A West Coast Voice Bids Farewell To Jane Jacobs

"The Jane I knew back in her New York hey days in the early 60s was an unapologetic populist and a heartfelt humanist. Frankly homely, and awkward, yet radiant and endearing, she was a sometimes journalist and a steadfast community activist. As for me, I was at the time a fledgling metro reporter for the New York Times who also surreptitiously wrote for the Village Voice and hung out in her West Village neighborhood."

"Jane's appreciation of cities was visceral, not abstractions viewed from an upper floor board room, or from the back seat of a cab, or as a site plan in an architect’s office. Rather, cities were to be experienced on the sidewalk, moveable feasts appealing to the five senses. She ate like we born and ill-bred New Yorkers, standing up at hot dog stands and pizza stalls, and sitting down in communal Italian restaurants or to have a beer at taverns such as the White Horse. Not incidentally, the tavern, a former haunt of the poet Dylan Thomas where we and some select nefarious hung out, was a few wobbling steps from her second floor apartment on Hudson Street."

"This was an attitude that informed 'Death and Life' and made it unquestionably the most influential book on urban planning of the last century. That it was written by an untutored urbanist, with no academic credentials or professional conceits made it all the more salient."