Last Call with Eleanor Gilmore and Joyce Mandell, Jane Week Organizers
Sarah Connell Sanders
Correspondent
Jane Jacobs was an urban design pioneer, widely celebrated for her 1961 landmark text, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.” In Worcester, we honor Jacobs each year with Jane Week, an opportunity to examine the design and function of our city. Eleanor Gilmore and Joyce Mandell are Jane Week s organizers.
Joyce, can you tell us how Jane Week got started in Worcester?
JM: Our first Jane Week was in 2017 and it was the culmination of a year of celebrating Jane Jacobs’ hundredth birthday. There are actually Jane Celebrations all over the world, which is very exciting. There were about 200 Jane Walks that year in New York alone. We didn t have Jane Week last year because of the pandemic and I actually held on to the Jane Award; it s been on my shelf for a year. Every year, we give out a Jane Award to a project that emulates the best design or revitalization of t
Jane Week: In ‘Escape from Worcester City Hall’ you can put your puzzle-solving skills to work to break free from municipal government
Updated 12:49 PM;
Municipal governing can be tedious and boring at times, but hopefully your virtual escape from Worcester City Hall goes better than a typical board meeting.
You can put your puzzle skills to the test to free yourself from the city’s home of municipal affairs in the Worcester Regional Research Bureau’s new virtual escape room game, “Escape from Worcester City Hall.”
Meant as an informative exercise for people to learn about Worcester’s municipal government workings, the virtual escape room game is the bureau’s substitute for an in-person Jane Week celebration this year.