Why a Booktrail?
1916 – 2006: The woman who wanted to change her city
Walking in the City with Jane
What you need to know before your trail
From the time she was a young girl, Jane Jacobs’ curious mind made her a keen observer of everything around her. When she grew up, she moved to New York City, a place full of new wonders for her to explore. It was there she realised that, just like in nature, a city is an ecosystem. It is made of different parts – sidewalks, parks, stores, neighborhoods, City Hall… and people, of course. When they all work together, the city is healthy.? So, when city planner Robert Moses proposed creating highways through the city that would destroy neighborhoods and much of what made New York great, Jane decided she couldn’t let it happen. She stood up to the officials and rallied her neighbors to stop the plans – and even got arrested!
Locations
Reset- America/ USA- NY - NYC
- A: Washington Square Park
- B: Rockefeller Foundation
- C: 9th Street Station
- Canada - ON - Toronto
- D: 69 Albany Avenue
- E: Spadina Expressway
Travel Guide
Jane Jacobs – New York and Toronto
Jane Jacobs was born on May 4, 1916 and died on April 25, 2006.
She was an American-Canadian journalist, author, and activist who wrote a book called The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) . She argued that changing the look of a city wasn’t always good or in the interests of people who lived there.
New York
She was fiercely against Robert Moses’ plans to overhaul her own Greenwich Village neighborhood and played a major part in cancelling the Lower Manhattan Expressway, which would have passed directly through SoHo and Little Italy.
Toronto
In 1968, she moved to Toronto where she joined the opposition to the Spadina Expressway and the associated network of expressways in Toronto planned, and under construction.
As a woman in the male-dominated field of urban planning, she had to put up with a lot of opposition. She lived at 69 Albany Avenue and died in Toronto Western Hospital aged 89, on April 25, 2006.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Walking in the City with Jane
Destination : New York, Toronto Author/Guide: Susan Hughes Departure Time: 1916 – 2006
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