Word: bedford
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...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...
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...
...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...
...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...