NEW YORK—The section of Hudson Street between Perry Street and West 11th Street, where writer and urban activist Jane Jacobs lived, was renamed Jane Jacobs Way on Monday despite protests that Council Speaker Christine Quinn is against what Jacobs stood for.
Speaker Quinn and other government officials spoke at the ceremony, and presented a commemorative Jane Jacobs Way Street sign to Doris Diether, who worked with Jane Jacobs in the 60s, and is very active in Community Board 2.
Several groups of Greenwich Village residents protested against Quinn during the ceremony, saying that Quinn, their own representative, has betrayed what Jacobs stood for.
Jacobs is most recognized for her activist work for neighborhoods, and according to Congressman Jerrold Nadler, as “A pioneer in saying that cities are built for people, not for automobiles, that you don’t destroy neighborhoods to make transportation by automobiles more efficient.”
Her work has been influential not only the U.S., but, as State Senator Thomas Duane pointed out, the whole world.
Quinn explained that the street is called Jane Jacobs Way, not Jane Jacobs Street or Jane Jacobs Avenue, because it “Stands a point about what this neighborhood has been about, and what the move for preservation and appropriate, responsible development is; it’s about the way Jane Jacobs want in cities to exist, to evolve, and to grow.”
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer emphasized Jacobs’ importance by saying that “When we think about how people can have a say in what’s going to happen in their communities, we think about Jane Jacobs. When we think about how we are going to plan for the future with the city; we also think about transportation and infrastructure, and issues like that, we think about Jane Jacobs.”
