A pioneering New York-based journalist and urban activist, Jane Jacobs overcame naysayers who dismissed her as a housewife without a college education, to become an influential writer and thinker in urban studies, sociology and economics.
Tomorrow at 7pm, Citizen Jane: Battle for the City will screen at Linking Bookhouse (聯經書房). The 2017 documentary by American filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer depicts the battle of wills between Jacobs and Robert Moses, known as the “master builder” of mid-century New York City.
Jacobs’ humanistic critiques of urban renewal plans that ignored the needs and lives of ordinary residents helped to change the course of urban development in New York City, and show what is possible when just one engaged citizen dares to stand up to the system.
Photo courtesy of atmovies.com
The screening, organized by online streaming service Giloo, will be followed by an hour-long discussion of Jacobs’ seminal 1961 work The Death and Life of Great American Cities and her biography Eyes on the Street: The Life of Jane Jacobs.
■ Citizen Jane: Battle for the City screens tomorrow, 7pm at Linking Bookhouse (聯經書房), 94, Xinsheng S Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市新生南路三段94號). Register online at: bit.ly/2S0k4ow
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not