Found 5 collections related to Community development, Urban -- New York (State) -- New York

The Riverton was a seven-building complex built by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in 1947, one of four complexes they built during the 1940s. The complex was bounded by 135th and 138th Streets, Fifth Avenue, and Harlem River Drive. The Riverton Houses collection consists of a variety of material but does not constitute records of the Riverton. These files came from the Administration offices at 2156 Madison Avenue. Included is a file for Clifford L. Alexander, Sr., the first resident manager (1947-1964) of the complex. There are also miscellaneous files dealing with the management of the Riverton, including the position description for the resident manager; descriptive information regarding the Riverton; and letters regarding street lights, parking signs, and traffic conditions affecting the residents of the Riverton. less

Personal and professional papers, writings, office files and printed matter documenting Preston Wilcox's dual career as an educator and community organizer. Included are biographical and autobiographical narratives; some correspondence and organization files; an extensive writings series; proposals, minutes, reports and other documents dating from 1958 to 1965 pertaining to the East Harlem Project, the East Harlem Summer Festival, and the Massive Economic Neighborhood Development (MEND); confidential files from the 1964 Princeton Summer Studies Program, the pilot project for the pre-college Upward Bound program; compilations of material on public schools, decentralization and community control; and Afram's surviving records. Some of the main themes explored in the writings are: decentralization and parental decision-making, community organization and economic development, Black Power versus integration, social policy and white racism, empowering the poor, and black studies and black schools. The Afram files comprise the following subseries: Administrative, Publications, Parent Participation in Follow Through, Malcolm X Lovers Network and Vertical Files. The latter two categories are compilations of articles and other printed matter, with editorial notes by Wilcox, on Malcolm X, and on selected topics and personalities, including education, community control, reparations, Harlem, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, Jr., Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael) and Leonard Jeffries. less

The Harlem Neighborhoods Association records chronicle the deteriorating quality of life in Harlem from the 1940s to the late 1970s. The collection consists of correspondence and memoranda, board of directors and committee minutes, financial reports, publicity and outreach materials, membership lists and printed matter. The committee and program files document an ongoing organizational concern for chronic social dysfunction and urban poverty in Harlem. The most substantive files are the Day Care Committee, 1952-1956; the Housing Committee, 1952-1956; the Recreation Committee, 1948-1958; the Parents Committee, 1952-1968, and several youth related programs spanning from 1948 to 1963. Other substantive issues include: school decentralization in Harlem, urban renewal, drug prevention and family planning. Frequent correspondents include James H. Robinson who served as chairman of the West Harlem Council of Social Agencies, Harriet Pickens and Mildred Fisher, respectively chairperson and executive secrtary of the Central Harlem Council for Community Planning, and committee chairpersons Exie Welsch, Eugene Houston and Gertrude Tanneyhill. Also included is a scrapbook of articles and other printed matter documenting local efforts in 1963 to raise funds for the construction of a two-hundred bed hospital in Mount Morris Park. less

New York City's first so-called Slum Clearance Project, headed by urban planner Robert Moses, caused the physical destruction of a once tight-knit African American community that dated back to the early 1900s. The buildings on 98th and 99th in Upper West Side Manhattan, or what is affectionately known today as "The Old Community", were razed from the 1940s to the 1950s as part of this urban renewal program. Although the residents were forced to relocate, the community stayed connected through annual dances (ca. 1950s-1990s) organized by constituents of the West 98th and 99th Streets Association, and then through "The Old Community" annual reunions (1999-) headed by Jim Torain. The Old Community West 98th-99th Streets Reunion collection consists of "The Old Community" reunion programs, 2003-2011; background information on some of the former community members; reports; journal, newspaper, and magazine articles about the history of the West 98th and 99th Streets community, Park West Village (which replaced the buildings on West 98th and 99th Streets), and the urban renewal program and its impact on this neighborhood. Additionally, there are a few Spirit of 179 newsletters, 1952-1953, which were written by the young members of the PS 179 Community Center. They note some of the community events before the relocation took place. less