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Image courtesy of City Fabrick.<\/em><\/p>\n A special screening of Citizen Jane: Battle for the City (2016), directed by journalist and documentarian Matt Tyrnauer, will take place at the Art Theatre Wednesday evening, followed by a Q&A with the director and an expert panel discussion.\u00a0<\/p>\n Described as a David-and-Goliath battle between master builder Robert Moses and activist Jane Jacobs, the film portrays their \u201cbattles for the city\u201d with Moses, who had the money, power and political influence to essentially pave over New York with highways and concrete-slab housing and Jacobs, author of “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” (1961) who fought long and hard to transform the way we look at cities, in a way that prioritizes the people living in them.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHer real concept was about what constitutes a healthy city and at the time […] when that book was written and even through the 60s and 70s, there were these really grand philosophies about what a city was and they didn\u2019t really take into account the people or how they lived,\u201d Jan van Dijs, who helped bring the documentary to Long Beach, told the Post<\/em>. \u201cIt was more about this creating-architecture-as-a-monument and somehow the people were just going to have to fit into it. And I think philosophically it sounded great, but I think it was very elitist and it left people out.\u201d <\/p>\n The documentary includes Jacobs fighting Moses\u2019 plan to run an expressway through lower Manhattan, what would have been a devastating decision in retrospect to New York City\u2019s rebirth, said van Dijs. Having grown up in New York, he said in the late 80s, a lot of people, albeit well-intentioned, thought tearing it down and rebuilding the city would solve its problems, socially and more, but that \u201cthat was not the solution.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy movie is about the power struggle between two people who each believed they were saving New York City, even though they had diametrically opposed points of view and methodologies,\u201d Tyrnauer said during an interview with Architectural Digest<\/em>. <\/a><\/p>\n Van Dijs, as a developer who has rehabilitated many a historic building locally<\/a> has\u00a0a personal investment in Long Beach\u2019s growth and history architecturally, with the applicability of Citizen Jane: Battle for the City to a local level not lost on the prolific designer. <\/p>\n \u201cI think she was the one that recognized the fact that these communities that people discount are actually very vibrant living amazing communities,\u201d van Dijs said. \u201cAnd I think that when you\u2019re talking about Long Beach you kind of have a little bit of that same history here because we tore down so much of our historical buildings and fabric, always trying to build something bigger and better, and there\u2019s an insecurity to that.\u201d<\/p>\n Jacob\u2019s activism seems all too topical today, as more and more developers look to Long Beach to build, as rents continue to climb, and its longtime residents fear displacement or have already been displaced. Last week, several community organizations picketed outside the World Trade Center<\/a> demanding the attention of attendees of a conference aimed at developers who may bring their business to the city.<\/p>\n RELATED<\/small> <\/p>\n \u201cAnd so Long Beach has been struggling to find who it is for so many years and the reality of the answer hasis always been here in front of us,\u201d van Dijs continued. \u201cWe are who we are. We\u2019re a diverse city, we\u2019re a rich city, we\u2019re a poor city. And until we embrace that concept of who Long Beach is we\u2019re always going to be searching for something that doesn\u2019t exist, and I think she was the first one to explain that in that book, really, really well.\u201d <\/p>\n Sitting on the panel, a discussion to follow a Q&A session with the director, will be Steve Gerhardt representing Walk Long Beach, Michael Bohn representing both Studio One Eleven and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and Chris Koontz, advance planning officer for the City of Long Beach. The event is also sponsored by City Fabrick and Altimeter Films.<\/p>\n
\n\n\u00a0<\/div>\nAs Developers Move In, the Fight to Keep Long Beach Affordable Continues for Community Groups<\/a><\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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