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Jane's Walk the right step
Urban pioneer Jane Jacobs would likely approve inaugural walks in her honour
by Christopher Hume
May 5, 2007
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/210702
In this city, she is known, simply, as Jane.
A year after her death, Jane Jacobs, the pioneering author and urban thinker remains a presence in Toronto. Though born in Scranton, Pa., and a long-time New Yorker, after she moved to Toronto in 1968 she became this city's patron saint as well as its most relentless critic.
For Torontonians, her decision to settle here was worn as a badge of honour, one we're still proud to wear. After all, if Jane chose to come to our city, it really must be a great place to live.
Well, yes, but the procession of politicians that beat a path to her door usually didn't take her advice. They were always happy to be photographed with her, or to drop her name in speeches, but doing as she said was more difficult.
Imagine, for example, what Jane would have thought of Mayor David Miller's willingness to award a 20-year street furniture contract to Astral Media. She would have been appalled, especially because this is a company that operates illegal billboards in the city. Then there's the issue of the design of the furniture; she would have hated it.
And, she would ask, why hasn't Miller closed the Toronto Island Airport? One can see her now, ear trumpet shaking in anger, finger pointed and voice raised, giving it to
the Civic Pretender.
Were they to be honest, there's more than one politician in this city who was relieved when Jacobs shuffled off her mortal coil, just weeks short of her 90th birthday.
Her strength wasn't just her frightening perspicacity,
her originality of thought, her ability to see things for what they are, but also her willingness to be honest. It wasn't always fun.
So it's not surprising that Jacobs' legacy will be marked today, the day after Jane Jacobs Day, with the launch of the first annual Jane's Walk. In honour of the woman whose book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, changed the world, or at least the cities of the world, a number of neighbourhood walks have been organized throughout Toronto.
The guided tours* will be held everywhere from Cabbagetown (John Sewell) and Kensington (Adam Vaughan [
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ed.]) to Swansea (David Crombie) and Little India (Susan Fletcher).
Other are set for the Beach (Gene Domagala), Little Italy (Dan Yashinsky), The Grange (Ceta Ramkhalawansingh), Parkdale (Mary Lou Morgan) and West Queen West (Ben Woolfit). Naturally, there will be a tour in the Annex (Eb Zeidler), where the Jacobs family lived for more than 35 years.
Though she was one of those rare people who refuse all honours – she once turned down an honorary degree from Harvard – Jane's Walk might well be the one sort of attention she would have appreciated. A non-driver, Jacobs advocated for cities, which, she argued, had to be compact, densely populated and laid out on short blocks. It had to be a mix of old and new, though of course she preferred the old. Indeed, the rush to knock down buildings from the past to make way for new structures – in Toronto that means mostly condos – was something against which she railed.
"New ideas," she said famously, "need old buildings."
The truth of her observation can be seen in many areas of the city, including King St. W., Liberty Village and the Distillery. And where those old buildings are torn down – think of West Queen West – it is often artists and creative types who get pushed out.
Despite the various problems that beset the city, it seems now that the heroic days of urban activism are long over. When Jacobs arrived here fresh from Manhattan – as much as anything to keep her sons from being drafted to fight in the Vietnam War – she immediately got involved in the fight to stop the Spadina Expressway. Though the thought of running a highway through the centre of Toronto may be unthinkable now, in the 1960s and '70s, it was anything but.
It was in that same era that we came close to tearing down Old City Hall and Union Station. Again, no one would dare suggest such a thing today.
Still, the time will come when our descendants look back on the present age, shake their heads, and wonder, what did they think they were doing?
No registration is required and all walks are free. A complete list is available at
www.janeswalk.net.
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