Jane Jacobs Medal Award Winners Announced

A co-founder of the city's Greenmarket program, Barry Benepe, and a South Bronx environmental activist, Omar Freilla, are the first recipients of the Jane Jacobs Medal for Lifetime Leadership and the Jane Jacobs Medal for New Ideas and Activism, respectively, the Rockefeller Foundation announced yesterday. Both winners will receive $100,000.

The Jane Jacobs medals, established by the foundation and administered by the Municipal Art Society, were created to honor the late urban activist and thinker, who died in April 2006. The awards acknowledge individuals who advocate "Jacobsonian" principles in New York City, according to a press release.

"I can't imagine a better time to celebrate and explore the life and work of a woman who challenged the way we think about, preserve, and develop New York City," the president of MAS, Kent Barwick, said in a statement. "As the debate about the growth and the development of the city continues, I keep thinking to myself: ‘What would Jane say?'"

Mr. Benepe co-founded the city's Greenmarket program in 1975. Today, it comprises the largest system of farmers' markets in America. Mr. Freilla is the founder of Green Worker Cooperatives, a 4-year-old program dedicated to revitalizing the economy of the South Bronx by providing residents with jobs in sanitation and waste reclamation.