the Authority’s achievements, at least acknowledges that the autonomy of Port Authority put democracy “on hold” in metropolitan New York. [12] The authors of this volume, however, seem little concerned with trade-offs between efficacy and accountability. Their focus is almost exclusively on the question of how much political and financial independence the Authority actually possessed at different points and how it might regain at least some of what it has lost. The authors are upbeat about its prospects. They are confident that the Port Authority “still has pluck and relevance – if the organization is led by people who are allowed to prioritize regional needs.” [13]
Left unanswered by this book are questions about how we can create government instrumentalities that, unlike the Port Authority, operate transparently and involve citizens in meaningful decision-making regarding choices that shape their environment and their personal lives. Expertise is important, but resources are limited, even in a wealthy region like metropolitan New York. Setting priorities is ultimately political, not just technical, and the process needs to involve a wider array of stakeholders than the typical cast of characters who typically run public authorities. Moreover, the very fact that these mechanisms support themselves by charging fees and tolls rules out the possibility that they can respond to social needs that don’t turn a profit. But at the same time as we rethink the structure of public authorities, we need to figure out how to simplify the regulatory maze that imprisons democratically accountable government, sending politicians and policymakers reaching for problematic short cuts in order to “get things done.”
While we may be more critical of the public authority structure than the authors, we think Mobilizing the Metropolis offers compelling insight into the shifting mission and waning capabilities of a once-iconic organization. The historical accounts of Port Authority projects and initiatives also serve as a useful factual record for future scholarship. We recommend this book to anyone who has ever pondered what became of a powerful, respected entity, or how the New York metropolitan region developed the infrastructure – both physical and intellectual – that allowed it to emerge as a preeminent hub for the country and world.
Elizabeth M. Marcello, Ph.D. is a doctoral lecturer at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College. Her research focuses on the relationships between cities and states and how those relationships are mediated, such as through public authorities.
Gail Radford is a Professor of History Emerita at SUNY-Buffalo and the author of The Rise of the Public Authority: Statebuilding and Economic Development in Twentieth-Century America (University of Chicago Press, 2013).
1. Jen Nelles and Philip Mark Plotch, Mobilizing the Metropolis: How the Port Authority Built New York (University of Michigan Press, 2023), 3.
2. Ibid., 21.
3. Ibid., 30.
4. Ibid., 112.
5. Ibid., 82.
6. Ibid., 115.
7. Ibid., 141.
8. Ibid., 140.
9. Ibid., 143.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., 259.
12. J. W. Doig, Empire on the Hudson: Entrepreneurial Vision and Political Power at the Port of New York Authority (Columbia University Press, 2001), 3.
13. Nelles and Plotch, 305-306.