Jane Jacobs in the Woo with Joyce Mandell
Jane Week in Worcester is right around the corner; an awareness and recognition week for the urban theorist Jane Jacobs and her concepts for building vibrant, livable communities. On this Public Hearing episode, Josh talks with Joyce Mandell, author of Jane Jacobs in the Woo; a blog discussing Worcester development projects and asking “What would Jane say?” We talk about the ballpark, Harding Green, and Hillside Beach and what Jane might think of these projects in the city.
“Joyce Mandell has worn many hats at different times of her life – mom, community organizer, sociologist, community development specialist, urban studies professor, and just general feisty rabble-rouser. She is excited to add “channeling the spirit of Jane Jacobs” to the list. She has lived in Worcester, Massachusetts for over twenty-five years and first moved to the East Side when she served as the Economic Development Director of Oak Hill Community Development Corporation from 1995 – 1998. She believes in the potential of Worcester, the power of praxis and the truth to be found both in stories and stillness.”
Read the blog Jane Jacobs in the Woo and follow Jane Week on Facebook.
Listen to Public Hearing wherever you get your podcasts and on WICN 90.5FM, Worcester’s NPR affiliate station. And, while we celebrate women all year round, our guests for the month of March are all women who live, influence, and/or impact the City of Worcester, MA. Learn more about our show at PublicHearing.co
Transcript for this episode
Joshua Croke (00:03):
Worcester and the world, this is your host, Joshua Croke, and you are listening to the Public Hearing podcast and radio show. Our show is about exploring compelling futures for our cities and communities. By taking a close look at the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, the second largest city in New England, we talk with members of the community, residents, artists, small business owners, local activists, and politicians and other folx who care about inclusive, equitable and prosperous growth. Public Hearing is available wherever you listen to podcasts and on WICN 90.5 FM on Wednesdays at 6:00 PM, Worcester's only NPR affiliate station. I am very excited today to chat with our guest Joyce Mandell. She is an avid advocate for mixed use development, inclusionary zoning, and all things, urban planning and the founder of Jane Jacobs in the Woo, which we'll talk about today. Joyce, thank you so much for being here instead of reading through people's bio's on the show.
Joshua Croke (01:00):
I like to give folx the chance to say hello and talk a bit about themselves and what you might want to bring into this space that could be your favorite hobby to your current job, or to any other skills and experiences you think are valuable for people to know. I also encourage folx to share some of their social location, which for listeners are social characteristics of one's identity that have been deemed to be important by the society in which they live. Some of those include social class, gender, race, ethnicity, parent status, and more. I often talk about how I am white, American born, queer. I'm an uncle. College educated and grew up in Central Mass. Those are a little tidbits about me how the identities that we hold intersect also matter. So if you want to learn more about social location and intersectionality, take a listen to some of our earlier episodes this season. All right, Joyce. Welcome. Thank you so much for coming on Public Hearing. And tell us a little bit more about you.
Joyce Mandell (02:04):
Well first of all, thank you for inviting me on Josh. And I was thinking about the whole question of social location. So I'm not used to really introducing myself in that way, but I'm going to start with that and then move on to something else. So in some ways I consider myself to have a lot of privilege in my social location. Being white, cis-gender, overly, formally educated and very middle-class economically comfortable. But in some ways I see it as the opposite, you know, and on the other end of not being privileged in terms of being a woman in a sexist society being a mother in a society that devalues caretaking and I'm on the last cusp of being a baby boomer, like the tail tail end. So I'm really looking at, you know, in the next 10 years experiencing some age-ism.
Joyce Mandell (03:10):
And one part that's very important is being Jewish, experiencing personally antisemitism and also living in sort of a post-Holocaust era. And I think that that sort of location of being Jewish has really spurred me on to a life of an activist and a social justice warrior in some ways and a community organizer. So I want to thank you for just opening that up and really getting me to think more about it and really be very understanding of where my social location sort of brings me to where I am today. But what I wanted to also say is that I really see my mission in life as bringing community together and bringing community together to build cities that are sustainable, equitable, and kind. So in that kind of work and that mission driven work, I've worn many hats and mostly in Worcester, I was the economic development director of a community development corporation.
Joyce Mandell (04:28):
When I first came here I was a nonprofit grant writer. Then I ended up being a professor at Worcester State. I'm an urban studies professor and I directed the Center for Service Learning and Civic Engagement there. And then in 2016, which we're probably going to talk about right now. I founded this project that I can't believe it's five years later. And that's Jane Jacobs in the Woo sort of channeling the energy of the urban theorist and organized their activist Jane Jacobs. So that's sort of a basic introduction of social location and where I am now. And thank you for asking me all that,
Joshua Croke (05:16):
Thank you for sharing with us. And so for listeners Joyce and I now go back that many years when we met, I think when you were first starting Jane Jacobs in the Woo. I was running Action Worcester at the time, which was a community development organization, really focused on getting college, initially students, downtown and collaborating across campuses. And from that work is what really catalyzed a lot of my interest in economic development, urban growth, but specifically community building. And it was always really great to follow you, Joyce and your work and participate as we were able in Jane Jacobs in the Woo and Jane week. And I was actually recently on the show, had a conversation with Danni Babineau, who's the CEO, and one of the co-founders of Redemption Rock Brewing Company. And we were talking about the concept of a 15 minute city, really the ability to walk from wherever you live to the services and community that you need, whether it's a grocery store accessing health care, or going to a park and visiting green space and thinking about how to build a really healthy and sustainable communities like you're talking about.
Joshua Croke (06:37):
So you mentioned briefly, Jane Jacobs, but for our listeners who might not be familiar with Jane could you give us a brief overview about her and her work?
Joyce Mandell (06:48):
Sure. So Jane Jacobs is in 1961, she published this book, a famous book, called the Death and Life of Great American Cities. And she basically challenged all the ideas of modernist urban planning in that book. And she ended up having this great following because she asked different kinds of questions at the time. And also even now we'll probably talk about this a little bit more in our conversation. There was the idea of just having clean big buildings, big projects, Howers in the park. And what we, what Jane Jacobs saw as great urban living, great neighborhoods were seen at that time as slums that needed to be removed. So she was really challenging, those ideas of planning. And she also, as well as being a public intellectual, she was also an activist. She was rolling up her sleeves and trying to stop highways from going through cities because at the time that she was writing it was the growth of the suburbs post-World War II, and highways were being built like 290 in the middle of Worcester.
Joyce Mandell (08:13):
In fact, if Jane Jacobs had been here, she probably would have been organizing against that highway going through Worcester. So very exciting work that has changed how people feel about, and think about what a good city a livable city is. And in 2016, when I started Jane Jacobs in the Woo she had passed away in 2006, but in 2016, it was her hundredth birthday anniversary. So people literally from around the world were celebrating her birthday, which is actually May 4th. And in New York City there in 2016, there were over 200 Jane walks in all five boroughs. And so in order to honor this great thinker and organizer that I had admired for so long, I said to myself, I'm going to write a blog for a year. You know, I'm going to write a blog and I'm going to call it Jane Jacobs in the Woo. And I'm going to imagine what Jane Jacobs would say about our major development projects. If she came and got off at Union Station and walked around our city. And so that was sort of the birth of this project. And it was solely to learn how to blog, learn the technology of blogging and then to write a post every single week for a year. That was my commitment. And I had no idea what was going to happen. It just exploded in a way that I never could have imagined.
Joshua Croke (09:58):
Yeah. And I remember doing some, some work and actually the parklet that Action! by Design built was a part of Jane Week. And it was such an incredible project. And for those who might not be familiar with what a parklet is, essentially, we worked on building and we took two street side parking spaces, and what usually sits, you know, two empty vehicles for a majority of the day, we were able to build into a community gathering space of 12 to 15 people on lawn chairs on benches. We had some plants that were part of that, and it really was this extension of the sidewalk and started a dialogue with people about how much space we have taken up in our cities and towns and communities with roads that are unnecessarily wide. And for folx who are in Worcester, we have a lot of very wide roads, a lot of very wide roads to the point where, you know, we were able to extend into these street parking spaces and there were still two plus lanes for people to kind of drive and move by.
Joshua Croke (11:13):
And so, Jane Jacobs, talk to us a little bit about kind of her theories and her work. I know, you know, mixed use development, high density, neighborhoods, pedestrian and bicycle friendly, short blocks. There are so many things that she developed in her concepts and in application in her communities that are really still looked at and admired as very forward thinking and very community centered ways of building neighborhoods.
Joyce Mandell (11:46):
Definitely. And you've already mentioned three sort of ingredients for her recipe for thriving neighborhoods. She really advocated for active street use, active sidewalks and active street life. And the way to do that I'll just sort of repeat a little bit of what you said because she had a four-part recipe. I like to think of her as a cook. You know, if you're making a great recipe for a thriving neighborhood where people want to people watch and be out there on the street, it's the reuse of historic buildings. And we'll hopefully get into that a little bit more later. It's like you said, it's density, it's people, a lot of people in a little amount of space you know, think of the North End in Boston, which she actually talks about as the best neighborhood, you know, one of the best neighborhoods and an example of a great neighborhood.
Joyce Mandell (12:50):
Also what you mentioned is mixed use. So neighborhoods, I mean, with our suburbs that grew after World War II, they were very much single use. So you lived separately from where you worked from where you shopped. So you had to drive everywhere, but a mixed use neighborhood, or even a mixed use building is where there's different uses. So there might be people who live in the neighborhood, but there'll be access to retail, and like you were saying about the 15 minute neighborhood before. And the fourth part ingredients in this recipe, as you mentioned, are short blocks. So there's always something interesting that you can walk around to just around the corner.
Joshua Croke (13:40):
And one of the things that, you know, I think of and jumps to my mind is like thinking about where people like to go to vacation. And I had this conversation actually with a developer based in the South Bronx by the name of Majora Carter in one of our earlier podcasts, Experience This podcast. And we were talking about her commitment to development, but her focus on really building space and reviving and re-enlivening space by and for the community that lives there. You know, she grew up from the South Bronx. She talks about the challenges of some of that of growing up around gun violence, actually having lost her brother at a young age to gun violence and said that me as someone who is from this community and holds pride and is looking at my community in this way, wants it to be a safe and thriving place.
Joshua Croke (14:38):
But I don't want that to come by way of outside developers, buying property, forcing people out. And, you know, just developing, you know, this overly gentrified neighborhood that has removed the people who have been and have lived there. And, you know, Worcester, I think is going through some of this conversation around where do we look for development? What are we prioritizing as a community in what we support and spend our money on? And so I, again, love Jane Jacobs and the Woo and your work there, because it's really challenging some of those kind of silver bullet projects and things that segment neighborhoods and isn't necessarily focused on really enriching and building community around the community that's already there.
Joyce Mandell (15:32):
I love what you're saying. I mean, it really is the importance of small scale developers, people who are local, you know, the small bets that we make, you know, someone rehabbing a building and then next door or someone else doing that as well. And not coming in and having a large swath of development happening all at once. And that's why, you know, what happened in the Canal District really was an example of that sort of home grown development, you know, and now I know we'll probably end up talking about some of the projects that are happening there. But it, it's interesting to sort of compare, you know, kind of what has happened in the past and what is currently happening in terms of large scale development versus, you know, this sort of homegrown community grounded development.
Joshua Croke (16:29):
Exactly. And for listeners, we're going to talk about the hot button baseball topic in a few moments around Polar Park. But I also wanted to give you an opportunity to talk a little bit about the Urban Planning Partnership and your work there and what that motivation is within our community.
Joyce Mandell (16:50):
Right. And also, I just have to say that, having the parklet that was the first Jane Week in 2017. And you guys came back in 2018 and set it up again. That was exactly the sort of, you know, community space taking over from this sort of auto centric living that we have, especially in this city. So the Urban Planning Partnership, or we like to call ourselves Up Squared we're sort of up and positive sort of was an outgrowth, an unexpected outgrowth of Jane Jacobs in the Woo. A lot of people started to read the writings online and contacted me and a community organizer that I am as you know, well, why don't I get all these folx together and see, you know, what we can come up with? Is there a common vision?
Joyce Mandell (17:51):
So it was very exciting because there were people who maybe not had not worked together before. There were people from the community developed leaders in community development and CDCs in walk, bike issues and open space. The trees were represented with Worcester Tree Initiative and historic preservation as well. And in 2016 we got everyone all together about twelve people and sort of talked about, well, what are our common values? What are our common visions? And that was really kind of the birth of the Worcester Urban Planning Partnership and the Urban Planning Partnership has three sort of priorities or policy priorities. One was that we need to have design review standards in the city. There are now design review guidelines, but there's no teeth. So developers can pretty much are open to building whatever they want without sort of design standards.
Joyce Mandell (19:08):
So you know, our push is that the city needs to adopt some standards and even maybe have a design review board or some sort of process. So that's number one. The second priority was that you know, it's important to have more walkability and walkable neighborhoods. So our second priority was to have a Complete Streets Policy adopted in the city. And that actually happened, I believe in 2017, the end of 2017. So that's very exciting. And our third priority is sort of under the rubric of civic engagement or citizen participation in planning, you know, to have more transparency and in the process of planning so that people residents can actually be more involved. And this might be just little things like a developer comes with an idea that's going before the planning board, we want those plans posted online. So all of us can see what is being proposed.
Joyce Mandell (20:18):
That is just one example you know, of what we're talking about in terms of civic transparency. So the Urban Planning Partnership sort of has a two fold process of, you know, working on these issues. One is education, you know, sort of getting the Jane way out there primarily through things like programs like Jane Week which is what we'll be talking about today as well. And then also encouraging our politicians to advocate for the issues that we're pushing forward. So we've had several livable city council forums, where we've invited candidates who are running for city council at large to answer questions about a livable Worcester.
Joshua Croke (21:16):
Yeah, that's really incredible. And the, the citizen participation piece really stands out to me really specifically surrounding this show when we were planning a new podcast. Cause I had been working on creating and hosting the Experience This podcast, which was really focused on the intersection of design technology and society. So we had conversations with people about you know, city development. We actually interviewed Ed Craftchick from a company called Sufa, which was founded in Cambridge, but they were popular after, at the time President Barack Obama sat on one of their benches that they built for these community parks that were also solar charging stations for phones. And so they talk about generating community and built a way for those wifi stations to also help communities understand kind of metrics of use, you know, it pings people's phones, and it's not accessing data or anything.
Joshua Croke (22:18):
It just it’s able to sense like how many devices are looking for like wifi on that network. So it's able to say, Oh, if you have musicians in the park on a Saturday, you see, you know, 50 more people than usual in that space. So it it's providing like a tangible defense really for why these types of activities and why these types of communities are important. And it's one of those unfortunate things that you have to prove to some people, right? Like developers are capital C city like municipal government of why it's really valuable to incentivize people coming downtown to perform music and why it's worth the city's money to compensate people to do that when it is proven to attract more people to downtown fill those buildings get people connected to the retail and food establishments that are there et cetera.
Joshua Croke (23:18):
And so we really wanted to create this show, Public Hearing, to talk about public participation and how do we think about really transforming the way that we engage people in our communities? Because so often, you know, and you know this better than most people I feel is when a project or a plan or a proposal comes into the city, that gets to a point of when they ask for community feedback it's at like 50 or 75% completed. And so there's already a bias there as to not want to change a lot of the things that were designed, because there's already the time, energy, money, resources that went into it. So why aren't we engaging people earlier on in the process so that it can truly be a community led initiative?
Joyce Mandell (24:08):
You know what, I always love talking to you because I mean, you're speaking my language, it's so important. And it's so, you know, disempowering to go to a meeting and, you know, to be told, well, we've already decided this. And I think that's why I gave the Jane Award last year to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation in their planning process around Kelly Square. I was so blown away with how proactive, I mean, they didn't come in with any sort of agenda. It was really just from the bottom up. And they actually were extremely proactive to reach out to community groups, to neighbors, to a butters knocking on doors with businesses. I mean, it was an example of a great bottom up process of planning. And you know, I think that it's, it's time-consuming and it's commitment, you know, and it's also that you have faith that the answers are out there in the community. It's not always how it's done. But I hope we'll have time a little bit on to talk about sort of the planning aspects around the Hillside Beach at Coe’s Pond. Cause that brings up some of these issues to the forefront as well.
Joshua Croke (25:30):
Absolutely. And I actually the, our first episode of this season, we talked with Etel Haxhiaj, who's running for city council in District Five. So we talked specifically about Hillside Beach and some of the challenges there and really how to engage community in this process and how people feel like they've been disenfranchised from that process. So I definitely look forward to chatting about that. I want to dive in first with talking about the biggest, and I say that both I think by way of popularity in conversation in community, but also structurally the largest project in Worcester, Polar Park. And, you know, I, for listeners who know me on the show, they know that I'm a pretty significant challenger of the project. You know, since it is there, I absolutely send my good vibes to hope that it is successful, but I am interested in this notion of like what Jane would say relative to the project surrounding the ballpark.
Joyce Mandell (26:42):
Well, I think it's important because this ballpark is opening up now. So to preface this whole conversation because I'm going to, I'm going to be challenging the project too, through the lens of Jane Jacobs to acknowledge the excitement that many people are having, just because they love baseball. And so I don't want to put a damper on that. You know, but I think that if Jane Jacobs were here, she got off at Union Station and saw this project, she would have a lot of questions and she would have a lot of concerns. So let me know if we should dive right in
Joshua Croke (27:32):
Let's dive in. Let's dive in.
Joyce Mandell (27:36):
So, I mean, I'm assuming that a lot of the audience who are from Worcester know what this project is about. It's a 9,500 seat, minor ballpark stadium. That's now being built and being completed and soon to be opened up for games and there was a $60 million cost overrun for because of sort of over not projected costs for land acquisition and site prep. And so the total cost, and I think it's one of the most expensive minor league ballpark fields.
Joshua Croke (28:17):
I think it's the most expensive one.
Joyce Mandell (28:21):
Okay. 195 million, .5 million. So and then there's the development that's supposed to happen across the street with a private developer Madison Properties. And this is, you know, because of the pandemic it's sort of been put forward a little bit, but the plan is to build a whole new neighborhood there with two residential buildings, 350 units, a hotel, office building with shops and restaurants. And we, you know, you and I like to walk and bike, we have to say a 350 space parking garage. So I think she would be critical of this in two ways. So the first way is sort of financial, in her famous book Death and Life, she really talked about the dangers of what she called cataclysmic money. When you throw money, I mean, huge sums of money into one project into one area.
Joyce Mandell (29:33):
It's almost like trying to drink from a fire hose that's spurting out water. And there's just other questions that come to mind, you know, what other smaller and better bets like you and I have been talking about in this conversation, could those funds have been directed to see great uses throughout the city, and then how will this huge gamble in overly excessive borrowing impact the future fiscal health of our city and beyond this huge initial expense, which is really mind boggling, how is the ongoing maintenance factored into the future monetary equation? You know, because buildings get older, they need maintenance. We saw this in the DCU Center. So how has that factored in? So, you know, just sort of from a financial point of view, there's just a lot of questions about the wisdom of this project.
Joshua Croke (30:40):
Right. And I remember, I think the Worcester Business Journal did a, they interviewed various economic development specialists. I think they were like eight or nine of them. And I think eight out of the nine said that this wasn't like a fiscally sound investment. And I'd have to go back to that specific story. But to the point of like these, I often refer to them as like the silver bullet projects, right? It's like, let's focus all of our inertia and energy and money and resources into one project that's going to change the city. Right. And I think this one very much represents that exact idea. And there is the point to like resource allocation is like how much of the invested dollars and time and staff resources, even to coordinate these types of projects then utilized at more home grown economic gardening, as I like to talk about as opposed to development that is centered around bringing again new money in and the infrastructure point that you made I think is absolutely critical and very relevant because of some of the challenges that we've been hearing about the Pawtucket Stadium, where, you know, the Red Sox triple-A team is moving from the Pawtucket Rhode Island location, formerly the Pawtucket, the Paw Sox.
Joshua Croke (32:16):
And now we've got the Woo Sox and they're coming into Worcester. So that is like a really critical question. And a ballpark is a very specifically tailored construction. There aren’t many creative uses, I'm sure there can be creative uses, but it's difficult to change a ballpark into something else. So there not a resounding amount of success, or if it isn't meeting the expected revenues, how might the community respond to the need for making that space viable
Joyce Mandell (32:53):
That seems very true. And also even from an urban design perspective, getting beyond the financial, I mean, if we talked about Jane Jacobs four ingredients, well, it's definitely not historic, you know, it's a huge block. So it's also the project is not mixed use, you know, and it doesn't create density. I mean if we want to see what it's gonna look like first, you know, renovating or establishing more street life, all we have to do is go to Major Taylor Boulevard and look at how dead the street is in front of the DCU Center, you know?
Joshua Croke (33:42):
Right. That's such a great example. And, you know, even the need for the total destruction of the Worcester Galleria for listeners, there used to be a massive mall complex downtown that was destroyed to make more open space in the downtown community because that project ended up not working, it had some initial energy and life and a lot of activity, and then it became a problematic space for the city. And so these types of projects, the walkability, the, you know, all of that is something to think about. And for me, as someone also thinking about okay, so we have popular ball games that are happening in filling the stadium. Great. But what does that mean for the traffic in an area that is not particularly open and accessible, you know, street ways like you move pretty slowly downtown.
Joshua Croke (34:45):
And the current congestion is already pretty overwhelming for those who have to drive through the Kelly Square area, like on weekends, even for people visiting and like patronizing Crompton Park and like the, you know, all these different businesses that have moved in downtown, which is incredible. And that's the type of density that I like to see is more people walking from their homes, people biking down to go to Crompton Collective or any of the shops and restaurants that are down there now. And so this massive project is I think also going to have a shift and change in the culture and like the climate of that area. Do you agree?
Joyce Mandell (35:26):
Definitely. In fact, we will probably want to talk about Crompton and Harding Green, but it's the exact opposite of what the Canal District was building for last 20 years which is a more dense, walkable, you know, the projects that this big ballpark Polar Park is just like all the other park and drive projects, you know, you can point to the mall, you can point to DCU Center, St. Vincent hospital. They're huge projects that, you know, if people are coming from out of town, you hope there's some sort of economic spillover when they're going into and out of the stadium and you'd hope that that would happen. But it's primarily, you know, just go in, drive, park, go across the street, go to the stadium, go to the game. And I really hope there's a spillover, but it's not necessarily true. It definitely doesn't really happen necessarily in the DCU Center. Maybe a little bit, but not, you know, it's really a park and drive project, which is very different from what the businesses in the Canal District have been building this this whole time.
Joshua Croke (36:46):
Absolutely. And one of the things that I think is unfortunate that I think groups like the UP Squared and other advocates and activists in the city are working toward is like design standards, like setting expectation and requirement for the type of projects that are coming into our communities and preventing some of the predatory development practices that we can see that follow big projects like this. So that's another piece that I would encourage folx listening to consider is that when we advocate, build, and support out of town development projects that are this flashy and this, you know, attractive too. Like the real estate in Worcester is going up now, because we have a ballpark, everybody who wants to invest in property, look to the city and it divests from the ability for local residents to build and accrue more wealth. It impacts and has the potential to affect local smaller businesses.
Joshua Croke (37:51):
When someone who is part of like, you know, conglomerate type say, a food like a restaurant that everybody knows, you know, exists. There's one in every town, right? Like, or one in every city comes and moves in and says, Hey, we're going to take advantage of the fact that this new ballpark is here. We can buy new property in this new building. And it's a brand that people know. So we're going to start diluting the attendance and patronage to local shops that folx coming in from out of town might be less familiar with. It's like a whole laundry list of things that I could continue to rattle off and on about, but I'd love to hear your kind of comparison or to the baseball stadium project to Harding Green and Cromton and all of that.
Joyce Mandell (38:43):
So, I mean, there is nothing more different. It's such a contrast and juxtaposition. So just sort of the scale is homegrown. I remember seeing Dino La’Rousseau who owns the re-imagined Crompton Loom Works. That's now Crompton Place that we enjoy with a lot of homegrown businesses. I remember seeing him laying the brick work on the back patio, you know, and building it himself, you know, he owns the building. I mean, this is like someone who's local in Worcester who took over this historic property for a new reuse exactly what Jane Jacobs says, the new uses that can be used for old buildings. So it's kind of the scale. And also you know, I'm thinking even the new neighborhood that's coming down the pike across from the ballpark, a lot of that is going to be new construction.
Joyce Mandell (39:53):
Jane Jacobs talked about as the only ones that can afford it are national chains. They're not small, little vendors, it's not a Crompton Collective, or you know, the bookstore that's in Crompton Place. I mean, that is real Worcester. That's, what's real. That's what brings people out. That's what makes community people come down. And also what's very different about Harding Green, which is next door that has just been built is that, you know, they're not afraid of having people walk in the neighborhood. So, you know, that parking lot that people went into to go into Crompton Place is now halved, you know, to make room for this new building. But what it does is it creates more density, which is what Jane Jacobs is talking all about. And it also makes it that maybe you find a parking space farther away so that you're walking around in the neighborhood.
Joyce Mandell (41:02):
And also the idea that it's mixed use, unlike the ballpark where people are maybe coming in and out before and after a game. And otherwise it's a ghost town. Something like Harding Green or Crompton Place. There are people who are living there and, you know, Harding Green, the newest building has this huge public market that's underneath. So it's a 24 hour mixed use property. You know, people during the day are going to shop there and get local foods. And you know, once the pandemic is hopefully done soon and then at night, people are going to be going. And if they're living up in that building, there's going to be usages all all the time. And even the configuration of these buildings, if you see them, they're built up to the sidewalk. So it's not the kind of, autocentric where, you know, if you look at the hockey rink, you know, that was built in that neighborhood, well, that's built farther and what's in front, you see the parking, so that doesn't create that safe feeling on the sidewalks.
Joyce Mandell (42:19):
But when you see even, and you look at the new building at Hardening Green there are entrances and exits and windows going back and forth to the sidewalk. And as I said, it's built right up to the sidewalk. So it's sort of encouraging, the design is encouraging people to be out in the street and to have, you know, transparency from building to sidewalk life. So that's very exciting. So actually the Crompton Place and Harding Green, and some of those other older buildings that are now being rehabbed are really good examples of what Jane Jacobs would promote to build great neighborhoods. And you know, I think that it's not going to be a safe and well, when I say safe, I just mean well trafficked, what, what Jane, called the Eyes on the Street, it's not going to be like that around Polar Park.
Joshua Croke (43:23):
I often talk to folx, and this is going back to my Early Action Worcester years, about how it, people were like, I can't believe that you walk from your apartment all the way to downtown to go to your office building like every day, I'm like, one, it's a 15 minute walk. It's not a lot. And they're like, well, Worcester is so dangerous. And I'm like, no, that's, that's actually a lot of misperception about the city, but you do get this sense of like thriller movie setting sometimes. Right? Cause you'll be walking, it's dark, there's a few streetlights and not a lot of people on the street. So you have this feeling of impending doom that doesn't necessarily exist. Right. But it's that feeling. And when you're walking by just, long brick side, like of buildings and not seeing anything, not seeing movement or activity, you do get that unnerving feeling.
Joshua Croke (44:20):
And so that is so critical. And, you know, for listeners I think it's important to also consider the playing that challenging friend regularly within your community. You know, I think that there I've been subject to and experienced this and maybe Joyce, you have as well, but as soon as you start talking and challenging certain things, you start getting uninvited to certain tables and not being as involved in certain projects and initiatives going on. And I think that that shows that the intentional power dynamic of who holds power and resources and how they can, or don't have to involve one or more people if they don't want to. And so that is, I think so important to come around, like building community power, coming together as residents to advocate collectively for what our desires, wants and needs are in our communities. And so Joyce, I want to jump into Hillside Beach briefly and then, cause I wanna make sure we have time to talk about the plans for Jane Week this year and how that is going to be manifesting in the next few weeks. But let's talk about Hillside Beach, what's going on over there.
Joyce Mandell (45:45):
Okay. So I'm glad that Etel was also talking about it as well. And so this is a beach that has been closed, it's on Coe’s Pond. In 2007, a boy drowned there, there were also two other drownings in 2017 and 2020. But I don't think any more drownings than other bodies of water. And also it is adjacent to Lakeside Apartments, which is a public housing project. So the residents who lived there don't have access to the beach. There's a big drop-off on the beach. And there's a big fence, gated fence. So that residents can't go there. There are two entrances to get to that area. One on Mill Street at Coe’s Park and another at Circuit Avenue. So the plan, this actually came through or was passed by the Conservation Commission, was to replace the beach fully with a boardwalk and wetlands.
Joyce Mandell (47:00):
So I think that there were a significant amount of straight state grants, I think $400,000 in state grants that came through. And the city is also chipping in $800,000 to have that. Now the issue is the residents of Lakeside Apartments want this to be a beach. But they were not involved in the planning of this at all, you know and the city is arguing that the beach is too dangerous, swimming there's too dangerous, and the cost is too high for building an access road or fixing the slope in the water and having changing facilities. So, that's the situation and I want to, if it's okay, I just want to step back and tell a little Jane story. She was invited in 1955, she got a flyer to save Washington Square and she, this is one of her ways too, that she started her community organizing career.
Joyce Mandell (48:18):
There was this great, there's this great park, the Washington Square Park in Lower Manhattan where there are dreamers and artists and musicians and rebels and mothers and kids all have a place to hang out. It's a great space. But so it's, yeah, it's actually 10 acres of green space. And Robert Moses who was sort of Jane Jacobs nemesis had the idea. He was the head of Parks to extend a four lane access road through Fifth Avenue through the park. So she was like, there is no way this is going to happen. And she organized, they stated great tactics instead of a ribbon cutting, you know, for a new road. They had a ribbon tying and Robert Moses completely condemned them as just a bunch of mothers, you know, but her point of view was the people who live near and use that public space should be the ones who decide and have a key voice in how that space is designed and used.
Joyce Mandell (49:31):
So to get back to Hillside Beach, I think she would be on the side of the residence, you know, at Lakeside Apartments, you know, they're the ones who are next to it. They're the ones who have the most to lose, the most to gain and should have the power. She was very critical of top-down planning anyway. You know, and then it also brings into the whole question of classism and racism in planning as well. So I think that that's where she would come and that cities have the capability of providing something for everybody only when they are created by everybody. So she was really supportive of like the Department of Transportation's planning process when they redesigned Kelly Square. And so she would be probably working with the residents on changing things and as they are doing right now, I believe,
Joshua Croke (50:41):
And I think one of the things, and we're almost at time and these are conversations always fly by Joyce cause I appreciate them so much. And so I'll say before I transition it, give you an opportunity to talk a little bit about the Jane in the Woo plans for May, but if nothing else involving residents in the process can only lead to better outcomes, right? Like if there is some environmental issue or something that led to the need and I'm using air quotes for listeners cause not being so involved in that project I don't wanna make assumptions, but the need to turn that Lake into wetlands, people should be informed and be given the time to learn about and be educated in the issues that the city is facing. And more often than not cities I think are surprised and pleasantly surprised that the creative ideas that folx in the community, especially those most familiar with the community can have. So I want to give you the next, like one or two minutes Joyce to tie us up here. And for those who are interested in more about Jane Jacobs and your work and the Urban Planning Partnership, how can they get involved in what's coming up?
Joyce Mandell (52:05):
Excellent. So we are having a Do it Yourself Jane Week this year and it's May 1st through eighth. And there's many reasons to do it right now. I think we're hungering for a sense of community. And at sometime post pandemic, God-willing, you know, we'll need to return to our public spaces and sort of resocialize ourselves to be together in person. Now this is a Do it Yourself Jane Week. So their walks that you do on your own and your safe pod and masks and their activities like listening to this podcast. And I know that you're having other podcasts and sort of Jane for the month of May. So there will be a bunch of activities. And I think that whole idea of creating community we don't have to go on a national level to to realize that there are divisions and different ideas of what makes a good city in our own city, you know, but we're going to have to learn how to reach out and respectfully dialogue and figure out, you know, even though some might have more power than most of us you know, we're going to have to figure out ways to reach across our divisions.
Joyce Mandell (53:33):
And you know, what better, better way than to build great public spaces that are accessible to everyone, you know, not just a few. And I think this is important. We didn't get to talk about gentrification. And we touched on it a little bit, but I think we need a whole other hour just to talk on that. And I just want to thank you because you're doing so much to build community here and I have so appreciated your allyship and our connection and you know, everything that you do. So I just wanted to say that to you, Josh.
Joshua Croke (54:16):
Thank you so much, Joyce, and the feeling is mutual. And we so appreciate you coming into this space today to have this conversation and really look forward to the, Do it Yourself Jane Week and all that is to come. And yes, we definitely have to have another one of these conversations because there's a lot more that we can talk about. Thank you for listening to Public Hearing our podcast and radio show that airs Wednesdays at 6:00 PM on WICN 90.5 FM Worcester's only NPR affiliate station. If you're not in the Central Mass radio range, you can tune in live via their website at wicn.org. Thanks to Joyce Mendell for coming on the show. My name's Joshua Croke, and this has been the Public Hearing podcast, which has been created and produced by Action! by design. We help organizations develop equity centered community engagement strategies, facilitate community workshops, tackling social issues and help build coalitions and brands that better the world learn more about Action! By Design at actionbydesign.co. Our audio producer is Giuliano D'Orazio. Thank you to Eric Gratton, Molly Gammon and Shaun Chung, who also support the production of Public Hearing. We would love to hear from you about what you would like to hear on the show. What resonated with you from a past episode, you can get in touch with us on our website at publichearing.co or reach out to me on Twitter at Joshua Croke, C R O K E. Thanks for listening.
