In 1934, a young Jane Jacobs arrived in New York City from Scranton, Pa., to pursue a career as a journalist. She made Greenwich Village her home, and soon became its most famous defender. The tour will review the area’s history and focus on Jacobs’ epic battles with city bureaucracy and the powerful Robert Moses to preserve her beloved neighborhood.
A special AIA Conference on Architecture 2018 tour led by Jacobs’ friend, journalist Roberta Brandes Gratz, will start at Jacobs’ home on Hudson Street, where she observed the daily “intricate sidewalk ballet” that inspired her acclaimed book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. The tour will wind through Washington Square Park and other sites that owe their preservation to her grassroots activism. Interested? Sign up for this tour at conferenceonarchitecture.com.