In his new memoir, Working, Robert Caro said that his late editor Bob Gottlieb slashed 750,000 words from the original manuscript of The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. For the Caro fans walking among us, we yearn to know: What got cut?

For the first time ever, Caro acolytes will soon be able to read pages from The Power Broker’s original manuscript that never saw the light of day. This fall, an exhibition at the New-York Historical Society will open to the public that tells the Pulitzer Prize–winning biography’s full story.

The show opens on September 6, fifty years after Knopf published the 1,336-page tome about Robert Moses in 1974. Robert Caro’s The Power Broker at 50 will feature handwritten notes by Caro, and redlined manuscripts by Gottlieb, among other ephemera from Caro’s archive that the New-York Historical Society acquired in 2019.

All in all, the exhibition will give a glimpse into how the sausage was made behind arguably the 20th-century’s most important book about New York. Archival documents will portray how Caro turned 522 interviews conducted over seven years into a cogent story. Papers that portray Caro’s legendary work ethic will abound, as well as research notes he took while trying to understand how Jones Beach got built, among other Moses contraptions.

Certainly, there are few (if any) books better for students of the built environment to read when they’re still trying to figure out how the world works than The Power Broker. It’s a rite of passage of sorts: The Power Broker is for journalists what Capital, Vol. 1 is for Marxists: You just have to read it.

Yes, it’s bloody long, but push through and you will feel as though you just climbed Mount Everest. Whenever this editor is working on a story and I feel like packing it in before it’s fully baked, Caro’s legendary maxim bangs in my head: “Turn every goddamn page.”

Power is what Robert Caro’s book is about, and its chief protagonist Robert Moses merely serves as a conduit for explaining what power does to a person. It’s a modern classic inspired by Homer’s Iliad that explains why New York is the way it is today. 

“The Power Broker is a tremendous feat of reporting and narrative storytelling, and a work that continues to shape our understanding of New York City itself,” said Dr. Louise Mirrer, president and CEO of New-York Historical Society. “The book has influenced generations of journalists, politicians, city planners, and countless other readers who care about the civic life of our city. I hope visitors come away from this show with a greater understanding of the enormity of what Robert Caro’s monumental book meant when it was first published in 1974 and its continued relevance today.”

After the show debuts, on October 7, a conversation between Robert Caro and Roman Mars and Elliot Kalan from 99 % Invisible will take place on stage at New-York Historical’s Robert H. Smith Auditorium.

Robert Caro’s The Power Broker at 50 will stay open through February 2, 2025.