Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation oral histories

Call Number

2008.030

Dates

2007 - 2008, inclusive

; 2008, bulk

Creator

Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation

Extent

32.27 Gigabytes in 236 files, total running time: 48 hours, 18 minutes, 21 seconds; 1 linear foot in one record box

Language of Materials

English .

Abstract

Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) and Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (Restoration) partnered on the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation oral history project in 2007-2008 to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Restoration's founding as the first community development corporation (CDC) in the United States. Nearly sixty interviews were conducted with founding Board members, supporters, activists, artists, tenants, and other community members. Audio clips from these oral history interviews were included in the exhibit Reflections on Community Development: Stories from Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (BHS 2008, Restoration 2009).

Historical note

History of Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, excerpted from their website: In 1964, with the cooperation of Senator Jacob K. Javits and Mayor John W. Lindsay, Senator Robert F. Kennedy set into motion a round of legislative action that created the Special Impact Program, an amendment to the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. He announced a seven point action plan that would serve as a national model for community development. The plan called for the formation of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Renewal and Rehabilitation Corporation and the Development Services Corporation in Brooklyn, New York, involving assistance from some of the foremost leaders of the American business community.

Under the leadership of Judge Thomas R. Jones, in 1967 the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (Restoration) was formally established to consolidate and carry forward these efforts. One year later, Restoration purchased an abandoned milk bottling plant in the heart of the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, Sheffield Farms, to serve as its new corporate headquarters. Renovations soon began to create what became the community center Restoration Plaza. Since 1967, Restoration has catalyzed enormous economic, cultural, and educational improvements in Central Brooklyn.*

Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation oral history at Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS): BHS and Restoration partnered on the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation oral history project in 2007-2008 to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Restoration's founding as the first community development corporation (CDC) in the United States. Nearly sixty interviews were conducted with founding Board members, supporters, activists, artists, tenants, and other community members. Audio clips from these oral history interviews were included in the exhibition Reflections on Community Development: Stories from Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (BHS 2008, Restoration 2009). The exhibition provided a local and national narrative of the rise and importance of CDCs from their inception during the late 1960s to four decades later, using Restoration as a case study.

*"History." Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration. http://www.restorationplaza.org/about/history.

Arrangement

Recordings in Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation oral history were kept in the original order, arranged alphabetically by the narrator's last name.

Scope and Contents

This collection of oral history recordings attempts to tell the story of a forty-year-old community institution, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, through the diverse voices of board members, staff, artists, business owners, community activists, homeowners, and young students of the institution's cultural programming. In documenting that story, a roughly sketched parallel story emerges that chronicles the culture of the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Additionally, the more substantive interviews offer the more traditional oral history of an individual in addition to that of the institution. Narrators are often residents of Bedford-Stuyvesant and give their insight into predecessor or concurrent organizations such as Youth in Action, Bedford-Stuyvesant Development and Services Corporation, Weeksville Heritage Center, Fulton-Nostrand United Merchants Association, and the Central Brooklyn Coordinating Council. The interviews also inform an understanding of the inner workings of Restoration and its effects on the community; including initiatives such as establishing Restoration Plaza and offices for the nonprofit, the Center for Arts & Culture, the Billie Holiday Theatre, Skylight Gallery, Youth Arts Academy, and the Weatherization Assistance Program.

Subjects

Organizations

Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation. Center for Art and Culture; Billie Holiday Theatre

Genres

Exhibition records; Interviews (sound recordings); Oral histories (document genres)

People

Alston, Peggy

Topics

Places

Bedford-Stuyvesant (New York, N.Y.); Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.); New York (N.Y.) |x Politics and government

Conditions Governing Access

Open to researchers with varied restrictions according to narrator agreement. Many oral histories can be accessed onsite at Brooklyn Historical Society's Othmer Library and online on the Oral History Portal .

Conditions Governing Use

Use of the oral histories other than for private study, scholarship, or research requires the permission of BHS. Please see the Oral History Note for guidelines on using Brooklyn Historical Society's oral history collections. For assistance, please consult library staff at library@brooklynhistory.org.

Preferred Citation

[Narrator Last name, First name], Oral history interview conducted by [Interviewer First name Last name], [Month day, YYYY], Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation oral histories, [Object ID]; Brooklyn Historical Society.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The oral histories that make up this collection were compiled by a team including an oral history program coordinator and oral history program intern at Brooklyn Historical Society and staff members at Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation. Project staff included Sady Sullivan (Oral History Program Coordinator), Bahati Williams (Oral History Program Intern), Brian Purnell, PhD (Researcher and Interviewer), Tracey Capers (Senior Vice President of Programs and Organizational Development - Restoration), Wendell Rice (Director of Weatherization Program - Restoration, and Interviewer), Judith Anglin (Human Resources Director - Restoration, and Interviewer), and Peggy Alston (Youth Arts Academy Director - Restoration, and Interviewer).

Related Materials

In addition to this collection, Brooklyn Historical Society has many other records related to the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation and the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Among these are:

• Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation publication and photograph collection, 1968-2007, ARC.124

• Central Brooklyn Coordinating Council publications, 1965-1972, ARC.163

• Viola Hargrave collection of Bedford-Stuyvesant photographs, circa 1960s to 1970s, V1974.005

Also, narrator Pamela Green, formerly the Executive Director of the Weeksville Heritage Center, was recorded in the Listen to this: Crown Heights Oral History collection, 2010 (2010.020). Narrator Ronald Shiffman, who helped conceive and launch Restoration, donated his papers to BHS in 2013 (2013.023). For more information on these and several other collections associated with Bedford-Stuyvesant, please visit our online finding aid portal.

Existence and Location of Copies

This oral history collection was duplicated for the offices of Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation in 2009.

Oral History note

Oral history interviews are intimate conversations between people, all of whom have generously agreed to share these recordings with the Brooklyn Historical Society archives and with researchers. Please listen in the spirit with which these were shared. Researchers will understand that:

1. The Brooklyn Historical Society abides by the General Principles & Best Practices for Oral History as agreed upon by the Oral History Association (2009) and expects that use of this material will be done with respect for these professional ethics.

2. Every oral history relies on the memories, views and opinions of the narrator. Because of the personal nature of oral history, listeners may find some viewpoints or language of the recorded participants to be objectionable. In keeping with its mission of preservation and unfettered access whenever possible, BHS presents these views as recorded.

3. The audio recording should be considered the primary source for each interview. It may contain natural false starts, verbal stumbles, misspeaks, repetitions that are common in conversation.

4. Unless these verbal patterns are germane to your scholarly work, when quoting from this material researchers are encouraged to correct the grammar and make other modifications maintaining the flavor of the narrator's speech while editing the material for the standards of print.

Collection processed by

Brett Dion and Maria Santiago

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-21 11:14:09 +0000.

Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Language: Finding aid written in English

Processing Information

This collection was initially cataloged at the item level by Naomi Dobrowolski, Oral History Intern, in 2008, and Sady Sullivan, in 2009-2010. Recordings were compressed for streaming, uploaded, described, and indexed by Maria Santiago, project intern, and Brett Dion, project archivist, in late 2016 and January 2017. Due to privacy concerns, the specific dates of birth of all narrators or other named individuals were redacted from the audio recordings.

Repository

Brooklyn Historical Society

Container

Box: 1 (Material Type: Mixed Materials)