The Municipal Art Society of New York

MAS proudly congratulates the recipients of the Rockefeller Foundation’s 2011 Jane Jacobs Medal – Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal, film producers and founders of the Tribeca Film Festival, Janette Sadik-Khan, commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) and Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives.

The Jane Jacobs Medal was created by the Rockefeller Foundation in 2007 to honor the author and activist who died in April 2006. The Medals, administered by MAS, are awarded annually to recipients whose work creates new ways of seeing and understanding New York City, challenges traditional assumptions and creatively uses the urban environment to make New York City a place of hope and expectation.

Ms. Sadik-Khan and Mr. White, who have each played visionary and instrumental roles in revolutionizing the city’s transportation landscape while improving quality of life for all New Yorkers, will receive the 2011 Jane Jacobs Medal for New Ideas and Activism. Mr. De Niro, legendary Academy Award-winning actor, and Jane Rosenthal, co-founder and driving force behind the Tribeca Film festival, will receive the 2011 Jane Jacobs Medal for Lifetime Leadership. Along with the Medal, each recipient will receive a cash award of $50,000.

Read more about the work of the 2011 recipients here.

The Rockefeller Foundation’s relationship with Jane Jacobs dates back to the 1950s, when the Foundation made a grant to the then-obscure writer from Greenwich Village, for the research and writing of the book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Now more than fifty years later, Jane Jacobs’ work remains one of the most influential books ever written on urban design.

For more information about the award and past year’s recipients, please visit:
http://mas.org/awards/jane-jacobs-medal/