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October 20, 2010
The Bloomberg administration and Jane Jacobs: the consonance and the disconnect
Atlantic Yards Report
It was a convivial, heartfelt event on Monday night, October 18, when the Rockefeller Foundation awarded the fourth annual Jane Jacobs Medals for new activism and career activism.
Both categories of awards were richly deserved. Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, founder of the Central Park Conservancy, helped revive the city's jewel, once shockingly deteriorated and neglected.
Josh David and Robert Hammond, founder of Friends of the High Line, saw civic possibilities in a long-neglected piece of infrastructure slated for demolition.
And the presenters of each award, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe and City Planning Commission Chairperson Amanda Burden, respectively, could proudly, affectionately claim mayoral endorsement for both projects.
And the disconnect
But we shouldn't be misled into thinking that the administration of Mayor Mike Bloomberg and followers of famed urbanist Jane Jacobs are always on the same page.
Consider that, in a video shown to attendees, New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger expressed his amazement--as he has written--that backers of the West Side Stadium portrayed the gargantuan project as expressing Jacobsian mixed-use ideals because it contained retail elements at the street level.
Bloomberg, of course, backed the West Side Stadium to the hilt.
Consider that, in one of her last public statements, Jacobs, who had long lived in Toronto but maintained affection for and attention to New York City, wrote a tough open letter criticizing the Bloomberg administration's plans for rezoning Williamsburg and Greenpoint.
Such criticisms have even more weight today, when those neighborhoods face a disproportionate share of stalled construction sites.
And consider that Benepe and Burden, however committed they are to the Jacobsian ideals, have had to swallow and endorse some very questionable moves by the mayor who appointed them, such as the loss of parkland for a new Yankee Stadium, or the creation of superblocks and surface parking on behalf of the Atlantic Yards project.
Posted by eric at October 20, 2010 10:31 AM