Midtown West Through the Lens of Jane Jacobs

MAS celebrates Women’s History Month with a tribute to one of our favorite women, Jane Jacobs. The recent creation of Hudson Yards is already creating a ripple effect on Manhattan’s West Side, where oversized towers have been designed with no relation to the streets on which they sit. Monotonous, floor-to-ceiling glass encloses formerly open-air spaces, bringing yet more density to an already crowded area. Urban design principles stressing the importance of consistent street walls are ignored in favor of circular driveway entrances that bring residents from Ubers to apartments in fifteen fewer seconds. Just blocks away, however, the Manhattan Plaza apartment complex provides a sustainable model for high-rise towers with ground floor shops and amenities that maintain a human scale. Join historic preservationist and tour guide Patrick Waldo on this informative walk along West 42nd Street and 43rd Street, analyzing the failures and successes of urban design and planning through the lens of Jane Jacobs.