The Great Urban Paradigm Shift: Robert Moses, Jane Jacobs, and West Village Houses

The development of the West Village Houses has typified many of the diverse challenges facing preservationists in an ever-expanding city like New York. Warren Shaw, Asst. Corporation Counsel in the Real Estate Litigation Division of the New York City Law Department will examine the creation of the West Village Houses as an outgrowth of the epochal battle between Robert Moses (the Urban Renewal Czar) and Jane Jacobs (the champion of traditional urbanism). Now a partially privatized co-op, the West Village Houses is an exceptional symbol of a community both shaped and challenged by evolving attitudes toward city planning, conservation, and Urban Renewal.