Jane Jacobs: Midlife Crisis Becomes Astonishingly Advantageous for A Neighborhood in Danger

            Without any formal training as an urban planner or economist, Jane Jacobs managed to change the field of City Planning drastically. Jacobs’ also became an enormous inspiration to grassroots activists everywhere through her trailblazing tactics and valor in standing up to the notoriously daunting Robert Moses. As a resident of Greenwich Village, Jacob’s took to her own streets in rallying up troops in order to oppose the Lower Manhattan Expressway.

The Lower Manhattan Expressway was a proposed ten-lane highway that was going to stretch from the Holland Tunnel on the west side and span across the width of Manhattan over to the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. On it’s way, it would wipe out critical streets and therefore neighborhoods such as SoHo and drastic portions of Greenwich Village.

As a biological mother, and the mother of the Joint Committee to stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway, Jacobs could relate to most of the constituents because of their shared love for Greenwich Village. Through her ability to organize, and bring together such a diverse team in terms of race, religion, and socioeconomic status, Jacobs’ created this force that had to be reckoned with. After countless protests, proposed legislations, and public activist activities Jane Jacobs and her powerful grassroots movement eventually prevailed in obstructing Robert Moses’ destructive plans.