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Jane Jacobs Medal

2007 Jane Jacobs Medal Winners Announced
Barry Benepe Cited for Lifetime Leadership;
Omar Freilla for New Ideas and Activism

June 25, 2007

The Rockefeller Foundation announced today the two recipients of the inaugural Jane Jacobs Medal. Barry Benepe will receive the 2007 Jane Jacobs Medal for Lifetime Leadership, and Omar Freilla will receive the 2007 Jane Jacobs Medal for New Ideas and Activism. Along with the Medal, Benepe and Freilla will each receive $100,000.

Barry Benepe, 79, is the co-founder of Greenmarket, the largest farmer’s market program in the United States, with markets in over 30 neighborhoods across the five boroughs of New York City. A West Village resident, Mr. Benepe started the program in 1975 with an $800 grant from the America the Beautiful Fund; today, the success of the program is almost completely self-sustaining. An architect and planner by training, Barry Benepe’s pioneering program demonstrated how temporary markets could bring life back to the streets, creating community gathering places on empty lots and revitalizing neighborhoods and once under-used parks. In true Jacobsonian spirit, Mr. Benepe is an avid city cyclist who also helped found Transportation Alternatives, a non-profit citizens group that promotes bicycling, walking and public transportation, and advocates for car-free parks.

Omar Freilla, 33, is committed to revitalizing the streets, economy and environment of the South Bronx, an area that once exemplified urban blight. A son of the South Bronx, who returned home after earning a Master’s degree in Environmental Science from Miami University in Ohio, Mr. Freilla founded Green Worker Cooperatives in 2003. One goal of the organization is to turn the estimated 10,000 tons of construction waste that ends up in waste transfer stations in the Bronx each year, into 'green collar' jobs for local residents. The group has a fundraising goal of $900,000 to open and operate a retail warehouse for salvaged building materials in the Bronx. Mr. Freilla is donating his Jane Jacobs Medal prize money to the project.

The award program was created this year to honor of the author and activist who died in April 2006 at 89. The RF’s relationship with Ms. Jacobs dates back to the 1950s. An obscure writer living from Greenwich Village, she was recieved a Foundation grant in support of her researching and writing The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Today, nearly 50 years later, the book is an urban classic.

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