How New York City’s SOHO District Was Nearly Destroyed
Sometimes we take our beloved neighborhoods for granted
The year is 1968. 51-year-old author and activist Jane Jacobs takes the stage at a local hearing about the new highway proposed to go through the southern part of Manhattan. The project is called Lomex, or Lower Manhattan Expressway, and has stirred controversy ever since it was suggested by the famed public works director Robert Moses.
The event was a formality scheduled by the New York State Department of Transportation so that they could say they collected public opinions. They expected it to be a by-the-book meeting, but it turned out to be nothing of the sort.
Soon the crowd was chanting “We want Jane!” over and over, summoning the famous urbanist to the mic. She denounced the project, encouraging those in protest to join her on stage, where the stenographer’s notes were soon strewn about as the State DOT tried in vain to control the situation. Jacobs would soon be arrested and taken to the police station, even as protestors continued to shout “We want Jane!” outside the jail.
This meeting, and Jane’s subsequent arrest, would turn the tide of opinion surrounding Lomex, a superhighway project that would have cut across Manhattan and destroyed a large chunk of what is now known as Soho (which as then a poor and…
