Richard
Lee
Born: New
Haven; March 12, 1916
Entry
by Herbert F. Janick
During
the 1950s a crop of bold young mayors took control of many American
cities. Armed with ideas and Federal money, they sought to stem
the flight of the middle class to the suburbs, to eliminate slums,
and to stimulate the economy of the downtowns by vast highway
and building construction programs. In the vanguard of the urban
renewal movement was Richard Lee, the eight-term mayor of New
Haven. Only thirty-seven when he took office in 1953, he made
New Haven a showcase for imaginative solutions to urban problems.
In 1969, however, he left office amidst racial tension, the most
dramatic manifestation of which had been a week of rioting in
the summer of 1967.
Described
by an associate as a "cross between the New Frontier and
the Last Hurrah," the energetic Lee brought impressive qualities
to the job of mayor. As a result of many years as a city hall
newspaper reporter, he knew the intricacies and personalities
of city government. Nine years as director of the Yale News Bureau
gave him sophistication and more valuable contacts, particularly
one with his ally in urban rejuvenation, A. Whitney Griswold
(1906-1963),
Yale president from 1950 to 1962. He was able to inspire the
loyalty of young professionals like brash Edward Logue who became
the
city's director of redevelopment. Lee's charisma helped him weld
together the Citizen's Action Committee, a coalition of 4,000
business, professional, and Yale leaders to give him advice and
support.
The
Lee Administration transformed the face of New Haven. The Connecticut
Turnpike was routed so as to best serve the commuting needs of
suburbanites, and the Oak Street Connector, constructed on the
site of a dilapidated slum area, provided direct automobile access
to downtown. After much difficulty, the Church Street project
was completed, giving the city a central shopping mall. Low income
housing, fire-houses, and schools were built. During his term
in office Lee attracted more than $130,000,000 in Federal aid
to New Haven.
Human
needs were not neglected. From 1962 to 1967 under the direction
of Mitchell Svirdorff, former head of the state AFL-CIO, an
anti-poverty
agency, Community Progress Incorporated, spent twenty-two million
dollars, including five million from the Ford Foundation, on
a
variety of experimental approaches in job-training, education,
housing and child care. Many of these programs became models
for
President Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty." In recognition
of his accomplishments, Lee was elected head of the National
Conference
of Mayors in 1962.
Lee's
final years in office were difficult ones, highlighted by four
days of rioting in August 1967. Compared to what took place
in
many other cities, the New Haven disorder was a minor outburst
in which no lives were lost. That it should have happened in
what
Robert Weaver, Federal Housing and Home Finance administrator,
described as the place that came "closest to our dream of
a slumless city," was demoralizing to Lee and was, in part,
responsible for his exit from office in 1969.
For
Further Reading
New
Haven renewal and Richard Lee have stimulated an avalanche of
books and articles. The best are Allan Talbot, The Mayor's
Game, Richard Lee and the Politics of Change (New York, 1967);
Fred Powledge, Modern City: A Test of American Liberalism
(New York, 1970); and Raymond Wolfingcr, The Politics of Progress
(Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1974).
*
Entry under revision.
|
