Jane Jacobs died today. She was an unaffiliated writer and social observer, not some tenured academic, in 1961 when she wrote "The Death and Life of Great American Cities." Her writing was a collection of original insight and simply stated fact, making "Death and Life" the first and most often returned-to book on the shelf of many urbanists since. The sworn enemy of planners, she took on Robert Moses to stop him from running a highway through her Manhattan neighborhood. She saw the importance of everything organic about the city, even its dysfunctions. Her eulogy of the West End of Boston is a touchstone for the post-urban-renewal generation of planners that takes her criticism of their profession to heart.
America lost her to Canada when she moved her family there to protect her sons from the draft in 1969. Until her death, she was the staunch foe of transportation planners and an inspiration to city lovers worldwide. She was, is, not just my hero, but the hero of heroes - I see her books on the shelves of so many other planners and assorted urbanists that I admire.
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I've been reading it on my commuter. The book's astonishingly readable, and her personality and voice comes through crystal clear. The clarity gives it the ring of truth, which is borne out by reality.
For instance, this morning on the V, I read, "Thus the only people who object to destruction of an unslumming neighborhood--especially if it has not yet begun drawing newcomers with choice--are those who have businesses there or who live there. If they try to explain to the uncomprehending experts that this is a good place and growing better, nobody pays attention. In every city, such protests are discounted as the howls of people with narrow vision standing in the way of progress and higher tax receipts."
Immediately I thought of Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, where Forest City Ratner wants to take land, buy land, and build an overwhelmingly huge "mixed-use" project, featuring the new tallest building in Brooklyn and an arena for the NBA's Nets. Needless to say, residents in the area are fighting mad. (Their organization is, intriguingly, called "Develop Don't Destroy--Brooklyn.") And they're likely to lose.
Further thought points to any number of other examples--Bronx Terminal Market, Manhattan's far West Side, Manhattan's far East Side, Brooklyn's Greenpoint, Williamsburg, and Red Hook, for instance.
Now, that's fine theorizing.
I'd never heard of the Lower Manhattan Expressway before this post--I can't imagine what an eight-lane highway connecting the Holland Tunnel and the Williamsburg Bridge would be like. As I picture what's there now and imagine building something like the BQE atop it, I shudder. If for no other reason, thank you, Jane Jacobs.
What buildings are behind Jane Jacobs in that photo?
I can't find out what buildings those are. The caption on the original photo just says "walking the streets of NY."
To be sure, it looks like any one of a number of anonymous New York housing projects. Given what little I know of Jane Jacobs's planning theories, I'm a little surprised that she'd allow herself to be photographed in front of one.
I thought it was an interesting picture, given this quote in wikipedia:
"Jacobs came down firmly on the side of spontaneous inventiveness of individuals, as against abstract plans imposed by governments and corporations," wrote Canadian critic Robert Fulford.
Those buildings look like they could be part of an abstract plan imposed by government (like the depressing Frederick Douglass development I lived near two years ago) or one imposed by a corporation (like the depressing Stuy town development I also lived in; actually, it looks more like some of the developments down south of Murray Hill).
Anyway, reading about her, Jane Jacobs sounds like the sort of person I'm down with.
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