[URBAN NOTE] "Jim Jacobs on the exhibit about his mom, the activist-author Jane Jacobs"
The Globe and Mail's Brad Wheeler has a nice interview with the son of Jane Jacobs relating to the ongoing Jane at Home exhibit at the Urbanspace Gallery. Fascinating (and yes, I will be going!).
Jane Jacobs, the American-Canadian activist and author (of 1961’s influential The Death and Life of Great American Cities and more), is the subject of Jane at Home, an exhibit of photographs and personal items that cover her life from a Pennsylvania childhood to her days in New York to her decades-long life in Toronto. We spoke to her son, Jim Jacobs, the exhibition’s co-curator.
People will have different ideas of who and what Jane Jacobs was. But how would you, as her son, describe her?
She was an observer. She observed what was going on in her house, and what was going on outside, in the world.
You live in the Annex, on Albany Avenue, the same street where Jane lived from 1970 to her death in 2006, is that right?
Yes. My wife and I had bought a house a half a block away from the house at 69 Albany Ave. We could luxuriate in a bigger space. But basically I was living at home my whole life. You can build up quite a few memories in 60 years.
Could you share one of those memories?
Sure, I’ll give you an anecdote. When we arrived from New York in 1968, before we lived at the house on 69 Albany, we rented a flat on Spadina Avenue. Soon after we had moved in, Marshall McLuhan came by. He looked around and asked, “Who cleans this place?” Jane looked at him and said, “Nobody.” So he and his wife had a cleaner, an Italian woman, and they sent her over. She spoke almost no English. She walked into the place and shook her head and said “too dirty,” and off she went. Eventually, very reluctantly, she returned. Our families became close, and she visited Jane once a week, until Jane died.
Jane Jacobs, the American-Canadian activist and author (of 1961’s influential The Death and Life of Great American Cities and more), is the subject of Jane at Home, an exhibit of photographs and personal items that cover her life from a Pennsylvania childhood to her days in New York to her decades-long life in Toronto. We spoke to her son, Jim Jacobs, the exhibition’s co-curator.
People will have different ideas of who and what Jane Jacobs was. But how would you, as her son, describe her?
She was an observer. She observed what was going on in her house, and what was going on outside, in the world.
You live in the Annex, on Albany Avenue, the same street where Jane lived from 1970 to her death in 2006, is that right?
Yes. My wife and I had bought a house a half a block away from the house at 69 Albany Ave. We could luxuriate in a bigger space. But basically I was living at home my whole life. You can build up quite a few memories in 60 years.
Could you share one of those memories?
Sure, I’ll give you an anecdote. When we arrived from New York in 1968, before we lived at the house on 69 Albany, we rented a flat on Spadina Avenue. Soon after we had moved in, Marshall McLuhan came by. He looked around and asked, “Who cleans this place?” Jane looked at him and said, “Nobody.” So he and his wife had a cleaner, an Italian woman, and they sent her over. She spoke almost no English. She walked into the place and shook her head and said “too dirty,” and off she went. Eventually, very reluctantly, she returned. Our families became close, and she visited Jane once a week, until Jane died.