Let them eat cake because “we don’t want to be surrounded by tenements”

November 11th, 2009 by stacyherbert

Stacy Summary: My mother was a scientist for Pfizer, so I spent many a childhood summer day at this facility in Groton.  The whole area smells like a giant petri dish but one could hardly classify anywhere in this area as having ‘tenements’ . . . unless, of course, you are one of the select Marie Antoinettes that live off the increasingly generous government purse.

But Pfizer executive David Burnett thought New London needed to do some more cleaning. “Pfizer wants a nice place to operate,” the Hartford Courant quoted Burnett in 2001. “We don’t want to be surrounded by tenements.” The old Victorian houses in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood next door did not match Pfizer’s vision – a high-rise hotel or luxury condominiums would be more fitting.

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