Jane Jacobs Walk Albany - May 4, 2024
Join us for a Jane Jacobs Walk in Pine Hills
Welcome to the newsletter for Albany, New York's free, community-led walking conversations inspired by Jane Jacobs. Who is Jane Jacobs? What is a Jane Jacobs Walk? Let’s dive in.
Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs outside her Toronto home in 1968. Frank Lennon/Getty Images.
From Jane’s Walk:
Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) was a writer, urbanist and activist who championed a community-based approach to city-building. She had no formal training as a planner, and yet her 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, introduced ground-breaking ideas about how cities function, evolve, and fail that have become conceptual pillars for today’s architects, planners, policymakers, activists, and other city builders.
Jacobs lived in Greenwich Village until 1968, when she moved to Toronto. In both cities, she helped derail the car-centered approach to urban planning and invigorated neighbourhood activism by helping to stop the expansion of expressways and roads.
Jane Jacobs believed that “ordinary, interested citizens” were the most important people to understand and make decisions about their cities.
Jane Jacobs Walks
In 2006, a group of Jane’s friends and colleagues started a Jane’s Walk in Toronto to honor her life and ideas. Since then, the walks have taken off throughout the world, led by urban activists in in more than 500 cities. Jane’s Walk festivals take place on the first weekend in May every year, in honor of Jane Jacobs’ birthday on May 4.
Jane Jacobs Walks are free, community-led walking conversations. The walks encourage people to share stories, discover unseen aspects of their communities, and use walking as a way to connect with their neighbors. Together, we’ll share our knowledge of and love for places.
The Center for the Living City began supporting Jane Jacobs Walks (formerly Jane’s Walk USA) here in the U.S. and are now working with the Canadian founders to help support this movement across the world. We draw inspiration from the original Canadian founders, their U.S. counterparts and cities around the world
Walk with us on Saturday, May 4!
DATE: Saturday, May 4, 2024
TIME: 1:00 - 2:30ish
PLACE: Motor Oil Coffee, 1034 Madison Ave, Albany, NY 12208
NEIGHBORHOOD: Pine Hills
Meet at Motor Oil Coffee and grab a drink or snack to go. From there we’ll head out together on our walk. You can see the route map here. (It’s also on Google Maps, but we’ll cut through Saint Rose’s campus and skip about half a mile from what is shown.)
We’ll wander around Pine Hills, past the College of Saint Rose, past Albany High School and through the neighborhood, ending at the Pine Hills Branch of the Albany Public Library at 517 Western Ave, Albany, NY 12208. It’s a 2.5 mile loop and will probably take us around an hour.
What to bring
Make sure you have good walking shoes, drinking water, and anything else you might need. We’re planning to walk rain or shine except in cases of serious weather, so check the forecast and prepare accordingly. If we do need to reschedule, we’ll send an email out on Saturday morning.
How to prepare
You don’t really need to prepare! Jane Jacobs Walks let people share stories about their communities, explore their cities and connect with their neighbors. It’s not a guided tour or lecture, it’s just a walking conversation! We’ll have some questions to get us started and feel free to think about any stories or personal connections you have to spots along our walk. If you’d rather do more listening than talking, that’s ok too! All are welcome.
Who participates in Jane Jacobs Walks?
Anyone who enjoys getting to know their city and neighbors.
People who want to participate in meaningful conversations about the social and built future of their neighborhoods.
People engaged in the work of building cohesive communities and improving the walking environment.
You!
Kids and dogs are welcome.
Who is leading Jane Jacobs Walk Albany?
That’s a trick question: you are! Jane Jacobs Walks are community-led and organized.
But if you mean, who set the date and created this newsletter? That’s us,
and . We both love Albany and Jane Jacobs. One day we ran into each other at the library — we both love libraries too — and Mary said, let’s start a Jane Jacobs book club. We haven’t done that yet, but we did decide to plan a walk in Albany during the annual Jane’s Walk Festival weekend! Stay tuned on a book club :)
Can't wait!!!