Jane’s Walks 2022

 5/6/22 and 5/8/22

Jane’s Walks honor the legacy of Jane Jacobs, who was instrumental at fighting back against urban renewal. She defeated Robert Moses when he wanted to put a highway through Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village.

The pandemic has changed things. I know this. I don’t like this. I had to deal with this. Pre-pandemic, one could get a booklet listing all of the walks, with notations as to whether they required reservations or not. One could page through the booklet, mark walks of interest, and then go back and plan an itinerary. Alas, that is no more (and I doubt it will ever be). This year, one had to search online, reserve (or try to) online, and then try to remember what one had done online. Or write a ding-dang list, so that hard copy ruled. But I digress. 

I scheduled two walks. I ditched one because of the rain. I then scheduled a third which was really the second. Are you confuzzled yet? Obviously, I was.

Friday, 5/6, found me waiting in a light drizzle on Ninth Avenue between 35th and 36th Streets. Being the good do-bee that I am, I was there the required ten minutes early. I saw a pair of people who looked like they might be part of the tour. They were! We quickly determined that none of us was the tour leader. He arrived right about the time the tour was supposed to begin. He asked us to wait a bit because the representative from the sponsoring group had been waiting at the wrong assembly point. This did not bode well.

That said, his tour of Paddy’s Market National Register Historic District (Ninth Avenue from 35th to 40th Street) was very informative. We learned about the area dating back to the 1840s, when it was basically a pushcart type of market area, to the 1920s and ’30s, when markets were established in buildings (and specifically storefronts), to the ’70s, ’80s, etc. Two of our six stops were at markets that have been in existence for over one hundred years (not necessarily in their original positions). It all boiled down to real estate and family feuds. The storefronts that are still there are only in existence because the purveyors bought the building. If they couldn’t afford the building, they couldn’t afford the jacked-up rent after someone else bought the building. Preservationists have now worked hard at trying to retain as many original buildings as possible, with some limited success. They’ve also worked with developers of places like Hudson Yards to make sure that new residential buildings include a certain percentage of affordable housing (a very subjective term) that remain affordable in perpetuity.

I bailed out on a Saturday tour because of the scummy weather. The second/now third tour on 5/8/22 had a meeting place of 421 Eighth Avenue (the Farley Post Office). I was, once again, early as requested. The tour leader was not. After logistics were settled, the tour was like a tale of two cities. Dealing with the demise of the old (second) Penn Station (now replaced by the Moynihan Train Hall), the tour leader was much more political. Governor Hochul was mentioned in the first sentence. Throughout the tour, Mayors Bloomberg, Koch, de Blasio, and Adams were mentioned. Vornado (the development corporation dismantling the old Penn Station) was reviled several times. Apparently, sterile steel and glass towers are Vornado’s go-to replacement buildings. That said, I did learn some interesting things about the area (what was staying and what was going), and saw varied architecture within a very small footprint of a few blocks. And that was as it should be.

I’m glad I experienced Jane’s Walks 2022. I doubt it will ever return to times where it’s easier to decide what to try to go for. I’ll just have to roll with these new times as best I can. But, hey, they were free walking tours in NYC. What’s not to like?

ConcertMeister