Politics and Poverty

Bedford-Stuyvesant New York's Bedford-Stuyvesant is in many way worse off than Harlem. Although it is bigger it has received far less attention than the "glamor ghetto" to the north. But it has a friend in Bobby Kennedy. Some think this means Befford-Stuyvesant has a future.

THE BEARDED young militants who staff the Brooklyn office of the Congress of Racial Equality call themselves CORE's "Mau Maus." Mau Mau, in ghettoese, has long been synonymous with riot, but that's not what the angry young advocates of black power have in mind. Explains one, "We want a social and economic Mau Mau." They will get it, at least in part.

Their neighborhood--predominantly Negro Bedford-Stuyvesant--is to be the staging area for a comprehensive and costly experiment in community renovation. The idea is for government and private enterprise to sit down with the community to help solve the problem that residents want solved. The prospects: massive housing rehabilitation, more jobs, more hospitals, more parks, and more local autonomy in overseeing city services from schools to sanitation. Some enthusiasts have the neighborhood beginning to glitter and smile inside of five years.

It is a huge undertaking. Bedford-Stuyvesant houses something like 350,000 people in its 464 city blocks. That's a population the size of Rochester's, an area equivalent to downtown Boston from the waterfront to Back Bay. The neighborhood supports few businesses that are not owned by whites who live elsewhere, and few lucrative businesses of any type. A third of Bedford-Stuyvesant's household are headed by women; on warm days, their children clog the sidewalks and whatever part space there is. Unemployment is high, especially among youths who drop out of school. "At my school," one girl said recently, "they tell everyone 'If you get disinterested, as soon as you're 16, just go on downstairs, sign yourself out, and leave.'" Many do.

One indication of the crime rate: At night, as residents are quick to point out, it is virtually impossible to find a regular taxi. Drivers flee to safer sides of town, often decline--despite stiff penalties for turning down passengers--to take anyone into the area. The void is filled by scores of unmetered and unlicensed "gypsy cabs," identified by a little orange light in the right-hand corner of the windshield. Fares depend pretty much on the mood of the driver.

In many ways, Bedford-Stuyvesant is worse of than Harlem. It is bigger, yet it has received from public and private do-good agencies for a less attention than -- as one planning paper terms it--the "glamour ghetto" to the north. Until the Bedford-Stuyvesant riots, the city's Council Against Poverty was funneling into Harlem five times as much money as Bedford-Stuyvesant was getting.

But Bedford-Stuyvesant has one tremendous advantage over Harlem: it does not have the same huge, unsalvagable tenements. There is a vast number of decrepit apartment houses, especially on commercial streets where the ground floor is given over to liquor or grocery stores. But block after block is lined with two and three-family brownstones--housing which was, and in many cases still is, very fine indeed. That's what makes residents and planners sure that rehabilitation programs can work. Enthuses one lawyer who lives in the area, "Man, there are some beautiful homes here."

Residents--or at least, the older and better heeled among them--have long pushed for some sort of program. There is a highly stable core of old-times (the rate of home ownership is ten times that in central Harlem), and they have a strong sense of community. They have set up dozens organizations -- the area is dotted with signs reading "Support Your Block Club"--and welded them, together with an array of civic-action and church groups, into the powerful Central Brooklyn Coordinating Council.

CBCC has in its eight years served as an articulate spokesman for the neighborhood, putting demands to various city agencies and often getting what it wants--a near-by community college, a new narcotics-addiction treatment center. Three years ago, a CBCC committee was designated to run the community's poverty program.

But amid proliferating acronyms--and especially since the announcement of the new super-program last December -- CBCC has simply ceased to be the loud, clear voice of the community. The prospect of ever-increasing sums of money has prompted local skirmishes, as power enclaves are guarded and political fortunes pondered.

The newest and most insistent declarations are from young men in their early twenties. They want a hand in running the programs. Some of the older leaders of the community refer to them as "radicals," but they dismiss the term. They are not the self-appointed spokesmen for the poor, they report. "We are the poor," says one. "Maximum feasible participation' means me, baby." They have demanded at least some power; they already have it.

II.

SENATOR ROBERT F. KENNEDY '48 formally announced the huge Bedford-Stuyvesant program at a mass meeting in P.S. 305. It was a gala occasion, featuring Senator Jacob Javits, Rep. Emanuel Celler, Mayor John Lindsay, Boston's Redevelopment Administrator Edward J.Logue, and a host of other speakers who rambled on long after much of the audience had left.

The key feature of the plan was the creation of two corporations:

* the Renewal and Rehabilitation Corporation (R & R), made up of 19 residents of the community, to contract for housing programs, see that people in the area know about loans and jobs that will become available, and generally pave the way for businesses or agencies that want to try something new.

* the Development and Services Corporation (D & S), composed of Kennedy, Javits, a Lindsay representative, some of the most prominent corporate chiefs in the city--Thomas Watson Jr. (I.B.M.), William Paley (CBS)--former Treasury Secy. Douglas Dillon, former Deputy Defense Secy. Roswell Gilpatrick, and a number of others perfectly wiling to do Kennedy or Javits a favor. D & S will supervise overall planning; members were picked who would have the contacts to persuade banks to give loans and convince businesses to move in, the expertise to help residents set up their own enterprises, and the political clout to see that the community gets what it wants.

Foundations have so far given D & S well over $1 million, and money for R & R is waiting in the wings. About $300,000 went for the abandoned Sheffield Farms dairy in the heart of the community; once renovated--at a cost that may run as high as $750,000-it will be used as headquarters for both corporations, a job training center, and whatever other services seem like a good idea.

Remodeling the dairy is in itself the sort of thing the program is all about: providing jobs. Although D & S is weeks away from parcelling out contracts for Sheffield Farms, the assumption by men heavily involved in the project is that virtually all of the work will be done by people from the community.

As one consultant puts it, "If they get a white architect in there, and then bring in a construction crew with about two Negroes on it, I'll go down there and picket the place myself."

Whatever construction is to be done in the course of the project -- and there is supposed to be a lot -- will be done by local men, trained, if need be, on the job. By one estimate, 7-8,000 construction jobs can be created that way. There are hopes that some sort of understanding can be reached with trade unions to allow newcomers to do the work. Talks with union leaders have barely begun, but insiders are optimistic, and they insist that local Negroes are going to get the jobs no matter what the unions say.

Much of the construction is expected to involve rehabilitation--paid for by the residents themselves. For the first time, government-insured, low-interest bank loans may be made available in a ghetto area. One idea is to aid groups in setting up non-profit corporations to buy apartment houses; instead of paying rent to a landlord, a resident would pay a pro-rated share of the mortgage (plus a charge for maintenance services) and would wind up own apartment. The corporation could also seek money for rehabilitation, and split the payments on the loan among residents. Planners figure that the cost to residents would be roughly the same as the rent they are now paying.

To kick off the idea, architects are now seeking sites for two "superblocks." The name, conjuring up images of massive new construction is misleading; the plans are modest. Two or three blocks will be joined together by closing a street or two to through traffic. Abandoned buildings will be demolished for vest-pocket parks, and the parks will be connected to form walkways through the superblock. The closed off streets will be used in part for parking, in part as malls, with benches, fountains, sandboxes or whatever residents recommend. A building in the middle of the area will be purchased to house such facilities as day-care centers for toddlers. Ideas for a staff: A maintenance man to keep the area clean and help residents with minor carpentry projects, and an advisor to field questions about loans and the like, or channel complaints to proper agencies.

In the superblocks there will be an intensive effort to encourage residents to get loans for just about anything they want in the way of renovation. The idea is to talk with block clubs in the immediate area, following their suggestions in the detailed planning and hiring, local people to do the work. Ground-breaking on the first superblock could begin as early as this summer. Planners figure that once they have a couple of blocks to point to, money and community enthusiasm for more of them won't be any problem.

A young architect in I.M.Pei's firm has since November been working full time dreaming up design ideas for the neighborhood (one far-out possibility: enclosing a mile of elevated line inside a high-rise commercial complex, burying the heavily traveled truck route that runs under it, and turning the ground level into a pedestrian mall).

Raymond and May, a White Plains planning firm, has been commissioned by D & S to develop a master plan for the area. The architectural schemes will be accommodated to the plan, and then D & S can look around for financing. Much will come from the government. Edward J. Logue's chief value to the operation, say those involved in it, is his knowledge of federal aid programs; he is the recognized expert in getting for a project every penny to which it's legally entitled.

Planners are hoping for $8 million under the recent Kennedy-Javits amendment to the Economic Opportunity Act; it provides incentives to businesses which set up on-the-job training programs. Even without that money, a small metal-working firm, providing 30 or 40 jobs, has agreed to locate in the neighborhood, and five other companies of about that size are considering the idea.

Lindsay Backs It

The Lindsay administration is heavily committed to the project. Declares one city official, "We're ready to put a lot of money in there," and Bedford-Stuyvesant is one of the three neighborhoods for which New Yorks has applied for Model Cities funds. In addition, Lindsay and such top aides as Mitchell Sviridoff, head of the Human Resources Administration, favor the kind of local autonomy that Kennedy wants to see. Says Sviridoff, "Things should be organized out there, planned out there, and run out there."

But there are undercurrents of ill-feeling despite the bipartisan support. The city administration is clearly miffed that Kennedy gets top billing in all the publicity, and one very high official dismisses the Kennedy corporations. "He's done the easiest part," says that official. "It'll all get swallowed up by the Model Cities program."

Nevertheless, the corporations are largely Kennedy's creations, and he will get the lion's share of the credit if the Bedford-Stuyvesant project succeeds. He met with members of the community in February of last year. They told him they had seen a good many politicians drop in and make promises and that they wanted some results. He said he agreed, and he assigned aides in his Manhattan office to begin working with them on a structure for a massive program. He approached Javits and Lindsay--insiders point out that Logue and a good many other big names would never have agreed to work had Kennedy gone it alone-but Kennedy men did most of the legal work on the corporations and much of the recruiting. Kennedy now has three top aides, including the head of his New York office Thomas Johnston, working on the program.

The Cornerstone

"The plight of the cities," Kennedy declared at the December mass meeting, "--the physical decay and human despair that pervades them--is the great internal problem of the American nation, a challenge which must be met...If we here can meet and master our problems, if this community can become an avenue of opportunity and a place of pleasure and excitement for its people, than others will take heart from your example, and men all over the United States will remember your contribution with the deepest gratitude."

If true, of course, that would be pretty important to Kennedy around 1971 or '72. But it may not be true. There is reason to wonder whether the whole thing will succeed--or even get off the ground. What if residents don't like the idea of putting aside what little money they have for rehabilitation projects and the like? As one Kennedy aide puts it, "This won't work if the community doesn't come through." He thinks it will.

Even so, and even if a large number of jobs are created, a lot of people in the community will still be relatively poor and unhappy about it. "I think it's a shame that we'll be starting off by just putting in a couple of new parks," sighs one consultant. He concedes that there are more direct ways to deal with poverty-like giving poor people money through a negative income tax--but he insists that physical renewal and comprehensive planning is a good idea anyway. "Just about every community in this country could use planning like this," He says. "You have to start somewhere, and a place like Bedford-Stuyvesant has the greatest need."

That still doesn't mean a program like the Bedford-Stuyvesant one could be organized anywhere else. No other city has New York's wealth, and it has been the Kennedy name, as much as anything, that has gotten the big money involved in the risky business of anti-poverty. Whether a less prestigious politician in a less affluent city could bring businessmen, bureaucrats, and poor people together for any length of time is doubtful. Concedes one Kennedy aide, "It's not going to be the sort of thing that will produce a handbook that anyone can follow."

III.

IT WAS a brisk February day when Robert Kennedy visited Bedford Stuyvesant. His hosts, leaders of the Central Brooklyn Coordinating Council, nevertheless insisted on taking him on a walking tour of the area. He was appalled at what he saw, and impressed by the demands and sophistication of the CBCC spokesmen. With reason: the women who dominated CBCC have had a lot of experience in drawing up plans for their neighborhood, and they knew pretty much what they wanted.

They had worked closely with a couple of planners at the Pratt Institute (located on the northeast fringe of the neighborhood) in drawing up a proposal for coordinated community development. That plan, published in 1965 and sent out to a large number of public officials, is widely credited as the prototype of the Model Cities program. It set the guidelines for the current project.

For chairman of R & R, the natural choice was Civil Court Judge Thomas R. Jones, a shrewd and articulate politician who has won four elections in the community (most recently as judge and as delegate to the Constitutional Convention). Jones emphasizes the thanklessness of the task he took on. "They told me the reason they wanted me is that I have everything to lose," he says. "If one penny is misplaced, I'm dead as a judge."

But the chairmanship of Kennedy's community corporation is a position of potentially immense prestige, and there could be an important election in the near future: for the area's first Congressman. Right now, because of gerrymandering in the Republican-dominated 1961 state legislature, Bedford-Stuyvesant is split among five contorted congressional districts. Residents have filed a suit challenging the districting, the city joined with them on it, and a decision is expected in the next few weeks.

The possibility of a congressional seat up for grabs has no doubt prompted some of the sniping the judge has faced. "Anything that has Jones in it is bound to have trouble," growls an attorney who is also considered to be a congressional aspirant.

The congressional districting is important in the current infighting be-S-