Last Friday it was announced that Alexie Torres-Fleming, our fearless Executive Director, was honored with the 2008 Jane Jacobs Medal for New Ideas and Activism. This is a fitting honor for her example of in-place community empowerment and planning. And I am not just saying that because she signs our paychecks (drum fill)! Peggy Shepard, Executive Director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice received the 2008 Jane Jacobs Medal for Lifetime Leadership.
From Judith Rodin, President of the Rockefeller Foundation, who awards the medal:
“Yesterday, May 4th, was Jane Jacobs’ birthday. Today we are celebrating two individuals who follow the Jacobsean priniciple of upholding the needs of living communities in the urban, built environment, and as we approach Mother’s Day, I’m reminded that Robert Moses dismissed Jane Jacobs and her fellow protesters of the Lower Manhattan Expressway as ‘nobody but a bunch of mothers.’ With Peggy Shepard and Alexie Torres-Fleming we have two more mothers and extraordinary citizens who, like Jane, are bold activists who have successfully taken their principles to the streets.”
Golden Ball, 2006
9 comments:
When your legacy of work is recognized and appreciated, it renews the energy of new heads in the field to continue and grow their own work, and the work that we do together. Congratulations to Alexie and Ms. Shepard, both visionary and vital leaders in their fields and communities!
Sorry i missed your celebration but i was there in spirit.
my congrats and love,
HL
Hey Alexie,
Of course congratulations! You deserve it and more. Lots of love,
Normie aka NA
Congrats Alexie. If it wasn't for mothers fighting for their sons and daughters we would be a lot worse off. Also lets remember all the mothers out there who might not get awards but are fighting, loving and struggling for their children.
Congratulations Alexie! What an inspiration this is for all of us who believe we can shape our neighborhoods for the better and that we have the power to achieve peace and justice for our communities, our families, and those around us! Con mucho carin~o-Silvett
Can't think of anyone in this whole city who deserves this more than you, Alexi. Fortitude, tenacity, and dignity--you've always brought just the right mix traits to this movement. And now, you have so much to show for it. You should be so proud of your work and the work you've inspired. I know I am.
Paul Lipson
With insights gleaned from studies of the growth of the town of Venice in the shadow of Byzantium, Jane Jacobs realized that the development of all cites held patterns in common. Dynamic urban centers learned to couple the use of trade, natural resources and their own industry with the needs of neighbors. At the same time, nations grew around cities that replaced their costly imports with products of their own. So cities became centers of power not by top-down determination of the best policy, but by learning how to survive in a world of give and take.
In what looks to be the same mold, Alexie has worked to let young people and community members pull their own insights and ideas together to make their portion of the City work. Recognizing that isolation cannot be a neighborhood strength or value, and well understandig that nothing is served by telling someone how to think, Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice has oriented itself towards that simple, transcendent power that comes from working together. By meeting what would be common enemies with a force of character, of charm and wit (perhaps coupled with what looks to be a willingness to argue down the last man standing), Alexie has convinced people, perhaps mostly by listing to them, that they have something to say. I do believe that Jane Jacobs did the same on Hudson Street.
I can't think of anyone more fitting than Alexie to receive this honor. She is today's Jane Jacobs -- the person who discovers and conveys what is uniquely valuable about the place we live now, what it means and can mean to the people who live here, and who fights fiercely and intelligently to protect and improve it.
I am very pleased to know that two women, one from the community I live in and one from the community I work in were honored. Alexie and Ms. Shepard you continue to impress and inspire women in our communities and beyond. Keep up the good hard work.
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