Milwaukee Turners will celebrate urban visionary Jane Jacobs Tuesday, May 10 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Turner Hall Ballroom in conjunction with the first Milwaukee iteration of Jane’s Walk.
Jane’s Walk is a movement of free, citizen-led walking tours inspired by urbanist and writer Jane Jacobs.
As an organization that overturned the mid-century move to flatten their historic site for the expansion of Milwaukee parking, Milwaukee Turners are pleased to celebrate the 100th birthday of Jane Jacobs – the revolutionary author of "Death and Life of Great American Cities" – with a Jane’s Walk. This celebration will include a classic Turner fish fry and discussion about her relevance to the important urban planning issues of today. The Turner Hall event will feature the dinner in Turner Restaurant, followed by discussion with former Milwaukee Mayor and Congress for the New Urbanism CEO John Norquist in Turner Ballroom.
Schedule
Jane's Walk: 4:15 to 5:30 p.m., free
A walking tour to examine the principles espoused by Jacobs' writing will take place at 4:15 by the Plankinton Building at The Shops of Grand Avenue, 161 W. Wisconsin Ave., and end at Turner Hall. The wheelchair accessible walk will be led by Chris Socha of The Kubala Washatko Architects.
Dinner: 5:30 to 7 p.m., $14.95
Enjoy a traditional fish fry buffet from Turner Hall Restaurant for $14.95. Menu includes coleslaw, applesauce, baked beans, vegetable medley, breaded cod, tartar sauce, bratwursts, french fries, potato pancake rolls and warm chocolate chip cookies.
RSVP by May 6 if interested by:
- For print publications, radio, television: milwaukeeturners.org
- For weblinks, email and social media: bit.ly/1NTGuff
Discussion and talkback: 7 to 8:30 p.m., suggested donation $10 to support the Milwaukee Turners; students are free
The main event will include a presentation by John Norquist, former mayor of Milwaukee and retired president of Congress of the New Urbanism. Following the presentation will be a brief panel discussion with audience questions. Norquist will talk about the legacy of Jane Jacobs and her seminal work, "The Death and Life of Great American Cities." Norquist will examine the effect she has had on the development, planning and revitalization of cities in Milwaukee and around the world.
Panel participants – architect Chris Socha, developer Juli Kaufmann, UWM professor Matt Jarosz and John Norquist. Moderator: Jeramey Jannene.
Co-Hosts – Turner Ballroom Preservation Trust, Urban Milwaukee, TKWA UrbanLab, Downtown BID 21, Congress for the New Urbanism-Wisconsin and Historic Milwaukee Incorporated.
Jane’s Walks are free, locally organized walking tours in which people get together to explore, talk about and celebrate their neighborhoods. Where more traditional tours are a bit like walking lectures, a Jane’s Walk is more of a walking conversation. Leaders share their knowledge but also encourage discussion and participation among the walkers.
A Jane’s Walk can focus on almost any aspect of a neighborhood and on almost any topic you can think of. Walks can be serious or funny, informative or exploratory; they can look at the history of a place or at what’s happening there right now. Anyone can lead a walk – because everyone is an expert on the place where they live!
Some examples: A walk in Colchester, England was led by two brothers, aged 6 and 4, who showed walkers around their favorite park and shared interesting historical facts about the local castle. In Ljubljana, Slovenia, a city counselor came on a walk to discuss the history and potential future of the area around a stalled construction site. In the heart of Toronto, Canada, a Queer Newcomer Youth walk was led by a group of young people who had all arrived in the city recently but had found a welcoming community there. In Calcutta, India, a group set out to explore the wetlands at the city’s edge.
