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April 25,1974 PHOENIX Page 11April 25. 1974Special 1974 Progress ReportHANDBA GSSUPER B ^ FuASHtWRING RONARS BEST ADVENT UBROOKLYN ' HOSPITAL N HOUSINGIRARYSOtlARE , , .jjtvtiippMe^KFULTON BROOKLYN , CENTERCQN EDISONING&TGNDowntown BrooklynRenewal RepresentsA Coalition ofInterests & TalentsBY MICHAEL A. ARMSTRONG%u201c Self-interest, pure and simple,%u201d is what one leading downtown Brooklyn businessman describes as the motivation for the massive renewal and redevelopment that is now underway in the area centered on Fulton Street. If the huge range of projects now underway or in planning for this area is what %u201c Self interest%u201d can produce, Brooklyn and New York City need more of this brand of tonic.Six years ago, Brooklyn%u2019s commercial center was variously described as %u201c barely stable,%u201d %u201c beginning to go downhill,%u201d or %u201c going to seed.%u201d Today, Brooklyn%u2019s downtown renewal efforts have become a model for the nation, and some of the most exciting things happening in Am erica%u2019s urban areas are taking place right here in our Borough.How we got to here from there is an amazing story of what a combined mixture of enlightened private self-interest and responsiveness by government can produce. Every superlative imaginable can justifiably be applied to the developments that have been born to turn around both the psychology and reality of Brooklyn%u2019s downtown core.It all started back in 1966, when a few of Brooklyn%u2019s downtown business leaders, distressed about what they saw as the inevitable future 10 to 15 years away, began to talk about taking a hand in making the future they wanted to see happen. Gordon Griswold, president of the Brooklyn Union Gas Company, remembers when Walter Rothschild, then president of Abraham & Straus, first began to talk about doing something. %u201c A few of us chewed it around and started to look ahead and talk about what we might do to get things moving. r r c uctidcu to put together a special committee to do something. It was an impetus that was long overdue.%u201dJoining Griswold and Rothschild were: Gordon Braislin, chairman of the Dime Saving Bank; Wilbur Levin, then president of Martin%u2019s and now president of the South Brooklyn Savings Bank; George Gray and John Bium, president and chairman, respectively, of the Kings Lafayette Corporation; and Norman Gesley of the New YorkTelephone Company. Their group, which was soon expanded to include other key business leaders, became the Downtown Brooklyn Development Committee, Inc., which was merged in 1972 with another downtown group to become the Downtown Brooklyn Development Association.%u201c The key to our success,%u2019%u2019 believes Braislin of Dime Savings Bank, %u201c was that we had the top people involved in the process. We put the right people together, and they made the City officials we had to work with take us seriously right from the beginning. I%u2019m pleased with what we have been able to do; it would have been worth double the effort.%u201dThe situation confronting these men was that Brooklyn had what Levin of South Brooklyn Savings Bank describes as a %u201c classic%u201d urban core area problem -with one important exception: %u201c our commercial center never ceased to be an active business mart. We had something solid to build on.%u201d As a key factor in success to date, Levin also points to the %u201c strong civic tradition of responsibility on the part of the business community leadership, recognizing that one has to give as well as receive.%u201dThe process that followed the organization of the Downtown Development Association%u2019s predecessor group produced in quick succession: (1) an official master plan for Brooklyn by the City of New York; (2) an official city agency, the Office of Downtown Brooklyn Development, made up of representatives of city agencies in housing, economic development, planning and legal codes, and responsible solely for pursuing those specialties in the planning and redevelopment of the downtown area; and (3) the beginning of projects now in planning or underway to put steel and concrete-and even trees-into the renewal pipeline.The various projects underway are described in detail in this special section, but their collective and most important impact has been as much psychological as anything else. John Mencke, senior vice president at Chemical Bank, said: %u201cThe general reaction is that things are getting better; that Brooklyn is not going downhill, but up. People think so, and this is probably the most important part of all in making it reality.%u201dWillard Hampton, chairman of the Brooklyn Savings Bank, points'CRIMINAL COURT _ __ , irate* aasAGE - JH *%u2014L %u25a0Kru ': COLLEGE j j v Js c h e r m e r h o r n rPACIFIC URA kfi_ n _ uThe Albee Theater will soon give way to a new department storecomplex.out that it has taken \pushing.%u201d He said, \the city set up an official agency was a good first sign and has made it all much easier for us.%u201d Leonard Nadel, senior vice president at Abraham and Straus, who recently ended a leave of absenceafter serving a term as president of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, said that one of the most positive things he has detected over the recent few years is the informal network that has beenContinued on poge 19B AMATLANTIC AVENUE IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT 1frv . \\ \%u m ik i S\\PA*KfN& \\