Little Pink House Part 2

Basilica had established himself as New London's kingmaker. In that role, he had fought and won a lot of political fights alongside Levin. Basilica had even managed a couple of Levin's campaigns. The two were tight.

Levin wanted Basilica's blessing before revamping the NLDC and turning it over to Claire, so he and an a.s.sociate met with Basilica and one of his a.s.sociates. Basilica listened while Levin explained his consulting role with the governor's office.

Hearing nothing that sounded problematic, Basilica said little while Levin talked up the idea of reviving the NLDC. Then Levin got to the hard part-he wanted to appoint Claire Gaudiani to lead it.

Basilica grinned and shook his head from side to side. "No way," he said.

Levin attempted to explain.

Basilica cut him off. "No way," he repeated. "You're not doin' that. No way." Basilica reminded him that Levin had previously convinced him to work with Claire on a city initiative to improve the public schools. Reluctantly, Basilica had gone along but felt that Claire had embarra.s.sed him. Basilica had not forgotten. "Look, we've already had our experience with her," Basilica said. "We don't want her. It's a bad idea. Tell her to stick to French history or whatever the h.e.l.l she teaches."

Levin left the meeting unsuccessful, even though, Basilica later recalled, "He told us, 'It's the only way Rowland is going to send money to the city.'"

5.

GETTING TO YES.

Buoyed by Levin's suggestion to jump-start the NLDC, Claire started rounding up people to fill board seats at the agency. She didn't have trouble finding takers. Many of the key civic leaders she'd been brainstorming with were eager to volunteer. None was more enthused than Steve Percy, a New London real-estate broker who specialized in businesses and marinas. Percy had written the essay calling for leaders.h.i.+p in the city that had prompted Claire to take a hands-on role months earlier.

Claire had asked Percy what resources the city had to put against its economic problems. Among other things, Percy suggested a twenty-four-acre peninsula known as the New London Mills property, a prime piece of vacant real estate along the city's waterfront. Other people Claire polled said the same thing. Claire didn't know anything about the land in question or why it was vacant. Percy knew the background well.

The New London Mills property had been home to a linoleum manufacturer. Before that, cotton mills and other industries had occupied the land. But all the brick mill buildings had since been demolished, leaving behind nothing but piles of rubble atop land contaminated with all sorts of industrial pollutants.

A few years earlier, a company called Ocean Quest had approached the city and proposed building a $41 million aquatic facility on the site. Ocean Quest promised to build a water camp for kids, complete with a mock submarine and other tourist attractions.

Eager for jobs and tax revenue, the city embraced the project. The state took an active role, too, pledging millions of dollars to rid the site of environmental contaminants as preparation for development. But after all that, the Ocean Quest backers lacked the money to carry out the project. Suddenly, the twenty-four-acre brownfield was available. It wasn't the prettiest piece of real estate, but it had a grand location-right on the water, at the mouth of the Thames.

Claire, Percy, and the others in the small group emerging to take over the NLDC quickly settled on the idea that one of the agency's primary objectives should be to try to lure a Fortune Fortune 500 company to the site. Something like that could generate some instant momentum. But no one Claire was talking to in New London knew what it would take to attract such a company. 500 company to the site. Something like that could generate some instant momentum. But no one Claire was talking to in New London knew what it would take to attract such a company.

Claire didn't know the answers either, but she knew someone who did-George Milne Jr., an executive at Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company. Pfizer had a ma.s.sive research facility in nearby Groton, just across the river from New London. As president of central research, Milne ran the Groton facility and ranked among the most respected corporate executives in southeastern Connecticut. He also served on the board of trustees at Connecticut College, which his son attended. And Claire's husband, Dr. David Burnett, worked under Milne at Pfizer and ran the company's corporate university. These kinds of connections were among the reasons Levin had recommended Claire to lead the NLDC.

Claire figured she had to get someone like Milne to join the board of directors and help them figure out how to market the New London Mills property to a major corporation. She decided to call him at home and request a face-to-face meeting.

George Milne hadn't become president of Pfizer's central research by accident. He had a chemistry degree from Yale and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from MIT. After joining Pfizer in 1970, he spent eleven years doing chemistry and pharmacology research until being appointed director of the company's department of immunology and infectious diseases. Milne turned out to be a promising corporate leader, too. Intense, driven, and polished, he had all the right attributes for a successful executive in his industry. Pfizer made him a senior vice president in 1988 and then eventually president of the central research division and a senior vice president in charge of the company's global interests in human and veterinary medicine.

Under Milne, the research division's annual investment rose from $493 million to over $2 billion. During that same period, the scientific staff doubled to more than eight thousand people. With a unique blend of scientific smarts and corporate savvy, Milne knew the importance of translating breakthrough medicines into financial windfalls for shareholders.

He also knew something the rest of the pharmaceutical industry didn't: Pfizer was sitting on a drug that promised to take American culture by storm and propel Pfizer past all its rivals. A few years earlier, Pfizer conducted clinical trials for a drug called sildenafil, which was intended to expand blood vessels, enabling greater blood flow to the heart. But the response in alleviating suffering from heart problems was insufficient. At the close of the clinical trials, the female patients returned their surplus medication, as required, but many male patients did not. When clinicians investigated, they discovered that sildenafil had a powerful effect on men who struggled with impotence.

The accidental discovery had enormous potential. Millions of men in the United States struggle with impotence. If men could overcome the condition by simply taking a pill, this drug promised to be a rainmaker. Pfizer commissioned a new round of clinical trials for sildenafil and a.s.signed the drug a new name: v.i.a.g.r.a.

While Governor Rowland was busy trying to propel his political star higher by redeveloping Connecticut's urban centers, George Milne had aspirations of his own. The emergence of v.i.a.g.r.a elevated him to a position of great prominence in the company as he led the effort to promote it to the nation's medical community.

"Impotence has a major, and sometimes devastating, psychological and social impact on patients and their partners," Milne told the American Urological a.s.sociation at its annual meeting in 1997. "Effective drugs currently available involve injections and for that reason have not been widely accepted." Milne insisted Pfizer had the answer to this dilemma: "v.i.a.g.r.a, because it is a pill and enhances the normal s.e.xual response, offers advantages to these patients in terms of both convenience and safety."

Busy as he was, Milne graciously welcomed a call at home from Claire. After explaining the NLDC and its virtues, Claire informed Milne she had agreed to serve as its president. Impressed, Milne was not surprised. He knew Claire's penchant for taking on big initiatives and going full tilt.

Claire briefly indicated that one of the NLDC's top priorities would be to market the former New London Mills property, and she wanted to meet with him about it.

"It will have to be at seven in the morning in my office," Milne said.

"That's fine. I'll come in."

They agreed on a date.

August 28, 1997 Giddy, Susette arrived at a law firm in New London to sign the closing doc.u.ments on her new home. There, for the first time, she met the seller, who indicated she had driven by the house and seen the new paint job.

"Doesn't the house look great?" Susette said.

The seller looked disgusted. "Pink?" she asked, then insisted it was not right for the period of the house.

"That's not true," Susette said. "I got the color right off the historic paint chart at Benjamin Moore."

The seller was not impressed.

"Besides," Susette said, "the color is Odessa Rose, not pink."

"Well, it will certainly brighten up the neighborhood," the seller said sarcastically.

Susette grinned. "And ... so ... won't ... I," she said.

A half hour later, Susette had the keys to the front door and the t.i.tle to the property. And at that point, she didn't care what the previous owner thought of her or the new paint color. The place was hers, and that was all that mattered.

That night, she drove to the house. It was empty and dark inside. From the porch, she could hear and see the water. She plopped down in a rocker.

For the first time in her life, she owned property in her name. Even her husband didn't know she had purchased the place. He still hadn't figured out she was leaving. She'd tell him eventually.

The house afforded her a sanctuary, a place where she could come and go as she pleased, a place to be alone. She pinched herself. She hadn't experienced that kind of freedom since before she had had her first child at age sixteen.

On a notepad, she scribbled some thoughts: "I don't think my life could be better and I know I have never been happier in my life than I am now, sitting on the porch rocker watching the water go by."

August 29, 1997 Claire considered George Milne a vital player to have on board if the NLDC was going to make a sudden impact. She had to get him to commit, so her pitch had to impress him. But heading into her meeting with Milne, Claire had more on her mind than simply getting him to join the NLDC's board of directors. She'd been doing some thinking. Milne's Groton office was directly across the river from the vacant mill site in New London. It was no secret that Pfizer had outgrown its Groton facility and had been hunting for a large tract of real estate to build more clinical office s.p.a.ce. Never one to miss an opportunity, Claire planned to make the most of her one-on-one audience with the man ultimately in charge of site selection for Pfizer's new home. She figured that luring Pfizer to a contaminated brownfield was a pipe dream, but she had to ask.

Milne welcomed her warmly and listened politely as she explained in more detail the plan to revive the NLDC as an agency committed to helping reverse New London's economic misfortunes. She rattled off the names and credentials of those who had already pledged to join the agency's board. But, Claire explained, the one thing she didn't have in the NLDC's ranks was the CEO of a major corporation.

Milne needed more information to understand why a local development agency needed a major corporate executive on its board. Claire told him about the New London Mills property, describing it as a splendid piece of acreage sitting dormant right along the river.

"You may even want to think about it for Pfizer," she said.

It was a soft pitch, designed to see if Milne would swing. He didn't. Pfizer's site-selection team had been reviewing potential sites for a year.

"Well, it wouldn't work for us," he said, dismissing the idea at once. "We're down to two sites."

"Well, okay, even if it wouldn't work for you," she said, "you would still be an important person to the board because you would know the kinds of things that a Fortune Fortune 500 company would look for in a building s.p.a.ce." 500 company would look for in a building s.p.a.ce."

Joining another board wasn't something Milne really had time for. His plate at Pfizer was pretty full: decision day was looming for selecting a development site for the new research-and-development facility, and the company was ramping up to put a full-court press on the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to fast-track v.i.a.g.r.a through the approval process. With Pfizer projecting hundreds of millions in revenue from the impotence drug, a lot was riding on the FDA application.

But Claire pressed, stressing the virtues of the NLDC and the fact that she and Steve Percy were already committed to doing what it would take to market the mill property. "It's a great piece of land, and it needs to be developed," she explained. "But the people in the city don't actually know how to do that. We are people who can make this happen."

Milne found it hard to say no. "What's the commitment?" he asked.

"I'm going to tell everybody at the first meeting that we're going to stay together one year," Claire said. "If we can't get something dramatic going in twelve months, we'll abandon."

As a personal favor to Claire, Milne pledged six months. That's a long enough period, he suggested, to determine whether he had anything worthwhile to contribute.

Claire accepted that.

6.

POWER STEERING.

September 10, 1997 Become an RN without cla.s.ses. The advertis.e.m.e.nt on the hospital bulletin board caught Susette's eye. She folded one up and put it in her bag. The advertis.e.m.e.nt on the hospital bulletin board caught Susette's eye. She folded one up and put it in her bag.

After finis.h.i.+ng her EMT s.h.i.+ft, she went home to work on the house. In her mailbox she found a letter from the law firm Conway & Londregan, which had handled the closing on her house. She opened the envelope and found a bunch of papers and a cover letter. "Enclosed you will find your owner's t.i.tle insurance policy," the firm's real-estate paralegal had written. "Please file this with your other important doc.u.ments. If you should have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our office."

Thinking nothing of it, Susette set the policy aside and retrieved the advertis.e.m.e.nt from her bag. The idea of going to school didn't thrill her, but Regents College in Albany, New York, offered a nursing degree through correspondence courses; she'd never have to set foot in a cla.s.sroom. That sounded good to her. After all, she had to find a way to make more money. A nursing career seemed like a natural choice, especially with her education as a paramedic. In a little over a year she could complete the courses and become licensed as a registered nurse.

She decided to apply for admission.

The same day, across town Jay Levin liked what he saw. Under Claire's leaders.h.i.+p, a competent group had already started a.s.sembling around her. Levin knew Steve Percy well-the two were friends. Despite having no track record in large-scale urban renewal, Percy knew a great deal about commercial real estate. Much of the NLDC's time would be spent acquiring properties and redeveloping them, so Percy's connections and experience would be a major a.s.set. Levin didn't know Milne well, but he certainly knew his reputation. As Levin had promised Claire, all necessary paperwork had been filed with the secretary of state to reestablish the NLDC as a legitimate nonprofit agency. Levin prepared a confidential memo to Peter Ellef in order to update him. Levin's contract with Ellef didn't include scoping out the old mill site for development possibilities. In fact, the mill site was a long way from the pier area that the governor had his eye on. But it didn't take an insider to realize that the governor would welcome a Fortune Fortune 500 company at the mill site. 500 company at the mill site.

"A focused development vision is already emerging," Levin told Ellef. "As you are also aware (and we are pleased to have happen) we have pursued additional projects for you." He continued: "Although not originally our primary concern, these efforts have involved extensive diplomacy with City officials and discovery of facts relating to the apparently collapsed Ocean Quest project at 3690 Pequot Avenue.

"Of additional significance is the rapid revitalization of the New London Development Corporation under the direction of Dr. Claire Gaudiani, President of Connecticut College."

Levin a.s.sured Ellef that he would personally draft the new by-laws for the NLDC. "City leaders are divided on its relevance and Dr. Gaudiani's leaders.h.i.+p," he wrote, "but we will work with you and the Governor's office to insure it ... carry out the ultimate plan approved by you and the Governor."

Levin requested more money for all the extra work. "Difficult local personalities and circ.u.mstances rendered our time frame overly ambitious," he explained. "Yet we believe that we have the vehicle to carry the project into the future, but we need to strongly manage the final production of that New London Development Corporation vehicle."

The word "vehicle" was appropriate. Levin had put the governor in the driver's seat in New London. And by carefully managing Gaudiani, the state would be able to control the project from Hartford, steering around the Democratic-controlled city government.

Ellef approved another hundred-thousand-dollar payment to Levin.

It didn't take Claire long to figure out that her primary opponent in New London was Democratic Party chairman Tony Basilica. Although Levin's efforts to appease Basilica had failed, Claire decided to reach out to him. She called his office and left a message inviting him to the NLDC's first board meeting, explaining it would be organizational in nature in order to map out the agency's vision and objectives.

A few days later she got a voice-mail message from Basilica, telling her he didn't give his permission for such a meeting. Claire didn't let that stop her. She knew plenty of Italian American men who thought Italian women needed their permission. She called his office back and left an equally direct message: the meeting would go on, and he was still welcome to attend.

September 19, 1997 Claire convened the NLDC's first board meeting in a downtown building. After her rousing pep talk, the group elected officers and issued committee a.s.signments. George Milne and Steve Percy agreed to co-chair the commercial-development committee. Tops on their to-do list was mapping out what it would take to attract a major corporation to the mill site. Milne decided he needed to see the site to get a better feel for its potential. Claire had never actually seen the site either. Percy agreed to take them to it.

Milne wasn't quite sure what to say when he first set foot on the property. It had been described to him as exquisite, but all he saw was acres of weeds and litter. The site looked a lot like a dump. It smelled like one, too. The neighborhood contained a big sewer-treatment facility, which essentially consisted of some oversized cesspools. Under the summer heat, the plant threw off a horrific odor.

"It smelled like you were in a toilet with someone who had a terrible illness," Claire said.

Milne observed another problem: a huge sc.r.a.p-metal junkyard next door to the mill site. The place was an eyesore and no doubt had its own environmental issues with oil, grease, rubber, and other contaminants. Even the nearby historic Fort Trumbull was in shambles. Its overgrown brush and neglected buildings cast a depressing shadow on the entire landscape.

By the time Milne left, he had serious concerns about the prospects of marketing the site. "The whole setting was not particularly attractive," he said. "It was one with enormous liabilities."

Just the price tag for environmental remediation would scare off most corporations. Then there was the issue of indemnification. No company would settle into a site without some guarantees that it would not be liable for previous contamination. Milne saw other problems, too. "The whole environment was so unattractive that it was unlikely that any serious investor would ever come in," he said.

Claire heard all that. But she remained convinced that a junkyard could be erased. A sewer plant could be upgraded and capped if necessary. A fort could be refurbished and even turned into a tourist attraction. And soil could be removed and replaced. To her, the bottom line was that twenty-four acres of waterfront real estate weren't easy to come by. This land was ready to be had. It was simply too valuable to give up on.

While Milne stressed that all these costs were simply too much for a corporation to take on, Claire relied on her other strength-finding money. Jay Levin had given her reason to antic.i.p.ate state a.s.sistance. "Jay said to me, 'Ellef promised that you are forty-eight hours away from a face-to-face with the governor if you can bring a Fortune Fortune 500 company to that land,'" Claire said. 500 company to that land,'" Claire said.

This made the prospect of state funding real. It also got Milne focused on what kind of state commitment was necessary. "My entire focus," he explained, "was on trying to answer the question: 'If this was the one key empty piece of land and a.s.set that might attract major commercial development, what would have to happen to make that even plausible?'" He agreed to compile a list.

Privately, Claire hadn't given up on the idea of Pfizer ultimately landing on the mill site. Although Milne had offered her no hope that that would happen, three things remained true: Pfizer needed land; the city had land; and the state had the power and the resources to make that land financially attractive. There was still a long way to go, but once Milne identified the needs, the governor simply had to be convinced to fill them.

Claire had more ambition than both men. She came from a family of high achievers who were all about overcoming long odds. Her grandfather Augusto had arrived in the United States from Italy in 1889. Determined to become a doctor, he had attended Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and become the school's first Italian American graduate. He opened his practice in East Harlem, where he had an endless number of patients who spoke his native language.

Augusto and his wife, Rosa, clung to their Italian heritage. They spoke, ate, and prayed in Italian. Yet all six of their children were taught to speak perfect English outside the home. Together Augusto and Rosa helped Italian immigrants get into college and medical school; they helped found Cabrini Hospital; and they helped start schools for immigrant children in New York City. In 1919, with Rosa stricken with pneumonia, Augusto turned to his best friend for help. Dr. Vincent Gaudiani, a brilliant Italian American surgeon who had received his medical training in Rome, saved Rosa by operating on her at home. Augusto and Rosa went on to have one more daughter, Vera, who grew up and married Gaudiani's son, Vincent Jr., himself a doctor.

Vincent Gaudiani Jr. and Vera had six children. Claire was the eldest. Her father had a profound influence on her. Highly educated and an extremely demanding perfectionist, Dr. Gaudiani wasn't satisfied when Claire came home from school with a 98 on a test. If any other student had a 98 or higher, Claire had not done well enough. He taught her an order of priorities: ambition, focus, and intensity.

Claire's life became a quest to satisfy personal drives and ambitions. Everywhere she went she broke barriers and stirred controversy. At Indiana University, she became the first married woman with a child to complete a Ph.D. in the French and Italian department. The department had to take an unprecedented vote to grant special permission when Claire insisted on breast-feeding her baby during her doctoral exams.

Getting Pfizer to New London was just another barrier to clear.

7.

WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

September 27, 1997 Her red hair tucked under a wide-brim sunhat, Susette rested on her hands and knees on the sidewalk in front of her house, surrounded by piles of weeds she had dug up. Sweating within a long-sleeved s.h.i.+rt, she yanked on a root as she heard a car pull up behind her. Remaining on all fours, she looked over her shoulder. A s.h.i.+ny Jaguar stopped at the curb, a few feet from her.

A middle-aged man wearing jeans and a loose-fitting, short-sleeved T-s.h.i.+rt got out.

"I heard this place got bought up," he said, looking down on her.

She stood up. "Yeah, I bought it," she said, wiping the sweat from her face. "Who are you?"

"Billy," he said. "Billy Von Winkle. I own some buildings in the neighborhood."