Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation
 |
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| Founded | April 1, 1967 |
|---|---|
| Founders | Robert F. Kennedy, John Lindsay, Jacob Javits, and Thomas R. Jones |
| Type |
Community development corporation (IRS exemption status): 501(c)(3) |
| Location | |
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Area served
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Brooklyn, New York City |
|
Key people
|
President - Colvin W. Grannum Chairman - Kevin Chavers |
|
Revenue (2014)
|
$9,931,607 |
| Expenses (2014) | $10,523,567 |
| Website | RestorationPlaza.org |
The Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (or BSRC, referred to locally in short as Restoration) is a community development corporation based in Brooklyn, New York and the first ever to be established in the United States.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the neighborhood of Bedford–Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, New York, was home to middle class German, Dutch, Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrants and their descendants. In the 1920s, African-Americans migrating from the South settled in the area. Starting in 1930, people from Harlem moved into the neighborhood, seeking better housing. As the impoverished black population increased, banks reduced lending to local residents and businesses.
By 1950, the number of blacks had risen to 155,000, comprising about 55 percent of the population of Bedford–Stuyvesant. Over the next decade, real estate agents and speculators employed blockbusting to make quick profits. As a result, formerly middle-class white homes were turned over to poorer black families. By 1960, eighty-five percent of the population was black.
By the mid-1960s, 450,000 residents occupied the neighborhood’s nine square miles. Bedford–Stuyvesant had become Brooklyn’s most populous neighborhood and had the second largest concentration of African-Americans in the United States. Garbage pickup decreased and local schools deteriorated. The streets became dangerous as juvenile delinquency, gang activity, and heroin use increased. Around 80 percent of residents were high school dropouts and about 36 percent of children were born to unmarried mothers. Economic downturn was in part facilitated by the decline of the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the closure of a Sheffield Farms milk-bottling plant on Fulton Street. Almost half of the housing was officially classified as "dilapidated and insufficient." Rates of venereal disease were among the highest in the United States, while infant mortality was the highest.
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