May 21, 1974

NYS Office Bldg in Harlem, one of largest and most controversial projects in black community, is dedicated; more than 100 dignitaries, including Gov M Wilson and NYC Mayor A D Beame, participate in what Wilson terms ‘historic occasion'; about 1,000 people gather in outdoor mall of $36‐million bldg; block‐sq site, bounded by 125th and 126th St and Lenox and Seventh Avs, was in ‘69 scene of bitter controversy; Manhattan Boro Pres Percy E Sutton recalls that he originally opposed bldg and called it ‘colonial outpost’ but that he nows sees bldg as ‘focal point around which much can be built'; Wilson is introduced by Atty Gen Louis J Lefkowitz as having been ‘very active and in forefront’ of those who helped out; Lefkowitz declares bldg is ‘monument’ of Harlem community; among black concerns involved in project were architects Ifill, Johnson & Hanchard, Jenkins Elec Inc, which had largest contract, and Finley and Madison, structural engineers; gen contracting was joint venture between Lasker Goldman, white concern, and Trans Urban, black concern; Gerald Roberts, Trans urban vp, was gen supt; Fred Pendleton was state engineer in charge of demolition and Byron Coleman, who is also black, was state engineer in charge of construction; Coleman will now be mgr of all‐elec bldg; Mrs Dorothy Gordon, black woman who ran state affirmative‐action plan estab for project, notes that out of work force of more than 500, more than 70 men, including journeymen and trainees, acquired full union status during work, some of which involved training at Manhattan Vocational School; Deans Protective Agency, black‐owned security concern that provided protection for area during construction, is awarded contract for continued services; there is speculation among many who attended ceremony that relative silence of opponents of project had to do with future plans for eastern portion of site‐‐2 1/2 acres on which community facilities may be built; portion, which was cut from original state allocation, is expected to be developed by local group in conjunction with Harlem Urban Development Corp; it is expected that many of original demands of demonstrators, including requests for cultural complex and for office space for businessmen displaced by state bldg, may be realized there; Wilson notes that $2‐million has been set aside in supplemental budget to finance start of massive redevelopment program under auspices of Harlem Urban Development Corp; Uptown Chamber of Commerce pres Hope Stevens, Assemblyman Jesse Gray and Rev Wyatt Tee Walker comment; illus (L)

Authorities in Community School District 9 in the Bronx refused yesterday to allow three investigators from Board of Education headquarters to interview teachers and students at a junior high school ,where there have been charges that youngsters who misbehaved were beaten by two male deans with a thick wooden paddle, leather straps and fists.

US Sen approves bill authorizing $631‐million more in Fed funds to aid 6‐million handicapped and retarded children enrolled in school and 1‐million pre‐school children (M)

hard‐line Prot movement has succeeded in ‘choking life’ in Belfast to bare subsistence level by erecting barricades at nearly 100 points, sealing off Prot qrs almost completely and cutting off most entrances and exits from city; city's indus is completely shutdown; Belfast is undergoing electricity cuts amounting to about 18 hrs a day; Ulster Workers Council spokesman James Smyth says there will be no lessening of pressure until Brit Govt begins to negotiate main points sought by Prots, which include early elections and shelving plans for All‐Ireland Council; there are indications that Govt's pol ground is beginning to shift in favor of some concession to resistance movement; Ulster State Min Stanley Orme says Govt will not yield to blackmail of pol strike; Smyth claims that barricades and other stepped‐up activities are in response to BBC rept that council's decision not to shut down electric power altogether was retreat; loyalist pol leaders, although supporting strike, are not in control of strike; strike has shown signs of confusion, improvisation, argument and last‐minute policy changes; strikers have been using widespread intimidation to stop workers from going to work; movement could obtain support from many Prots; GB and Ulster exec body have refrained from stating intentions on dealing with situation, but speculation is that they may try to wait things out, keeping essential services going; reasoning behind such a move is that Prot sympathy for strike may decline once its more serious effects begin to be felt (L)

Pres Nixon, in radio address, offers compromise on natl health ins program in order to enhance prospects for passage of natl health legis in ‘74; warns against any effort to ‘socialize our system of health care’ but also says that doing nothing would allow fewer and fewer Amers to have access to adequate health care; urges health indus to do everything possible voluntarily to keep the brake on rising health care cost'; cites ‘basic principles’ that he says must be included in any natl health program: patients must be free to choose their own dr; program must be built on existing private system of health care and it must give consumers, providers and carriers of health services as well as state govts ‘direct stake in making system work'; cites merit of other natl health programs proposed by Sen Edward M Kennedy with Repr Wilbur D Mills and plan offered by Sens Russell B Long and Abraham A Ribicoff (M)