Alice Sparberg Alexiou provides the first biography of the late, great urbanist and author, Jane Jacobs, best known for her classic 1961 book Death and Life in Great American Cities. Drawing on interviews and an analysis of Jacobs’ writings, Alexiou traces the urban advocate’s life from Scranton, Pennsylvania to New York City and her beloved Greenwich Village, and eventually to Toronto, illuminating Jacob’s keen observations of city life that have influenced students of the city for more than four decades.
Alice Sparberg Alexiou
Alice Sparberg Alexiou writes about New York City. With this lecture, she joins the elite three-peat club of Skyscraper Museum authors, following her book on The Flatiron: The New York Landmark and the Incomparable City That Arose with It (2010) and before that, Jane Jacobs: Urban Visionary (2006). Alexiou is a contributing editor at Lilith magazine and she blogs for the Gotham Center. She is a graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and has a Ph.D. in classics from Fordham University.