Robert A. Caro's The Power Broker, the biography of Robert Moses that runs well past a thousand pages, is getting read aloud from the first page to the last in Gowanus next week. The marathon reading starts on Thursday, November 12, at 7 p.m. at Judgy Baby, 170 Second Avenue, and continues in 10-minute turns around the clock until it reaches the end, which the organizers expect around midday on Sunday, November 15.

Judgy Baby bills it as the first marathon reading of the book. Four hundred readers will take part, chosen from more than 1,700 people who applied for a slot.

The book

Caro published The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York in 1974, and it won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography the following year. It follows Moses through the decades he spent building New York's parkways, bridges, beaches, parks and housing, and the neighborhoods those projects changed.

Reading the whole thing aloud in one sitting takes the better part of three days, which is why the schedule runs through the night.

Who is reading

The first hour, from 7 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, belongs to a group of invited readers. The venue's published list for that hour includes City Council Members Shahana Hanif and Alexa Avilés, political scientist Christina Greer, Greg Young of the Bowery Boys history podcast and transit announcer Bernie Wagenblast, with more names still being added. After that the book passes from reader to reader every 10 minutes. The full schedule, searchable by name, is posted on the event page, so anyone who knows a reader can work out when to show up. Author Anand Giridharadas, for one, has the 9:10 p.m. slot on Thursday.

Reader slots are full. Judgy Baby is still looking for volunteers to help run the event across all four days, including overnight, and has a volunteer sign-up on its site.

How to go and listen

Audience tickets are free, but they have to be reserved in advance on the event page, and each person can hold only one spot across the whole marathon. Daytime audience windows last two hours. Overnight windows, between midnight and 8 a.m., last four hours. Spots are open every day from Thursday through Sunday, except Sunday afternoon, which will be released later. The page shows how many spots remain in each window and updates every few minutes.

The house rules from the event page:

  • Arrive half an hour before your window starts.
  • Bring ID; door staff and volunteers will check your name.
  • Use the main building entrance on the Second Avenue side, go up to the second floor and wait there to be let into the third-floor event space.
  • Reserved spots are not transferable.
  • The event may be filmed, photographed, sketched or livestreamed, and attending means agreeing to that.

If you reserve a spot and cannot make it, the organizers ask you to email powerbrokermarathon@judgybaby.com with the subject line NOT ABLE TO ATTEND so the seat can go to someone else.

The venue

Judgy Baby is a new multipurpose arts and music space in Gowanus. It sits in the Montauk Paint Manufacturing Company Building on Second Avenue, which the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated an individual city landmark in 2019. The space gave the public a first look during Gowanus Open Studios in October, and it has a merch party for the Eel Pit series on its calendar for November 21.

Getting there

Judgy Baby is at 170 Second Avenue in Gowanus, Brooklyn. The nearest subway stations are 4th Avenue–9th Street on the F, G and R, and Smith–9th Streets on the F and G, each a walk of several blocks. Reserve an audience window, and pick your hour of the book, on the Judgy Baby event page.

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