“kill this project entirely”: Sam Pope Brewer, “Angry ‘Villagers’ to Fight Project,” New York Times, February 27, 1961.
“We are 100% for improvement”: West Village Newsletter, no date, but before March 23, 1961, Tonachel papers.
“blighting influence”: Newsletter, Department of City Planning, May 1961.
“less-than-desirable area”: Patricia Fieldsteel, “Remembering a Time When the Village Was Affordable,” Villager, October 19–22, 2005.
“Who Says What Is a Slum?”: John Crosby, New York Herald Tribune, March 13, 1961.
“generally high standards”: Sam Pope Brewer, “Dudley Inspects Area in ‘Village,’ ” New York Times, March 21, 1961.
surveyed all fourteen blocks: “Residential and Business Survey of the West Village,” March 1961, and “Housing Characteristics and Business Survey of the West Greenwich Village Area,” March 1961, Committee to Save the West Village, Tonachel papers.
“fundamentally as attractive”: Daniel M. C. Hopping and Henry Hope Reed Jr. to James Felt, April 18, 1961, Tonachel papers.
“no romantic attitude”: Bruno Zevi to Committee to Save the West Village, May 3, 1961, Tonachel papers.
This tack: Amateau, “Jane Jacobs Comes Back”; Gratz, The Battle for Gotham, p. 87; KentVillage, pp. 26–27.
record sound levels: KentVillage, pp. 10, 14. See also undated internal memo, Architectural Forum, noting that Jane “went so far as to produce an acoustical engineer who proved the West Village was quieter than Sutton Place,” HaskellPap, 80:5.
“nibbled to death by ducks”: Interview, Pierre Tonachel.
“an action-packed montage”: Nathan Silver, “Jane Jacobs for Example,” Columbia Forum (summer 1972): 47–49.
“unreal and almost dreamlike”: “Report of the City Planning Commission on the Designation of the West Village Area,” October 18, 1961, p. 7.
“leaped from their seats”: Edith Evans Asbury, “Plan Board Votes ‘Village’ Project; Crowd in Uproar,” New York Times, October 19, 1961.
“We were not violent”: Edith Evans Asbury, “Deceit Charged in ‘Village’ Plan,” New York Times, October 20, 1961.
“a weary father”: Housing and Planning News, February 1962, p. 1; see also Edith Evans Asbury, “Board Ends Plan for West Village,” New York Times, October 25, 1961; Martin Arnold, “Felt Set to Yield in ‘Village’ Fight,” New York Times, January 17, 1962.
“eleven months and ten days”: Jane Jacobs, “The Citizen in Urban Renewal: Participation or Manipulation,” February 21, 1962, typescript, Burns.
“highly sophisticated and articulate”: “Report of the City Planning Commission on the Designation of the West Village Area,” October 18, 1961, p. 8.
“discovered beauty”: Abe [Abraham E. Kazan], of United Housing Foundation, to James Felt, December 18, 1961, Goldstone Papers, New York Municipal Archives.
“whipped up this book”: Books and Authors Luncheon.
“As long as it couldn’t be avoided”: Wachtel, p. 53. See also Matter, p. 82: “Fights like these are an outrageous imposition on the time and resources of citizens,” eased only by having “a bang-up good time in the process, and a satisfying vengeance against the rascals at the end.”
West Village Houses: The brochure was titled “The West Village Plan for Housing”; see also Transatlantic, pp. 187–91, 208–12; Stern, pp. 249–51; interviews, Pearl Broder, Katy Bordonaro.
“This will show”: Jerome Zakowsky, “Villagers Want 5-Tier Walkups to ‘Save’ Area,” New York Herald Tribune, May 6, 1963.
“Revolutionary in its modesty”: Nichols.
Jane and Betty had inhabited: But in a letter to Myrna Katz Frommer and Harvey Frommer, July 12, 2000, Burns, 1, Jane writes, “There was nothing wrong with the building on Orange St. that couldn’t have been fixed with installation of a small elevator,” as her next apartment, on Morton Street, had been.
“well-publicized ‘victory’ ”: “Analysis and Comments on the West Village Plan for Housing,” anonymous report, n.d., City Planning Commission Papers, New York City Municipal Archives.
Jane’s “in fill”: JJ to Ned [Jacobs], February 11, 2002, Burns: “An unwritten basic point…was that we hoped this infill method would teach the city a new and better way to build housing—but its Dreadful Big Thinkers were too dumb or bloody-minded or both to learn.”
were a going industry: Intradepartmental memorandum from Theodore Berlin to Samuel Joroff, “Survey of West Village Housing Proposal Area,” November 18, 1964, Ballard Papers, City Planning Commission, New York City Municipal Archives.
“conceived in utmost secrecy”: “Analysis and Comments on the West Village Plan for Housing,” anonymous report, n.d., City Planning Commission Papers, New York City Municipal Archives.
“startling and frightening”: Jeanne Godwin, “Tenement House Revival,” Co-op Contact, newsletter, ca. 1963, Commissioner Goldstone Papers, New York Municipal Archives.
“the most incredible proposal”: Frank S. Kristof, Intradepartmental Memorandum, “The West Village Plan for Housing—Some Questions,” June 25, 1963, Housing and Redevelopment Board, New York City Municipal Archives.
“classic example of conflict”: Philip Will Jr. to William Ballard, November 9, 1964, Commissioner Goldstone Papers, New York Municipal Archives.
“a determined lot”: William F. R. Ballard to Philip Will, November 16, 1964, Commissioner Goldstone Papers, New York Municipal Archives.
“plain brick buildings”: West Village Houses, writes Michael Sorkin in “Two Critics,” “fits unobtrusively within the intimate weave of its surroundings. It’s a model piece of urbanism because of this careful integration.”
CHAPTER 16: LUNCHEON AT THE WHITE HOUSE
“their patience”: JJ to Jason Epstein, January 9, 1961, Random House Papers, ColumbiaRare.
“so clear even for us”: Noriaki Kurokawa to JJ, July 10, 1963, and JJ reply, July 30, 1963, Burns, 1:14.
The street crime Americans: Interview, Toshiko Adilman.
“ ‘Plans Agley’ ”: JJ to Tom Maschler, March 29, 1962, Burns, 1:14.
Harvard Graduate School of Design: Laurence, “Contradictions and Complexities,” p. 59.
“some real news for you”: JJ to Mrs. Butzner, postmarked June 7, 1964, Burns, 23:6. Jane also wrote brother John with the news of what she called her “mysterious errand—the first meeting of President Johnson’s task force on the Preservation of Beauty! I do not like to take the time, but I am curious about it [and] it is hard to refuse without being churlish,” JJ to John and Pete, July 28, 1964, Decker Butzner papers.
“really appreciate, honey”: Matter, p. 22.
“amenity”: Matter, p. 59.
“I wanted to talk sense”: Matter, p. 22.
forty-one-year-old Diane Arbus: Richard Soren, “Jane Jacobs on Diane Arbus,” Q&A interview edited for unknown publication, Burns, 43:6. The photo appeared in the July 1965 Esquire.
“As you know”: JJ to Peter Blake memo, March 29, 1962, HaskellPap.
“all of her best energies”: Chadbourne Gilpatric memo, February 8, 1962, Rockefeller.
“It became evident to me”: “Jacobs Tape,” Burns, 22:5.
“The question of, you might say”: Matter, p.12.
“Life is an end in itself”: D&L, p. 3.
“cheerful and respectful curiosity”: November 1963 draft of book at the time titled “Cities and Work: The Economic Principles of City Growth,” Burns, 8:2.
“The most elementary point”: December 1964 draft, Burns, 8:2
“I have to stop talking”: JJ to John Elmendorf, August 24, 1962, Rockefeller. A copy went to Chadbourne Gilpatric.
“I am already so badly delayed”: JJ to Noriaki Kurokawa, September 3, 1963, Burns.
“I’m still plugging away”: JJ to Mrs. Butzner, postmarked June 7, 1964, Burns, 23:6.
“I’ll never forget it”: JJ to Chadbourne Gilpatric, October 13, 1961, Rockefeller. Two weeks later, she wrote t
o Gilpatric again: “Yesterday, I ran into my first published review, quite a feeling. It was in the November Atlantic, and was a nice one.”
“ a total knit-together book”: JJ to David Gurin, September 4, 1963, David Gurin papers.
“distressingly and maddeningly slow”: JJ to Jason Epstein, March 3, 1966, Random House Papers, ColumbiaRare.
“marvelous”: Barbara Epstein to JJ, September 9, 1966, Burns, 2:8.
“Cities First”: See EofC, chapter 1. Her new project, “which I have been heartily enjoying, is an imaginary history of the first city in the world,” JJ to John and Pete, July 28, 1964, Decker Butzner papers.
small gems of reportage and memoir: Jane’s letters home to her family from Europe are at Burns, 4:7. Some appear in Matter, pp. 87–96. For those that do, I supply the page number. For those that do not, I give the date of the letter and from where it was written.
“living room is all cleaned up”: Copenhagen, January 21, 1967.
“I hope you get my letters”: Amsterdam, January 30, 1967.
“dirty, garish, ugly”: Matter, p. 87.
“You could play chess”: Matter, p. 88.
“Snow covered, wild”: Matter, p. 88.
“just enough to enhance”: Matter, p. 89.
“dear, lovely letter”: Matter, p. 90.
“one of those great and famous”: London, February 7, 1967.
a foretaste: Matter, p. 90.
“in full technicolor”: London, February 7, 1967.
“tiresome beyond belief”: Chester, February 8, 1967. Fashion note, by Jane Jacobs, from Chester, England: “Many girls in London had mini-skirts that came just about to here”; here she drew a primitive stick figure of a tall, skinny girl, her skirt miles above her knees, the little bumps on her stick legs obligingly identified as “knees.”
“took charge of the conversation”: Matter, p. 93.
“complicated and wonderful”: Matter, p. 93.
CHAPTER 17: GAS MASKS AT THE PENTAGON
“the building I live in”: Matter, p. 200.
“Erosion of Cities”: D&L, chapter 18.
garage on Greenwich Street: Interview, Jim Jacobs.
“we went awry”: D&L, p. 447.
Lower Manhattan Expressway: See Flint, chapter 5; Anthony M. Tedeschi, “Father LaMountain: After Nine Years, It’s Still War on the LME,” Villager, April 3, 1969; Stern, pp. 259–61; Stephanie Gervis, “Artists, Politicians, People Join Fight for Little Italy,” Village Voice, August 30, 1962; Ballon and Jackson, pp. 213–15.
“consider [their] present space requirements”: Stephen Freidus, “Dear Sir” form letter, October 12, 1961, Commissioner Goldstone Papers, New York City Municipal Archives.
“The methods that you have used”: James Felt to Stephen Freidus, November 3, 1961, Commissioner Goldstone Papers, New York City Municipal Archives.
“I could get along”: KentVillage, p. 48.
“I felt very resistant”: KentVillage, p. 49.
vital middle period: KentVillage, p. 47.
“making us sound”: KentVillage, p. 50.
“Los Angelize New York”: Stephanie Gervis, “Artists, Politicians, People Join Fight for Little Italy,” Village Voice, August 30, 1962.
“This isn’t about The New Yorker”: Rochon, “Jane Jacobs at 81.”
“the idea dismays me”: Burns, 2:1.
panel devoted to “the city and the freeway”: Transcript, “Our Nation’s Capital—The City and the Freeway,” May 23, 1965, Burns.
sewing machines, printing presses: Or tanks of chemical solutions: My father ran a small manufacturing company, Egyptian Polishing and Plating Works, that occupied the second floor of a decaying 1890s-vintage brick loft building, on the other side of the Williamburg Bridge, adjacent to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. You’d go up a dark wooden staircase, at the landing unlock a heavy door, and enter a spacious bay whose worn, wood-planked floor glinted with tiny flecks of brass, nickel, and zinc, the scene showered by light pouring in through banks of high windows. The building no longer exists.
“Lofts”: See Stern, pp. 263–77.
Margot Gayle: Carol Gayle and John G. Waite, “Margot Gayle: Passionate Crusader for Cast-Iron Architecture,” APT [Association for Preservation Technology International] Bulletin (2013) 44, no. 4, pp. 5–6.
April 10, 1968: Account drawn from Matter, pp. 15, 20, 72–78; Epstein, “Introduction,” in D&L, p. xvii; Wachtel, pp. 53–54; KentVillage, pp. 55–59; Leticia Kent, “Persecution of the City Performed by its Inmates,” Village Voice, April 18, 1968; Flint, pp. 172–75; Alexiou, pp. 129–34; “Jane Jacobs and Margot Gayle on Phone to Her Home in Toronto, 6/4/88,” typescript of notes, Burns, 5:3.
Susan Sontag: Matter, p. 168.
“Flanking her”: Bole, p. 20.
“arrested again”: JJ to her mother, Matter, p. 72.
“the prosecutor made such a case”: Wachtel, p. 54.
Several months later: See, for example, JJ to Richard B. Barnett, November 1, 1968, Burns, 5:3, in which she thanks Barnett for his help with a fund used to pay her legal fees: “It certainly feels awfully good to be out from under that jail shadow!” For more details on the Jane Jacobs Legal Defense Fund, see Richard B. Barnett to Jason Epstein, November 21, 1968, Random House Papers, Folder 1365, ColumbiaRare. Jane had to pay about $70 for the damage to the stenotype machine.
“The Social Uses of Power”: Panel transcripts appear in Janeway, ed., pp. 297–316.
“Is it for hunting”: Esquire (July 1965), caption accompanying Diane Arbus photo of Jane and Ned Jacobs.
“some horrible insect”: Matter, p. 11.
“CAN YOU CONTRIBUTE”: The telegram, dated November 1, 1967, and Jane’s response, Burns.
Eight months later: Interview, Jane Henderson.
CHAPTER 18: A CIRCLE OF THEIR OWN
They told no one: The story of the Jacobses’ move to Canada is largely drawn from interviews with Jim, Ned, and Burgin Jacobs.
“think kindly of Toronto”: Fulford, Accidental City, p. 20.
“he phoned me up”: JJ in interview with Peter Gzowski, May 18, 1993, for program Morningside, Burns, MS1995_029_CS08_REF.
“A year from now”: Robert Fulford, “Lives Lived: Robert Hyde Jacobs,” Globe and Mail, September 24, 1996. See also TV coverage on TV-UN, aired June 28, 2006, covering Jane Jacobs Day in New York City. Ned Jacobs, on hand for the event, quotes his father: “ ‘There’s a fine country up there. I think we should go.’ It was a decision none of us regretted.”
through a darker lens: Dillon, p. 42: “Between her second and third books Jacobs ‘fell out of love with America.’ ”
maybe all of them: For an example of this thinking, consider Alexander Ross, “Could Jane Jacobs Save Us Millions in Taxes?,” unknown publication, ca. 1969, Burns, 31:2. For him, the Jacobses moved to Toronto “for a variety of reasons,” chief among them being Bob’s professional opportunities in Toronto.
What do you do: This and other tales of their earliest days in Toronto drawn from interview, Jim Jacobs.
cries of children playing: Alexander Ross, “Could Jane Jacobs Save Us Millions in Taxes,” unknown publication, ca. 1969, Burns, 31:2; see also Ethics, p. 26.
a wobbly start: Paul Wilson, “Urban Legend,” Saturday Night (March 2000); “Conversation,” among JJ and friends, Ideas That Matter Quarterly 1, no. 1, n.d.
architect Eberhard Zeidler: Interviews, Jim Jacobs and Eb Zeidler.
“The Future of the American Hospital”: Architectural and Engineering News (November 1965).
“encyclopedic brain”: Interview, Alan Littlewood.
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.
“pea
ce, 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.
Eyes on the Street Page 53