MAS to administer awards program on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation

The Rockefeller Foundation announced today that it is opening the public nominating process for the 2010 Jane Jacobs Medal — awarded to two living individuals whose creative vision for the urban environment has significantly contributed to the vibrancy and variety of New York City. Nominations can be submitted by anyone, but must be made by Monday, March 1, 2010. Nominations should be made online here.

The Municipal Art Society is honored to again administer the Jane Jacobs Medal nomination process on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation, as we have done since 2007 when the Foundation first established the award to honor the activist, author and urbanist who died in April 2006 at the age of 89. MAS will also sponsor a series of walking tours and the annual Jane Jacobs Forum this fall to coincide with the medal presentations. Continue Reading>>

Last Monday evening, MAS welcomed Anthony Flint, author of the new book Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City, who gave an engaging lecture on the clash between these two influential figures.

Flint portrays their battle as the ultimate David-and-Goliath story: Jacobs was the quirky “girl from Scranton” who shunned academics and would later turn down an honorary degree from Harvard. Moses was the “master builder” who graduated from Yale, continued his studies at Oxford, and returned from England with an affected English accent. He wielded his power through appointed positions, while she used savvy activism to mobilize the community and to court both the media and up-and-coming politicians like Ed Koch. Continue Reading>>

The Rockfeller Foundation announced today that the recipients of the 2009 Jane Jacobs Medal are Richard Kahan and Damaris Reyes. The medal, which is administered by the Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS), was created in 2007 to honor the author and activist who died in April 2006. It is awarded annually to two New Yorkers whose work creates new ways of seeing and understanding the city.

Founder and CEO of the Urban Assembly, Richard Kahan is a former President of the New York State Urban Development Corporation and former Chairman of the Battery Park City Authority. Since 1999, the Urban Assembly has created, and now manages, 22 public secondary schools located, by design, in many of the lowest income neighborhoods in New York. Mr. Kahan will receive the 2009 Jane Jacobs Medal for Lifetime Leadership. Continue Reading>>

In a city where it is already increasingly difficult for low and moderate income families to afford to live, how will the current economic and financial crises further impact the cost and availability of housing in New York?

In November, an expert panel, introduced by Joan Shigekawa, associate director of The Rockefeller Foundation, and moderated by Vicki Been, director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, including: Jerilyn Perine, director, Citizens Housing and Planning Council; Holly Leicht, deputy commissioner for development, New York City Housing, Preservation, and Development; Michelle de la Uz, executive director, Fifth Avenue Committee, Brooklyn; and Mark Ginsberg, FAIA, founding partner, Curtis + Ginsberg Architects LLP, sought to answer these and other related questions.

With the generous support of the Rockefeller Foundation, MAS brought together a panel of experts in the field of housing for the 2008 Jane Jacobs Forum in November, in conjunction with the annual Jane Jacobs Award.

Click on the ‘play’ icon above to listen to a podcast of the program.

Jane Jacobs believed a sense of community was critical in creating and maintaining dynamic and diverse neighborhoods, but today, it is increasingly difficult for people of low and moderate income to live in New York City. How can planners, architects, city officials, and developers work with local residents to provide homes that are affordable and sustainable? What role do the dense, mixed-income neighborhoods that Jacobs favored play in creating a strong sense of community? Continue Reading>>

Tonight the Rockefeller Foundation will award the 2008 Jane Jacobs Medal to Peggy Shepard, executive director and co-founder of West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc. (WE ACT), and Alexie Torres-Fleming, founder of Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice (YMPJ) in the South Bronx, at a ceremony at the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan. The featured speaker will be Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Robert A. Caro, who won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Best Nonfiction Book of the Year for The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. The awards are administered annually by the Municipal Art Society.

Click on the “play” icon above to watch a video featuring the two award winners discussing their work, and click here to read the official press release in full.

Later this month, a series of MAS Jane Jacobs-themed walking tours begins, including Toxic Hazards and Cultural Treasures, a tour highlighting issues of environmental justice in Harlem led by Peggy Shepard. For more information, visit www.mas.org/tours.

Architectural historian Matt Postal (in blue cap at right) led a walking tour yesterday (September 7) to “celebrate what isn’t there,” namely the Lower Manhattan Expressway (LOMEX), planned by Robert Moses and opposed in the 1960s by urban visionary Jane Jacobs and other activists. One in a series of walking tours related to Jane Jacobs’s life and work, Sunday’s tour traced the proposed route of the eight-lane expressway along Broome St., from the Lower East Side to SoHo. In addition to some notable architecture, the expressway would have destroyed block upon block of the modest older buildings Jacobs considered essential to the social and economic life of the city.

To learn more about Jacobs and her influence, take upcoming walking tours that explore the business districts she wrote about, a neighborhood that fits her criteria for a successful urban place, and a new neighborhood designed with her ideas in mind. Visit www.mas.org/tours, and look for tours with the “Jane Jacobs tour” subtitles.

MAS commissioned a rendering of what LOMEX would have looked like for last years’ Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York exhibition, Continue Reading>>

Click here to learn more about the exhibit and here for audio and video podcasts of the fall public program series that accompanied the exhibit.

Monday, November 12, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. at MAS     MAP
Join us for a special members-only guided tour of the Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York exhibition. Reservations are required. If your membership has lapsed, you must renew it before this event. Call 212-935-2075 to reserve and/or renew.