Eyes on the Street: The Life of Jane Jacobs (77 page)

Read Eyes on the Street: The Life of Jane Jacobs Online

Authors: Robert Kanigel

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Women, #History, #United States, #20th Century, #Political Science, #Public Policy, #City Planning & Urban Development

BOOK: Eyes on the Street: The Life of Jane Jacobs
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Mary Malfara
: Jane acknowledged Malfara’s help in her books.
“Bob is working”
: JJ to Doug Haskell, January 15, 1969, HaskellPap, 32:9.
One was Cliff Esler
: Account of his relationship with the Jacobses built up from interview, email correspondence, unpublished memoir, and “Notes for Robert Kanigel, December 7, 2012,” courtesy of Mr. Esler.
“peace, order and good government”
: Jane specifically referred to this Canadian-U.S. difference in an interview with Michael Valpy, Ideas That Matter conference, 1997, videotape, Toronto Reference Library, no. 2345212.
“is a holiday here”
: JJ to her mother, August 7, 1972, Burns, 4:9.
Spadina fight
: Account drawn from extensive materials at the Burns, 48, including Margaret Daly, “People Power: Our Unhappy Citizens Are Fighting Back,”
Toronto Daily Star
, March 21, 1970; Ned Jacobs, “Brief Regarding the William R. Allen Expressway,” with lyrics to four songs, including “The Bad Trip” and JJ’s prepared remarks for April 7, 1970, hearing; James MacKenzie, “Committee Turning Spadina Hearing into Charade, Urbanologist Charges,”
Globe and Mail
, April 7, 1970; Sewell,
The Shape of the City
, pp. 177–82;
Matter
, pp. 114–20; interviews with Ned Jacobs, Jim Jacobs, Bobbi Speck.
“Toronto’s a very refreshing city”
: On CBC-TV, “The Way It Is,” March 2, 1969.
“A City Getting Hooked”
:
Matter
, pp. 115–16.

Oh, we can do it here

: JJ interview with Ann Medina, Ideas That Matter conference, 1997, videotape, Toronto Reference Library, no. 2345212.
New Year’s Day “levee”
: See David Lewis Stein, “The Lady Sings the Spadina Blues,”
Toronto Star
, ca. 1970, Ontario Municipal Board testimony. (The year given in
Matter
, p. 115, for the first article, “Spadina Protest at the Mayor’s Levee,” should be 1970, not 1969.) See also TV coverage on TV-UN, aired June 28, 2006, covering Jane Jacobs Day in New York City. “I became the group minstrel, writing and performing protest songs,” said Ned Jacobs at the event, held at New York’s Washington Square, “inspired by those I had learned as a child, right there”—he rises up and points—“right over there at the fountain, in 1961, when they tried to kick the singers out and failed.”
The Burning Would
:
Matter
, pp. 118–19.
“coming to a head”
: JJ to Jason Epstein, March 29, 1969, Random House Papers, Folder 1365, ColumbiaRare.
“If we are building”
: Bruce Fisher.
two or three daily newspapers
:
Matter
, pp. 129–30.
Are there igloos in the street?
: Interview, Jim Jacobs.
an extra February
: Interview, Jim Jacobs.

CHAPTER 19: SETTLING IN

extracted from the freezer chest
: According to Decker Butzner, based on his conversation with Burgin Jacobs.
“I will [tell] the story”
:
EofC
, epigraph.
“The new enterprises”
:
EofC
, p. 152. Jane was later bothered by her account of Los Angeles after the war, reports Jim Jacobs: Why, more precisely, did it not decline? “There was a big hole there.” For another peek at postwar Los Angeles, see Paul Goldberger,
Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry
(New York: Knopf, 2015), pp. 43–47.
Manchester and Birmingham
:
EofC
, pp. 86–96.
Ida Rosenthal
:
EofC
, pp. 51, 56.

Division of labor

:
EofC
, p. 82.
“where men and women”
:
EofC
, p. 83.
“New goods and services”
:
EofC
, p. 55.
“a pleasure to read”
: Robert Lekachman to Jason Epstein, July 15 [1968], Random House Papers, Folder 1365, ColumbiaRare.
“she both oversytematizes and overgeneralizes”
: Robert McCormick Adams to Jason Epstein, September 11, 1968, Random House Papers, Folder 1365, ColumbiaRare.
“permanently nuance”
: Carroll Keeley, “The Vision of Jane Jacobs: An Overview and an Interpretation,” in
Ethics
, p. 65. In a footnote, p. 64, Keeley suggests that Rousseau, in
Discourse on the Origins of Inequality
, comes near to supporting Jacobs’s cities-before-agriculture argument: the technological arts of the city, Rousseau wrote, were “necessary to force the human race to apply itself to that of agriculture. Once men were needed in order to smelt and forge the iron, other men were needed in order to feed them.”
“We cannot…envision”
: See Smith, Ur, and Feinman.
“Bless Jane Jacobs”
:
Matter
, p. 104.
“It blows cobwebs”
:
Matter
, pp. 101–02.
“provoked, stimulated”
:
Matter
, pp. 102–04.
“whole new world to think about”
: Roger Sale,
Hudson Review
(spring 1970).
“continues the search for vitality”
: Gans, “Dream of Human Cities,” p. 28.
Patricia Daly
: This correspondence, in Burns, begins May 20, 1969; Jane’s reply is July 2, Daly’s response September 5.
“not a single outdoor café”
: JJ interview with Peter Gzowski, Ideas That Matter conference, 1997, videotape, Toronto Reference Library, no. 2345212.
“it transformed Toronto”
: Fulford,
Accidental City
, p. 7.
“We had one or two”
: In “Jane Jacobs’ Annex: A Guided Audio Walking Tour,” produced by Sarah Elton, City of Toronto—Office of the Public Realm, CBC/Radio Canada, and Jane’s Walk.
“We think we have bought”
: JJ to Jason Epstein, July 20, 1970, Random House Papers, Folder 1365, ColumbiaRare.
dinosaur expert
: JJ to Barbara Chisholm, May 6, 1997, Burns, 5.
“We are going to have more room”
: JJ to David Gurin, no date, but listing her new address, David Gurin papers.
“The carpenter yesterday finished”
: JJ to her mother, July 16, 1971, Burns, 4:9.
Bloor Street’s array of shops
: Interview, Jim Jacobs.
wire scarecrow
: This and some other house details drawn from Associated Press article by Hillel Italie, November 23, 2000, Burns, 44:3.
“You can’t say no to Jane Jacobs”
: Interview, Robert Brown, former neighbor of Jane’s at 39 Albany Avenue.
“white painter”
: Interview, Robert Brown.
Jane rescued her
: “Jane Jacobs’ Annex: A Guided Audio Walking Tour,” produced by Sarah Elton, City of Toronto—Office of the Public Realm, CBC/Radio Canada, and Jane’s Walk.
“all the threshing around”
: McCall.
Jane became a citizen
: JJ to her mother,
Matter
, p. 143. See also
Ethics
, pp. 26–27.
Canary Islands
: JJ to her mother, April 2, 1971,
Matter
, pp. 133–34.
bike project
: JJ to her mother,
Matter
, p. 139; interview, Jim Jacobs.
“The inn in Kyoto”
: JJ to her mother, Burns, 4:9.
“three black squirrels”
:
Matter
, p. 134.
adventures of young life and spirit
: Interview, Burgin Jacobs.
“went to a country fair”
: JJ to her mother,
Matter
, p. 135.
“in a little log cabin”
: JJ to her mother,
Matter
, p. 137.
“Day before yesterday”
: JJ to her mother, December 3, 1972, Burns, 4:9.
misspelling it
: As, for example, in several of Jane’s entries in her 1977 and 1978 date books, Burns, 37. Or in JJ to Decker Butzner, December 13, 1978, and April 22, 1979, Decker Butzner papers.
“Day after tomorrow”
: JJ to Jason Epstein, June 23, 1975, Random House Papers, Box 1365, ColumbiaRare.

CHAPTER 20: OUR JANE

“We made a lot of new cutters”
: JJ to David Gurin, December 12, 1971, David Gurin papers.
“down to serious work”
: JJ to Jason Epstein, June 10, 1970, Random House Papers, Box 1365, ColumbiaRare.
“work well enough”
: Jason Epstein to JJ, October 8, 1971. Random House Papers, Box 1365, ColumbiaRare.
“You are absolutely right”
: JJ to Jason Epstein, October 19, 1971, Random House Papers, Box 1365, ColumbiaRare.
signed a contract
: Contract is dated November 1, 1971, and can be found in Random House Papers, Box 1365, ColumbiaRare.
“I’m working hard”
: JJ to her mother, July 16, 1971, Burns, 4:9.
“when was the last time”
: A favorite story among the family.
“the density turn”
: See Nikolai Roskamm, “Taking Sides with a Man-eating Shark: Jane Jacobs and the 1960s ‘Density Turn’ in Urban Planning,” in Schubert, pp. 83–92.
“standard urban theory”
: Paul Goldberger, review of
Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century
by Robert Fishman,
New York Times
, January 21, 1978.
“Modern architecture died”
: Charles Jencks,
The Language of Post-Modern Architecture
(New York: Rizzoli, 1984) p. 9. “The era of American faith in big plans came to an end, symbolically,” Jane said at a panel discussion in 1980 at Faneuil Hall in Boston, “when that building in the huge Pruitt-Igoe public housing project in St. Louis was dramatically dynamited by the authorities.”

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