A nice piece from 2004 by Adam Gopnik on Jane Jacobs, who died yesterday at age 89. The essay includes:
Jacobs has closely followed the Ground Zero plans and debates, and she thinks that the right thing to do is not to do anything right away. “The significance of that site now is that we don’t know what its significance is,” she said. “We’ll know in fifteen or twenty years.” She also thinks that it might be a good idea not to “restore” the street grid at the Ground Zero site but to break it decisively. “I was at a school in Connecticut where the architects watched paths that the children made in the snow all winter, and then when spring came they made those the gravel paths across the green. Why not do the same thing here?”