In the 1960s, Bedford-Stuyvesant was New York City’s largest non-white community. An 85-percent black Brooklyn neighborhood where poverty was widespread, housing dilapidated, and few residents finished high school. In response, my father spearheaded the creation of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, which brought private enterprises together with local leadership to renovate the area’s urban core, focusing on housing, the arts, and small businesses. The guiding idea was my father’s