Having in the past been a leader for the Municipal Art Society’s wonderful Jane’s Walk celebration, I was looking forward to this year’s event as one of many that would joyfully open our city back up to its lifeblood activity – walking its glorious streets, in what Jane Jacobs memorably called “the sidewalk ballet.”
I was totally devastated then to receive the note above from the MAS yesterday. What!? Jane’s “Walk” !? Those quotation marks signify a tragic capitulation to fear and timidity that would have horrified Jane Jacobs. How can this be an authentic “celebration of urban life,” when it will consist of Zoom talks and social media navel-gazing and self-guided outings?!
In reply, I wrote to the MAS:
By the week of the Jane’s Walk celebration, so MANY New Yorkers will be delighted to be mask-free once again, and I would love to offer them any number of tours, under any conditions that will ensure their health and safety.
I will go to any length to show a bit of courage – just as Jane would do, I think.
When I shared my letter with a longtime NYC citizen activist friend, he replied: “Jane’s Walk was always implicitly about advocacy, while this event is a play-it-safe surrender. I can’t imaging that many people will participate. And if they do, they might as well just do a Google walk.”
Jack agrees. He is so keen to see our city and country opened back up, that he will ride for 8 days in a 33-mile-radius around Manhattan, starring in OPEN ME! – a puppet show written about him by his bicycling sidekick, Dr. Dann. Both Jack and Dr. Dann will be unmasked, and hope that instead of sitting inside hula hoops or chalked quarantine zones, their audiences will squeeze right up next to each other, and laugh and sing and shout together, those 8 days following April Fool’s Day.
Want to help these two Fools on their journey? Check out their adventure here. It just might take a legless puppet boy to teach our city and our country what it means to have a little courage. Back Jack! and open up the sidewalk ballet again, please.