Join the West End Museum on Saturday, May 4 from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. for their free, public event: Jane’s Walk at The West End Museum.
Author, urbanist, and activist, Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) caused quite a stir in the field of city planning with her 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. In it, Jacobs asserts that the urban renewal projects of the 1950s destroyed the vibrancy of the very cities and neighborhoods they intended to revitalize. Many former residents, not to mention other experts, wholeheartedly agree with that assessment of the project that demolished Boston’s West End.
Jane’s Walk at The West End Museum invites visitors to see Jane Jacobs’ lecture at Boston College in which she discussed what happened to the West End under urban renewal and the injustices suffered by the neighborhood’s residents. The video will run on a loop throughout the day, and docents will guide visitors to areas of the Museum’s exhibits, “The Last Tenement” and “The Housing Act of 1949,” that relate to Jacobs’ ideas and principles.
A champion of the voices of everyday people, Jacobs became both a respected dissident and an idolized folk hero. A year after her death, friends and colleagues launched Jane’s Walk to honor her memory and legacy through citizen-led urban walking tours. In the 12 years since, Jane’s Walk has grown into a worldwide celebration.
Jane Jacobs was a brilliant urbanist who was ridiculed by so called city planners because of her lack of university credentials. From her home on Hudson Street in Greenwich Village she observed the active street life beneath her window and developed her ideas of what makes a city and a neighborhood livable. She famously fought Robert Moses who wanted to build an expressway right through Greenwich Village, SoHo and Little Italy.
Jacobs loved the North End of Boston with its street life and human scale. We need a Jane Jacobs here in Boston.