Evening star., 1961-12-03
Chies
s'1Re,pk
The Bottle
Of the Authors
BY ROBERT J. LEWIS

midnight" as someone put it.
In everyday life, there are
so many perplexitieS it is
almost impossible to under
stand all that is going on,
or to keep a sense OF direc-
ton.
Yet few of us are willing
to concede that Omar Khay-
yam expressed all there was
to say when he wrote:
Into this UniuerSe, and Why
not knopinq
Nor Whence, like Water ,Dilly-
nilty tlo,oing;
And out OF it, as Vino, along
the Waste,
! knotD not Whittier, pilly-
nilly blotDing.
One of the problems that
beset us in trying to guide
our future is that we seldom
can grasp the whole truth,
or all the facts.
The clue to understanding
often eludeS us because the
most pertinent matters are
hidden, secret, or so sub
merged by the years that
they never come to the sur
face.
Sometimes, the only re-
course we have is to search
back into history. Knowing
the past, we can read be-
tween the lines of what is
happening in the present
and If we're lucky - throw
our own lives into clearer
perspective.
LET'S TAKE a stab at
reading between the lines of
a couple of newspaper sto-
ries that appeared last week.
On Thursday, J. Clarence
Davies, jr., chairman of the
New York Housing and Re-
development Authority, pub
licly criticized what he called
"a lunatic fringe" of persons
who, he said, oppose city
planning and urban renewal.
Quite clearly, Mr.. Davies
remarks had to be read in
the light of the bitter New
York urban renewal battle
over West Greenwich Village.
Only a few weeks ago, a
neighborhood group-led by
Jane Jacobs, author of a re-
cent book critical of city
planning and urban renewal
had won a long-drawn-out
fight to prevent the redevel-
opment agency from taking
over this neighborhood.
And Miss Jacobs book had
created a mammoth ques-
tion all over the country
about current principles and
methods underlying urban
renewal and city planning.
A former editor of Harper's
Magazine called the book
IAN attack so devastating
that it is unimaginable that
city planning ever can be the
same again"
y
AS 1T HAPPENED, the
American Institute of Plan
ners held it's annual conven-
ton last week in Detroit.
Which brings us to a second
opportunity to read between
the lines of a newspaper
story.
In Detroit, Mrs. Cath
crime Bauer Wurster made a
speech in which she was re-
ported to be disdainful of
urban renewal critics who
want to save their bohe-
miaS and slumS" from re-
development.
She referred to these folks
as "sophisticates" who are
limited and nostalgia in vi
sion" and who have turned
against all change in an eff
fort to save their bohemiaS
and slums, which now nave a
romantic flavor"
Again, Mrs. Wurster's COM
ments cannot be read with
out recalling the west
Greenwich Village urban re-
newal battle, and the book
by Jane JacobS-"The Death
and Life of Great American
Cities"
For this book frankly Sug-
gests that a good many of
the ideas Mrs. Wurster has
held for a long time are
either outmoded or mis-
taken.
Nor can you forget that
Mrs. ,Wurster also once wrote
a book called Modern Hous-
ing" and that for years-un-
til Jane Jacobs came along
she was unchallenged as the
most influential woman the
oriSt in the field of housing
and planning.
For us to conclude that all
the recent battling over