50 years after 'The Power Broker,' Robert Caro's dreams are still coming true

NEW YORK (AP) — Robert A. Caro stands between two giant columns in a second-floor library of the New-York Historical Society, looking out on dozens of friends, family members and colleagues. A research room named for him looms behind. Portions of his archives are on display nearby.

“The most honest thing I could possibly say tonight is also possibly the corniest, and that is having my archives here is, in a way, a dream come true,” the historian said during a recent dinner tribute at the Society, a 200-year-old institution located opposite Central Park that he would visit often as a child who already imagined becoming a writer.

“I won't say I dreamed of being a well-known writer,” he added. “But my dreams were of being a writer. So now, I am a writer and my papers are here, and you could say it's a dream come true.”

The 88-year-old author spends most of his days writing — the fifth and final volume of his Lyndon Johnson series, more than a decade in the making, is still without a scheduled release date. But in recent weeks, he has been looking back to his first book, to the biography that made him famous, and, for some, infamous: “The Power Broker.” His Pulitzer Prize-winning chronicle of Robert Moses is a page-turning — around 1,300 pages — appraisal of the New York City municipal builder, portrayed by Caro as a man of historic vision and talent whose ego and disregard for others made him a cautionary tale for unchecked authority.

A New Yorker for much his life, Caro is the Society's unofficial laureate, subject of one exhibit — “Turn Every Page” — about his famously thorough research and a new one dedicated to “The Power Broker,” published 50 years ago. “Robert Caro’s The Power Broker at 50” includes typescript pages, notebook entries, letters, press clippings, a draft of the book’s introduction and samples of Caro’s reporting, including a tally sheet that he and his wife, Ina, amassed of commuters to Long Island’s Jones Beach, Moses’ first major public project.

Caro’s book remains widely purchased, taught and discussed, and so much a symbol of serious thought that it turned up in the background of many Zoom interviews with journalists and public figures during the height of the pandemic. The Society not only sells signed copies of his books, but also offers ceramic mugs that read: “I FINISHED THE POWER BROKER."

Although “The Power Broker” is among the longest one-volume books in existence, Caro obsessives — and the author himself — have wondered about the material left out. Caro’s original manuscript was around 1 million words, and some 300,000 had to be removed by Caro and editor Robert Gottlieb just so the book wouldn’t require an extra edition. Missing or drastically cut sections include one on community activist Jane Jacobs, who helped stop Moses’ efforts to build a highway through Greenwich Village, and one on tenants of a Bronx neighborhood uprooted by the Cross Bronx Expressway.

Caro himself has long forgotten what happened to the old manuscript pages, boxed up and placed in filing cabinets decades ago and opened only after the Society acquired his papers in 2020. The exhibit, and his archives, now open to the public, offer few clues.

According to Valerie Paley, senior vice president and director of the society’s Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, virtually all “The Power Broker” papers have been sorted and no sign of of a full draft or extensive section of the Jacobs chapter or One Mile sequel has been found. The society's online site dedicated to the archive lists thousands of “Power Broker”-related materials, but nothing specific about Jacobs or the lives of the Bronx tenants after they left.

During a recent interview at his writing office, a short walk from his apartment and the Society, Caro noted one artifact in the exhibit — a napkin on which he had scrawled a few thoughts about “Fiddler on the Roof” and a line about growing up knowing everyone you meet. He had been speaking with some Bronx women displaced by Moses' highway and noted how their fates could be compared to those driven out in Russia by the czar. But what he had hoped would be a long chapter on what happened to them ran just 10 pages.

“I remember writing pages of that chapter over and over again,” he said. ““I thought it was good, but we were coming down to the end and we had to cut another 40,000 words and it had to go.”

“The Power Broker” set the template for Caro's grand ambitions and flexible deadlines. He thought he would spend a few months on the book, but needed more than seven years, taking so long that he and Ina ran out of money and had to sell their home. His background was in journalism; he was a Pulitzer-winning investigative reporter for Newsday. But “The Power Broker” was also influenced by some of the 19th century novelists he admired, notably Anthony Trollope, whom his wife first told him about.

Caro’s narrative has the kind of scale, moral underpinning, political insights and outsized characters — Moses above all — that he admired in such Trollope works as “The Prime Minister.” Asked if “The Power Broker” could almost be called a nonfiction 19th century novel, Caro responded: “Not almost.”

When “The Power Broker” was published, Moses issued a 23-page statement denouncing it as full of “mistakes, unsupported charges” and “random haymakers” and accused Caro of listening too closely to “a few bellyachers on street corners” and “disgruntled truck drivers.” But most critics regarded the book as a revelation and continue to rank it as essential for those interested in politics, urban planning or New York history. Admirers include President Barack Obama, who recalled being “mesmerized” by it when he awarded Caro a National Humanities Medal in 2010.

Even Jacobs forgave him for not mentioning her. In a 1974 letter displayed in the exhibit, she thanked Caro for sending her a copy and expressed gratitude for his efforts.

“I have no doubt that many readers are going to feel the way I do — we owe you a tremendous debt for all those years of hard work, good sense, unflagging curiosity, and compassion,” she wrote. “What an account it is of human predicaments; it ranks with the great novels.”

FILE - Author and biographer Robert Caro stands beside an image of his younger self after touring a permanent exhibit in his honor at the New York Historical Society Museum & Library in New York on Oct. 20, 2021. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

Robert Caro poses for a portrait on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)

Robert Caro poses for a portrait on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)

Robert Caro poses for a portrait on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)

Robert Caro poses for a portrait on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)

Robert Caro poses for a portrait on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)

WHITESBURG, Ky. (AP) — Residents of a tiny Appalachian town struggled Friday to cope with a shooting involving two of its most prominent citizens: a judge who was gunned down in his courthouse chambers and a local sheriff charged with his murder.

“It’s just so sad. I just hate it,” said Mike Watts, the Letcher County circuit court clerk. “Both of them are friends of mine. I’ve worked with both of them for years.”

The preliminary investigation indicates Letcher County Sheriff Shawn “Mickey” Stines shot District Judge Kevin Mullins multiple times following an argument inside the courthouse, according to Kentucky State Police.

Mullins, 54, who held the judgeship for 15 years, died at the scene, and Stines, 43, surrendered without incident. He was charged with one count of first-degree murder.

The fatal shooting stunned the tight-knit town of Whitesburg, the county seat, with a population of about 1,700 people, 145 miles (235 kilometers) southeast of Lexington.

Watts said he saw Mullins and Stines together shortly before noon Thursday — about three hours before the shooting — when he went into the judge’s chambers to ask him to sign some papers. Mullins and Stines were getting ready to go out to lunch together, Watts said.

It seemed like an ordinary interaction, except that Stines seemed quieter than usual. He thought the pair had a good working relationship and knew of nothing that could have prompted the violent encounter.

Watts, who was on another floor in the courthouse, never heard any shots and only learned of the shooting shooting when his son called to tell him there was an “active shooter” in the courthouse.

A key question is what may have led to the shooting.

Stines was deposed on Monday in a lawsuit filed by two women, one of whom alleged that a deputy forced her to have sex inside Mullins’ chambers for six months in exchange for staying out of jail. The lawsuit accuses the sheriff of “deliberate indifference in failing to adequately train and supervise” the deputy.

The now-former deputy sheriff, Ben Fields, pleaded guilty to raping the female prisoner while she was on home incarceration. Fields was sentenced this year to six months in jail and then six and a half years on probation for rape, sodomy, perjury and tampering with a prisoner monitoring device, The Mountain Eagle reported. Three charges related to a second woman were dismissed because she is now dead.

Stines fired Fields, who succeeded him as Mullins' bailiff, for “conduct unbecoming” after the lawsuit was filed in 2022, The Courier Journal reported at the time.

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said his office will collaborate with a regional commonwealth’s attorney as special prosecutors in the criminal case, since the lead county prosecutor, Matt Butler, recused himself and his office. Butler said he and the judge married two sisters, and their children act like siblings.

“We will fully investigate and pursue justice,” Coleman said on social media.

Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Laurance B. VanMeter said he was “shocked by this act of violence” and that the court system was “shaken by this news.”

Jessica Slone, a distant relative of Stines’ and a lifelong resident of Letcher County, said she was shocked when she heard the news. She was at the dollar store with her nephew when he told her Mullins had been shot.

“I was like seriously? Is he okay? And he said ‘No, he’s dead,’” she said. “But at the time, I didn’t know that Mickey had done it. When I found out I was grocery shopping and I got really emotional and started praying.”

She described Stines as a family man who is close with his children and worked hard to get fentanyl and methamphetamine off the streets of the community and help people dealing with substance use disorder get into recovery.

Patty Wood, the widow of District Judge Jim Wood, Mullins’ predecessor, said she has been close friends with Stines and his family for years. She said she was shocked by the shooting and the arrest of Stines.

“You couldn’t find a better person on the face of the earth than Mickey Stines. I don’t know what happened,” she said.

“I know Mickey’s character. And I know there had to be something that did it,” she said. “I just cannot believe that he just went in and shot him for no reason.”

Wood said Stines worked as a bailiff in her late husband’s courtroom and held the same job when Mullins took over after her husband died. Never once did she see a flash of temper from the sheriff, she said.

Letcher County's judge-executive closed the county courthouse on Friday.

It was unclear whether Stines had an attorney — state police referred inquires to a spokesperson who did not immediately respond by email.

Mullins served as a district judge in Letcher County since he was appointed by former Gov. Steve Beshear in 2009 and elected the following year.

Researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed from New York.

The front of the Letcher County Sheriff's Dept. office is shown on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024 in Whitesburg, Ky. (AP Photos/Dylan Lovan)

This booking photo provided by Leslie County Detention Center in Kentucky on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024 shows Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines (Leslie County Detention Center via AP)

This undated photo provided by Kentucky Court of Justice shows slain District Judge Kevin Mullins. (Kentucky Court of Justice via AP)

Letcher County Ky Sheriff Shawn M. Stines. Here is a cutline: In this screenshot provided by WYMT-TV, Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines is shown during an interview in Whitesburg, Ky., on Aug. 14, 2024. (WYMT-TV via AP)