On the 50th anniversary of the publication of Power Broker, the author felt like a movie star

Ever since the critically acclaimed documentary Turn Every Page was released a year ago, Robert Caro has felt a bit like a movie star.

"When I walk down Broadway, kids recognize me," said the historian and author of "The Power Broker." "If I stay for a while, they will start talking about the chapters they like. It's fantastic. ”

The 88-year-old is the winner of almost all literary awards and has long had at least half-celebrity status. His more well-known admirers include Conan O'Brien, former President Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and impatient readers often email his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, asking for updates on his fifth and final book, Lyndon Johnson. (There is no release date yet, Mr. Carlo said.) )

This December morning, he sat at a small table in the New York Historical Society's gift shop and engaged in another kind of ritual for public figures: autographs, and anyone could buy his book from the Society's store or website.

Caro has spoken across the country and beyond, but he's also a full New Yorker, a native of the Upper West Side, who visited the Historical Society frequently as a child and has lived nearby for years. Every few weeks, he comes here to sign his books, including the four Johnson books published so far, as well as his debut novel, "The Power Broker." This landmark biography of Robert Moses will be on display next fall at an association exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of its publication.

The autograph was not a public event, although Shiloh Frederick, a 28-year-old local resident, came in person to get the author to sign her Power Broker. Frederick designed tourist guides and other materials about New York City, and he produced several videos about Caro's epic narrative of Moses' reign as a municipal builder and its lasting impact.

"I read the book and it inspired all these video ideas that I wanted to share with other people," she told Carlo.

"It's the best thing I can hear," he replied.

He signed dozens of books, which the association would send to customers; Sometimes he just writes his own name and the name of the owner of the book, and sometimes he adds some personal information. One of the books was ordered by a 90-year-old pastor in Rhode Island, and Caro wished him a happy birthday. For a reader who describes himself as a "young historian fascinated by history," Carlo wrote: "To a history buff. Of Frederick, he wrote: "To Chaillo who truly understood him. ”

"It's incredible. I'm going to cherish it all," Frederick said. "It's going to take a place of honor on my bookshelf. ”

Officials from the Historical Society say "Power Broker" is the most popular of Caro's books, and it's understandable that it won a Pulitzer Prize for an unofficial history of 20th-century New York City. The New York Department of Public Services acquired Caro's archives in 2019 and titled the fall exhibition "The Truth of Power," featuring "interview notes, manuscript drafts, and other artifacts closely related to his writing process."

As explained in "Turn Every Page," Caro and editor Robert Gottlieb had a heated argument while writing Power Broker, cutting hundreds of thousands of words from a book that still had more than 1,000 pages. The deleted part predates the internet era and has an aura among Caro's followers, and the lost studio recordings may bring that aura to Beatles fans. Readers have been wondering if Carlo kept a chapter on Jane Jacobs, an urban theorist and community activist. In the fifties and sixties of the last century, when Moses tried to build a highway in Lower Manhattan, Jacobs successfully resisted him.

When asked about the Jacobs part, Carlo grimaced, not only because he often hears about it, but because, he says, he doesn't know what's in the box containing his "power broker" material.

"I couldn't stand looking at these things, so I never opened the box," Carlo said. ”

A spokesman for the association declined to provide further details about the exhibition, saying it was too early.

Public interest in Power Broker remains strong. According to Circana, the biography of Moses has sold more than 17,000 copies this year, double that of a decade ago. Circana tracks 85% of paper book sales. At the height of the pandemic, "Power Broker" appeared in the background in many television interviews, becoming an unofficial status symbol.

The book inspired other forms of response that Carol never imagined when he wrote. This fall, Frederick helped lead an action on her Instagram page to tear down monkey statues, widely considered racist, which Moses placed on a playground in Harlem. Podcaster Roman Mars plans to pay tribute to Caro's book for a year on his show 99% Invisible, and his guests include O'Brien.

"My show is about architecture and design, and Power Broker is basically the bible on that," Mars said. "It makes people like me think about how cities are built, how highways are built. ”

As readers await Johnson's final volume, which they have been waiting for more than a decade, Caro's presence at the Historical Society is a break from the intense writing in the months following Gottlieb's death in June. The author has been working closely with Kathy Hourigan, who has served as his second editor since he started the Johnson series in the '70s. Horrigan is retiring from her position as vice president and executive editor of Knopf Doubleday this year as part of the publisher's wave of acquisitions, but she will remain at Carlo as a freelancer.

For Johnson's fifth novel, Caro can only say at best that it will be long, "very long." He often points out that he already knows the last line, but he does not write it chronologically. He spoke about the "poignant" part about the funeral of Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968. But he is now mired in 1965, when Johnson signed into law for everything from voting rights to health insurance, while also making the unfortunate decision to send ground troops to Vietnam.

"The Vietnam War was so frustrating. "Tell God the truth, you will find yourself wanting to cry when you hear the stories of these children who have to fight in the jungle," Caro said. ”

"The problem is," he said of Johnson and 1965, "it's a man, a period that distills everything about American power." ”