In 1969, the city planned to tear down the Third Avenue El and extend the Second Avenue subway line to East 180th Street. Construction never made it past midtown Manhattan.
Then the city planned to build two parking garages for hundreds of cars to lure shoppers into the Hub. Neither exists today.
There were also supposed to be four schools connected by plazas and walkways built above the Mott Haven Railroad Yard along the East River.
The city even wanted to buy and rebuild the abandoned warehouses along the waterfront to restore the borough's manufacturing base.
Compared to the late 1960s, when urban planners dreamed up heady designs for the Bronx, today's planners are merely trying to give the borough a little push in the right direction.
Twenty-five years ago, when people still believed the government could fix broken cities, the Urban Renewal and Model Cities programs attempted to touch every aspect of a citizen's life, from health care to housing to education and recreation.
Today, Kevin Nunn, president of the Bronx Overall Economic Development Commission, just hopes to "make a dent in the lives of the people who come into contact with" the $50 million in seed money the government plans to plant in the South Bronx over the next decade.
"That's as much as I can guarantee," Nunn said. "I'm not going to blow smoke in anybody's face. I don't want this to be Model Cities."
Most of the money will provide job training. Small businesses in the borough will also receive tax breaks. And instead of flooding the South Bronx with 25-story vertical neighborhoods, the government is subsidizing low and middle-income homebuyers who want to lay down roots in the neighborhood.
Community planners say they are channeling what little government money is available to efforts that only affect a few residents directly but improve the neighborhood as a whole.
At Brook Commons, which stretches from 140th to 147th Street between Brook and Willis Avenues, buyers have swept up all but four of 33 new three-family houses selling for $300,000 each. Under the New York City Housing Partnership program, the government is paying for nearly a third of their cost and subsidizing low-interest loans.
Twenty-two two-family units scattered along Melrose Avenue are also selling quickly, said Matilde Zavala, executive director of the South Bronx Community Corp., a neighborhood development association.
"We already have the tall buildings and we're stuck with them," said Zavala of the deteriorating projects in the South Bronx. "But we're encouraging moderate-income homeowners here and we're changing the environment."
But changing the environment also means teaching people how to get a job and keep it. Sybil Henry, a job trainer with the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corp., said she thought the old social programs put up a lot of buildings but skimped on training residents to cope and compete in the job market. Henry said she focuses on both teaching people skills and building their confidence.
"If we can get the individual to be self-sufficient, then the individual can build the community," Henry said. "We'll do it block by block this time, family by family."