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.

[5] On July 16, 1964, an off-duty white police lieutenant, Thomas Gilligan, shot and killed a 15-year old black boy, James Powell.

In the end it was decided that the Pratt Institute's Planning Department would conduct a six-month survey of local challenges and the potential for redevelopment.

The Planning Department's report concluded that New York City should "mobilize all necessary antipoverty and other social welfare and educational programs" to save the neighborhood from further decline.

Disturbed by the Watts riots in Los Angeles, he was worried that America's racial crisis was shifting from the rural South to the urban North.

Most of the content was in line with John F. Kennedy's New Frontier programs, with proposals for job training, rent subsidies, students loans for the poor, and housing desegregation.

He also broke with President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society rhetorical optimism, arguing that the situation for black Americans was worsening instead of improving.

He asserted that welfare and stricter code enforcement were not solving the problems facing ghettos and that community involvement and action from the private sector were necessary to effectively combat urban poverty.

Similar in manner to the Baldwin–Kennedy meeting of 1963, Brooklyn community leaders were bitter towards the senator and lectured him on the problems black residents of the neighborhood faced.

As part of their research, they traveled across the country to consult black militants, urban theorists, federal administrators, journalists, mayors, foundation leaders, and banking and business executives.

[13] Realizing that the Johnson administration and Brooklyn's white Democrats felt politically threatened by his project, Kennedy secured support from Mayor John Lindsay and the senior senator from New York, Jacob Javits, both Republicans.

He also earned corporate support from Thomas Watson Jr. of IBM, William S. Paley of CBS, investment banker André Meyer, and former Secretary of Treasury C. Douglas Dillon.

"[15] Initial plans included coordinated programs for the creation of jobs, housing renovation and rehabilitation, improved health sanitation, and recreation facilities, the construction of two "super blocks," the conversion of the abandoned Sheffield Farms milk-bottling plant into a town hall and community center, a mortgage consortium to provide subsidized loans for homeowners, the founding of a private work-study community college for dropouts, and a public campaign to convince corporations to invest in industry in the neighborhood.

"[17] The plan was met with mixed reactions in the press, with some liberals accusing the project of relying too heavily on the private sector while conservative elements were more hopeful of its chances for success.

The first, Bedford–Stuyvesant Renewal and Rehabilitation Corporation (R & R), consisted of 20 established civic and religious community leaders under the leadership of Judge Thomas R. Jones.

It was run by an all-white board of businessmen that included Watson, Paley, Meyer, Dillon, David Lilienthal and Jacob Merrill Kaplan.

With the support of Kennedy and Lindsay, he demanded that the R & R board resolve to expand itself to include a wider array of community leaders and give him three weeks to revise the corporation's structure.

Seven months later they received a $7 million grant from the Department of Labor made possible by a 1966 amendment to the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 drafted by Kennedy and Javits to provide the private sector with incentive payments in exchange for investments in impoverished areas.

Investments from IBM, Xerox, and U.S. Gypsum notwithstanding, most corporate executives believed there was little profit in poorer communities and were concerned about hostile working environments.

It centered around a two-block-wide commercial zone to be located between Fulton Street and Atlantic Avenue which would serve as a principal point for local business and community organizations.

[26] Meanwhile, members of the still-functional D & S board were working on areas of their expertise; Paley began exploring the development of communications infrastructure, George S. Moore focused on project financing and mortgage pooling, Schmidt assisted small businesses, Watson managed job training and employment programs, and Meyer worked on real estate problems and strategized for the corporation's overall funding.

Two "Neighborhood Restoration Centers" for free advice and legal consultation had been opened, 14 new black-owned businesses had been established, and 1,200 residents had received vocational training.

This included a textile project by the Design Works of Bedford-Stuyvesant, founded by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, shown at a gala event at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

[32] As of 2010, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation had constructed or rehabilitated 2200 housing units in the neighborhood, provided mortgage financing to nearly 1500 homeowners, brought $375 million in investments to the community, and created over 20,000 jobs.

[33] In 2023 the architect David Adjaye unveiled the design the addition of 600,000 square feet of office space, a remodeled public plaza, and an expansion to existing facilities, including the Billie Holiday Theatre.