Citizen Jane: Battle for the City

Centre

Building Description

Open House in association with ACMI present Citizen Jane: Battle for the City, a new documentary exploring the legacy of celebrated urbanist, Jane Jacobs. Jane Jacobs (1916 2006) writings championed a fresh, community-based approach to city building. She had no formal training as a planner, and yet her 1961 opus, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, introduced ground-breaking ideas about how cities function, evolve and fail. The impact of Jane Jacobs’ observation, activism, and writing has led to a ‘planning blueprint’ for generations of architects, planners, politicians and activists to practice. (Source: Centre for Living Cities) Citizen Jane: Battle for the City, a new major documentary detailing Jacob’s infamous battle with New York City’s ‘master builder’ Robert Moses over his plans to redevelop her home neighbourhood of Greenwich Village and his Lower Manhattan Expressway (LOMEX) project. The Protests against the project, largely organised by Jacobs, culminated in her arrest in 1968 for inciting a crowd and the cancellation of the project.

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