Eyes on the Street

Starred review from May 30, 2016
Kanigel (The Man Who Knew Infinity) captures the life and character of Jane Jacobs (1916–2006), a stubborn, principled activist and the doyenne of urban planning. Jacobs—best known for her highly influential and heralded book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which attacked efficiency-focused midcentury urban planning policies and called for livable, diverse, and pedestrian-friendly cities—led an intellectually and socially rich life from start to finish. She enjoyed an idyllic childhood in Scranton, Pa., and got her first big break in 1935 at age 19, writing about Manhattan’s fur district for Vogue. She fell in love with the lively West Village upon exiting the Christopher Street subway station for the first time. Kanigel turns Jacobs’s life into a fascinating narrative with an endearing, obstinate, brilliant protagonist. Readers familiar with Jacobs’s work will enjoy reading the behind-the-scenes anecdotes from her career—at her first lecture at Harvard, which was a smashing success, she was only filling in at the last minute for her boss and was so nervous she memorized her speech beforehand—and those who are learning about her for the first time will want to immediately pick up one (or all seven) of the books she wrote. Agent: Michael V. Carlisle, InkWell Management.

Starred review from July 1, 2016
A significant, comprehensive biography of an irrepressible urbanist, author, and pioneering community activist.Drawing on a cache of archival source material, award-winning author Kanigel (On an Irish Island, 2012, etc.) engagingly assembles the extraordinary life of Jane Jacobs (1916-2006). She was an American-Canadian whom many considered radical and outspoken, and her feisty determination won her great respect and admiration alongside biting criticism. With affable prose and exacting detail, Kanigel diligently escorts readers through Jacobs' lifetime in a three-part narrative tracing her early years, when she cultivated a "defiantly independent" character, through her middle and later years, when intensive grass-roots organizing with civic groups bolstered her community-based perspectives on urban planning. As a schoolgirl in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Jacobs began challenging authority as she spoke up and "figured things out for herself, and said them," which led to run-ins with authority figures. Journalistic motivations led her to newspaper writing in Manhattan and an early career "coup" writing a piece on the fur district for Vogue at age 19. During that time, a fond appreciation for Greenwich Village bloomed. A whirlwind marriage to architect Robert Jacobs Jr. and a West Village property purchase proved blissful, and even the trouble of a redbaiting FBI investigation and a criminal mischief arrest hardly dimmed Jacobs' hardheaded, contrarian opinions on economic erosion, cultural collapse, and urban sprawl. The author shares a vast wealth of entertaining anecdotes highlighting Jacobs at her best (and worst) and features a particularly compelling address to urban designers at Harvard and the story of her vehement opposition to Robert Moses' Lower Manhattan Expressway project. Throughout her adulthood, Jacobs authored an impressive, intellectually innovative oeuvre, including the groundbreaking The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), which she wrote after her relocation to Canada with her family in the late 1960s. Kanigel crafts a well-rounded, illuminating narrative of a "woman of the people who'd risen up out of the gritty city streets to fight city hall." An outstanding chronicle of a provocative, influential, iconoclastic theorist of the American cityscape.

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July 1, 2016

This is the first major biography of a writer, activist, and public intellectual considered to be one of the "most influential urban thinkers of all time." Iconoclastic, independent, and fearless, Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) is remembered for her 1961 best seller The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which influenced urban planning and architectural design concepts for more than 40 years. A city dweller for nearly her entire life, Jacobs challenged people to reconsider the best way to live at a time when suburbia was growing and "urban renewal" was destroying what she believed to be the richness and community inherent in traditional city life. Kanigel (On An Irish Island) mines archives, personal papers, and interviews with family and friends to create a sympathetic overview of Jacobs' career, political activism, and travels. The analysis of Jacobs' many writings is accompanied by contemporary reviews of her works along with accounts of her professional dealings with other key figures in the history of urban America such as Lewis Mumford, Herbert J. Gans, and Robert Moses. VERDICT This meticulously researched yet very readable book will appeal to anyone interested in American history after World War II but will especially engage those interested in city life, urban planning, and design.--Marie M. Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ

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Starred review from August 1, 2016
Kanigel's delight in his subject, one of the premier intellectual figures of the twentieth century, shimmers on every page, so inspired is he by Jane Jacobs' independence, curiosity, antic humor, industriousness, and genius for discerning and articulating the dynamics of vibrant city life. Jacobs is most revered for her seminal work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), an audacious treatise by a Scranton gal who, for all her brains, completed a secretarial course but never finished college. Her office skills kept her employed in the 1930s, when she lived in Greenwich Village; she then found work as a writer at a trade magazine, the U.S. Office of War Information, and, after marrying an architect, Architectural Forum, where she began formulating her radical theories about the exuberant diversity of street life in the era of brutal urban renewal. Kanigel portrays Jacobs, intrepid mother of three, working intensely on her heavily researched, controversial books; successfully opposing neighborhood-destroying projects proposed by city planner Robert Moses; navigating fame; and moving with her family to Toronto in protest against the Vietnam War. In this zestfully illuminating and entertaining biography, Kanigel aligns Jacobs with her peers Rachel Carson and Betty Friedan as he takes full measure of her accomplishments and influence and elucidates the scope and passion of her unique quest to understand what sustains civilization.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)