Eyes on the Street: The Life of Jane Jacobs (67 page)

three hours on the through train
: Email, rail expert Herb Harwood, who reports “at least two through-trips a day each way, each taking roughly three hours,” between Scranton and Philadelphia.

“a quiet one”
: (Bloomsburg, PA)
Columbian
March 25, 1909.

Soon after they married
: Interview, Jim Jacobs.

his favorite pie
: Interview, Jim Jacobs; see also Sandra Martin, “An Urban Legend,” p. 84.

“and love and affection”
: Indenture, August 6, 1918, John D. Butzner to Bess Robison Butzner, DBK no. 294, p. 228, Lackawanna County deedbook.

“I learned to get out early”
: Wachtel, p. 41.

he’d seemed fine
: “He was the picture of health and brightness,” (Fredericksburg)
Free Lance
, August 10, 1951.

a house at 1712 Monroe Avenue
:
Matter
, p. 33. From the sidewalk, the house can seem as if it had a real third floor. But despite pediment, elaborated window treatment, and vestigial porch suggesting otherwise, it was really just an attic.

“a cheerful place”
: Wachtel, p. 41. Years later, a Jewish friend, David Gurin, told Jane how the sole surviving remnant of his Orthodox childhood was that, on Friday nights in his house as an adult, there were no television, no electronics, no distractions, that they were all just there with each other. Replied Jane: “That’s how I spent every night.”

“no mean streak”
: Interview, Toshiko Adilman.

“That’s puddingstone!”
: Jane Jacobs, “What Would I Have Been if I Hadn’t Been a Writer,” response to editor’s query, 1994, Burns, 6:5.

a distaste for profligacy
: Interview, Jim Jacobs.

“carrying on dialogues”
: Warren, p. 16; Fulford, “Radical Dreamer.”

“the lakes turned over”
: Early draft,
EofC
, Burns, 8:6.

Sabilla Bodine
: Thanks to Decker Butzner and Burgin Jacobs for letting me see the Sabilla Bodine compilation.

“Greetings to you”
: Burns, 2:1.

“endless store”
: Interview, Jim Jacobs.

“intellectually very curious”
: Wachtel, p. 42.

resign from Daughters of the American Revolution
: Interview, Jane Henderson.

artificial logs
: JJ to her mother, December 30, 1974, Burns, 4.

“the night supervising nurse”
:
Matter
, p. 11.

“how limited their lives were”
: Wachtel, p. 44.

hadn’t “come to grips”
: JJ to Jason Epstein, January 8, 1975, Random House Papers, ColumbiaRare.

“quite prissy”
: Wachtel, p. 44.

“to this day astonishes me”
: JJ to John S. Zinsser, December 22, 1950, Burns, 22:9.

Don’t sing that
: Interview, Jim Jacobs.

minefield of small-town narrow-mindeness
: Interview, Jim Jacobs.

“I had to shut up”
: Wachtel, p. 44.

“the Patch”
: Chavez, Duer, and Fang, p. 10.

She traded cards…played pirates
: Warren, p. 10.

secrete treasures
:
D&L
, p. 112.

Chatauqua
: JJ to Susan Wynn, September 18, 1997, Burns, 1:6.

his favorite shirt
: Decker Butzner’s remarks in “Memorial Ceremony and Portrait Unveiling in Honor of Honorable John D. Butzner, Jr.,”
West’s Federal Reporter
, vol. 464, F.3d, pp. XXXIX–XLI.

tree in the parlor
: Interviews, Jim Jacobs, Decker Butzner, Kay Butzner.

“Bite off more”
: Mary Robison Fawcett to JJ, 1996, Burns, 44:2.

“I am pleased to see”
:
Matter
, p. 170.

“I’ve known a lot of bootleggers”
: Interview, Decker Butzner.

“relentless prohibitionist”
:
Alaska
, p. 10.

“Being in a family”
:
Matter
, p. 13.

“an island of hope”
: Wachtel, p. 45.

“could do anything”
:
Matter
, p. 11. Jane’s sister, Betty, on the other hand, at least once did feel stymied. She wanted to become an architect, but Dr. Butzner discouraged her, seeing the field as inappropriate for a woman. “She thought it was ridiculous,” Betty’s daughter Carol Bier reports. But Betty yielded, turning instead to interior design.

CHAPTER 2: OUTLAW

“In those days”
: Wachtel, p. 46.

“misapprehension”
: Wachtel, p. 46.

downright jealous
:
Matter
, p. 150.

“didn’t listen much”
:
Matter
, p. 11.

book hidden beneath her desk
:
Matter
, p. 15.

“rather stupid”
: Wachtel, p. 46.

managed to get herself expelled
: Lucia Jacobs, taped interview of JJ, 1992, courtesy of Prof. Jacobs; Wachtel, p. 46;
Matter
, p. 16.

“I’m a busy man”
: Interview, Kay Butzner.

rubber boots
: Interview, Jim Jacobs.

“Which two pages?”
: Harvey, p. 36.

“She was always afraid of teachers”
: Interview, Jim Jacobs.

“the little girls who do best”
:
Ethics
, p. 9.

“what they’re
supposed to do
”
: Books and Authors Luncheon, March 10, 1962, audio, New York City Municipal Archives, wnyc_LT9522.

“I was an outlaw”
: Lucia Jacobs, taped interview of JJ, 1992.

“we went downtown to school”
: Penny Fox, “Suburbs Do Not Suit Citified Author,” 1961, Burns.

all of Scranton
: Local history, including Anthracite’s role, drawn from “Scranton” in Writers’ Program,
Pennsylvania: A Guide to the Keystone State
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1940), pp. 322–29; David Crosby,
Scranton Then and Now
(Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2011); Benson W. Rohrbeck,
Scranton’s Trolleys
(Ben Rohrbeck Traction Publications, 1999); Fred J. Lauver, “A Walk Through the Rise and Fall of Anthracite Might,”
Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine
(winter 2001); “History of the Green Ridge Presbyterian Church” and “50th Anniversary of the Present Church Building, 1893–1943, Green Ridge Presbyterian Church,” both reviewed at Lackawanna Historical Society, Scranton.

“the greatest man in the world”
: Wachtel, p. 45.

“meant much to me as a child”
:
EofC
, p. 160.

“There was some mixup”
:
Impressions
(December 1931): 22.

forever late to class
: Grade book, 1929–30, Scranton Central High School, records furnished by Donna Zaleski. Jane may have been getting mixed messages at home. “Early risers,” Mr. Butzner liked to say, according to Jim Jacobs, “are conceited all morning and sleepy all afternoon.”

“To Rupert Brooke”
:
Impressions
(December 1931): 18.

“a melodious laugh”
: Carl Marzani,
The Education of a Reluctant Radical, Book
2—Growing Up American
(New York: Topical Books, 1993), pp. 78–79.

“Of a Friend, Dead”
: “Sonnet,”
Impressions
(May 1932): 19.

Auslander
: Jane Butzner, “Joseph Auslander,”
Impressions
(December 1932): 14.

Carl Marzani
: “Leftists in the Wilderness,”
U.S. News & World Report
, March 19, 1990, pp. 26–27.

“on the tall side”
: Carl Marzani,
The Education of a Reluctant Radical, Book
2—Growing Up American
(New York: Topical Books, 1993), p. 77.

the honor roll
:
Impressions
(June 1933).

“getting Jane through high school”
: Interviews, Jim Jacobs, Kay Butzner.

Jane’s classmates included
: Booklet, 50th Scranton High School reunion, May 14, 1983, with short biographical sketches of attendees, Burns, 38:5.

“The moon”
: “To a Teacher,”
Impressions
, ca. 1932.

“I’m not all that different”
: JJ to Stewart Brand, January 31, 1994, Burns.

CHAPTER 3: LADIES’ NEST OF OWLS AND OTHER MILESTONES IN THE EDUCATION OF MISS JANE BUTZNER

“rows of pinched faces”
:
Dark
, p. 52.

Powell doesn’t figure much
: Margery W. Davies,
Woman’s Place Is at the Typewriter
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982); “Early Office Museum” website; Powell School of Business ads from the period; John Robert Gregg,
Gregg Shorthand
(New York: Gregg Publishing Company, ca. 1930), and other Gregg-related materials; interviews, Jim Jacobs, Esther Kiesling.

high school diploma
: Burns, FF1D17.

“Her ambition”
: Nellie B. Sergent,
Younger Poets: An Anthology of American Secondary School Verse
(New York: D. Appleton, 1932), p. 377.