RAFAEL: Jane Jacobs who died last April was the author of “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.” A book that changed the way we look at urban life in the United States. In the 1960’s, Jacob’s ideas helped turn public opinion against government housing projects, urban renewal plans and the multilane highways that were destroying neighborhoods.

JACKSON: What we can say is that “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” is probably one of the best books about cities in the 20th century. She was writing about what made a neighborhood interesting and safe and that was in complete contradiction to what the planners were saying.

JACOBS: Some things are said so often that nobody thinks of what they mean anymore. For instance, for years we’ve been hearing, take the children off the streets. Off the streets and into where?

JACKSON: They wanted to build wide boulevards for the cars they wanted grass around all the houses, they wanted to separate uses. Jacobs says no, it may not look good to your esthetic senses, but it actually yields remarkable uses.

JACOBS: Suppose we actually let the sidewalks do the job that they do best. And suppose we stop trying to provide poor substitutes for them.

GOLDBERGER: In the 1950’s there was a very widely felt belief that the city was a mess and that the only thing to do was just clean it out, clear it away and start over again. Start all over again with stark towers and open space. Thinking that would all be better for the people.

TELEVISION VOICE: The comparison of yesterday and today makes planes the modern miracle in housing that has taken place. Here in the gas house area, we are on the street that today is just a memory. Friends formed by modern construction magic. what was once a rundown dying section of the great city of New York has been recreated and today this section is a beautiful park like community.

GOLDBERGER: When in reality, it was not better for the people. Most of the time, it didn’t work and Jane Jacobs saw the evidence that it didn’t work and pulled it together into this extraordinary book which changed the way the world saw this. It’s this wonderful, complex web of things that makes the city what it is. This ocean, this organic seed of different things mixed together that Jacobs felt the beginning of when she walked out of her own door at 555 Hudson street.

JACKSON: Jane Jacobs was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, does not go to college. Comes to New York when she’s only 18 years old. Really makes a living as a secretary, as an assistant. Then she goes to work for the Architectural Form in the 1950’s in which case, she really begins to look at the way cities work.

EPSTEIN: I heard from somebody, I forget who it was that she was writing a book. I edited that book, there wasn’t really much to edit. It was pretty much that manuscript that went in the print. I knew that book was going to be around forever and that it was going to change things. Not immediately, but over time, you can always tell.

GOLDBERGER: The Death and Life of American Cities is common wisdom today, but 45 years ago, it was not. 45 Years ago, all these very simple, logical, natural ideas were actually radical thinking.

JACKSON: Robert Moses was the greatest builder America has ever seen. Robert Moses was this immensely powerful public official who built more roads than anyone in American history. He built Lincoln Center. He built 1939 and 1964

Worlds Fairs. He built all the bridges. He just built, built, built. Almost nobody could stop Robert Moses, but Jane Jacobs. This woman without a portfolio, without credentials. Said by golly, I’ll take on Robert Moses. And you know what there is no such thing as a lower Manhattan Expressway.

EPSTEIN: The insane idea was to build a 6 lane expressway from the lower Holland tunnel from New Jersey to the Manhattan Bridge over (?) Island. And cut Manhattan in half of the waist from which it was never ever covered. It went after 12 years, the neighborhood was successful in stopping it. They planted a little tree. And now its medium size tree. Not a very beautiful tree, but that’s what this stands for. The survival of a great neighborhood, thanks to Jane.

GOLDBERGER: When the fight was going on about a football stadium for the Jets on the West Side of Manhattan, I was amazed to see the people promoting it. We’re also talking about tucked into the bottom, lots of little shops and bars and restaurants would promote the vibrant street life of New York. Well, what better indication of how Jane Jacobs has entered the mainstream than to see people think that they can sell a huge stadium project by claiming that it is somehow consistent with Jane Jacob’s ideas.

JACKSON: Did Jane Jacobs lose or win? Well, she would probably say that she lost in the sense that we still have a country that’s pretty much built around ideas that she despises. On the other hand, wouldn’t any of us be thrilled to think we had the influence that we did? That we changed the thoughts of millions of people. So I don’t have to say that Jane Jacobs certainly was a winner more than most of us are ever winners.

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