city planning and development. 109 Writers such as Jacobs blame Robert Moses and others like him for the decline and destruction of the traditional city of street-level communities and close neighbourhoods. Writers such as Jacobs show concern over redevelopment even in areas that were thought to be thriving, such as Lincoln Square and Penn Station. Lincoln Square was a hub of lively shops, offices, and studios that housed many artists at the time. However, it was destined to be torn down to provide for the development of Lincoln Center to become part of the prestigious Juilliard School of the Arts. 110 This was one of the many New York neighbourhoods that protested their concerns about the Title I redevelopment schemes across the city, in an effort to ensure that New York’s history does not forget the people who were affected by the development. Zipp shows sympathy in his work, writing of the loss of the people of old New York, he criticises Robert Moses’ “full-clearance-or-nothing” approach to his redevelopment strategy. This shows the impact of a community being lost, but this was something which happened all over the city, as communities were torn down or divided by new highways. This completely remodelled the New York in which people lived as day to day life and communities were either changed, diminished or destroyed. The question of Penn Station returns to the aforementioned possibility that public transport would have been more beneficial for the city. Instead of expanding public transport, Moses demolished the renowned architectural beauty of Penn Station. Writers such as Robert
109 Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), p. 3. 110 Zipp, p. 197.
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