Jane’s Walk teaches history at street level

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This article was published 22/04/2014 (4422 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Robert Galston has his “eyes on the street.”

The 32-year-old North Point Douglas resident leads the Neighbourhoods Change: Exploring North Point Douglas tour, part of the worldwide Jane’s Walk event which takes place May 2 to 4.

Jane Jacobs was an American-Canadian activist and author, most known for her 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a critique of urban planning policy, which introduced such influential city planning concepts as “eyes on the street” and “social capital.”

“She didn’t really have much of a formal education, she learned a lot just by observing things,” said Galston, a city planning grad student at the University of Manitoba.

“Her books about cities were based on observations of city life, seeing it at the ground level, which was very in contrast to a lot of modern city planning at the time which was just based on statistics and maps and zones. She got out and saw the way things work in real life.

“I think the point of this walk is celebrating that understanding of cities, just by getting out and exploring neighbourhoods.”

Galston gives his tour of North Point Douglas on May 4 at 2 p.m. starting at the Ross House Museum (140 Meade St. N). He said North Point Douglas, one of Winnipeg’s oldest neighbourhoods, is an “immensely historical neighbourhood.”

One stop on the tour is the Vulcan Iron Works.

“It’s the oldest foundry, metalworks, in Western Canada and the oldest industrial building in Winnipeg and probably Western Canada by extension,” Galston said.

“It dates back to the early 1880s and was there when the railway came, capitalizing on being located next to the railway. It represents the transition that Point Douglas experienced from being agricultural to having a heavy industrial presence. Its employees had a pretty crucial role in kicking off the Winnipeg General Strike because it was the metalworkers of the city that were the first to walk off the job, which kick-started the entire General Strike. There’s a lot of history and a broader history represented in that one building.”

Galston has been giving his Jane’s Walk tour of North Point Douglas for five years, and has lived in the area for almost nine years. As a guide, he said he tries to paint a picture of the neighbourhood’s history.

“I try to understand broader things, more than just ‘this is the very particular history of this neighbourhood, or this person, or building,’” Galston said. “I bring the broader context of what was happening in the economy, what was happening in architecture and city planning, and also looking at what is happening in North Point Douglas today, because it is changing and it’s mostly positive changes.”

Jane’s Walks will be offered throughout Winnipeg on May 3 and 4, including tours of downtown, West Broadway, Wildwood Park, Riverview, North Kildonan and themed tours like (Re) Discover Public Art, Urban Renewal and the University of Winnipeg and History and Heroes — Victoria Park and the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike.

For more information, go to janeswalk.org