Thomas MacMillan Photo
Tony Bialecki dropped out of high school to protest the New Haven’s urban renewal-era destruction of neighborhoods.
At the end of this month, Bialecki (pictured) is retiring from a quarter century’s work as an economic development officer, most recently deputy director of the department — inheriting the offices of the planners he protested in his youth.
In that job, he said, he has taken special pleasure in helping to take down some of the behemoths – Macy’s, Malley’s, the Coliseum, the Connector – that were built during the “bad development days.”
On Tuesday morning Bialecki attended the New Haven Development Commision’s regular monthly meeting. As usual, he gave a development update to the commissioners, as he has done for years.
It would turn out to be his last.
Cowan (right) with her boss, Kelly Murphy.
Towards meeting’s end he introduced Latoya Cowan (pictured on right), the department’s latest hire, and the representative from the economic development department to the meeting beginning in July.
That’s because Bialecki’s final day at his desk will be June 28.
After the announcement, which came at the very end of the meeting right before adjournment, you could sense a hushed mini-wave of shock ripple through the room among the commissioners, who have enjoyed his genial stewardship of the meetings, along with ready answers to their queries.
Whoa, someone called as commissioners stood up from their chairs and began to pack up their briefcases.
Commissioner Pedro Soto called the meeting back to order expressly to thank Bialecki for his years of service “to the city and this commission,” and to have that appreciation be part of the meeting’s proceedings and minutes.
A round of hearty applause followed.
“You see my tears,” remarked Bialecki’s boss, Kelly Murphy.
Before he went back to his office, Bialecki recollected watching the city disappear in chunks under Mayor Dick Lee’s bulldozers a half-century ago when Bialecki, now 60, was an outspoken high school kid. His dad, Felix Bialecki, walked to work everyday at Bigelow Boilers, one of a number of now-gone factories on River Street that his son would eventually work on turning into a new job-creating district.
“I grew up in New Haven. When I was 17, [it was] the peak of redevelopment days, the late 1960s,” Bialecki said. “I was an activist against Lee’s ‘Model City.’ Community people saw that engineers were running things. In 1968 I dropped out of high school.”
An “UnSchool” Grad
Cowan, commission veep Pedro Soto, and Bialecki.
Bialecki attended a short-lived institution called “The Unschool,” which he said was a teacher-run school in the mold of the original High School in the Community, but a full two years before HSC was established.
He got his G.E.D., then went to the Midwest for college, where he met his wife, MarLou Davis. The two came back to New Haven in 1981. His wife eventually became a teacher. She continues in that role, instructing second graders at the Roberto Clemente Leadership Academy in the Hill.
Bialecki at first worked construction, was part of the union movement at Yale, then spent the better part of his first seven years back in town as a consultant to nascent neighborhood business and community start-up organizations.
He helped establish the Whalley Avenue Special Services District, then similar business improvement districts in Chapel West, and the Ninth Square. The latter eventually morphed into Town Green Special Services District.
Then he went to work for the city’s economic development department in 1988.
“The best part: I got to take down all the bad things from the bad development days.” He cited Macy’s, Malley’s, and the Coliseum as examples.
“But [the really] best part is seeing all the neighborhoods and involvement, the sense of things going on in the community,” he said.
Bialecki says he’s leaving in part because of the pending change in the mayor’s office, but also because he’s 60, has been on this job for a quarter century, and “it’s time.”
Bialecki sent his kids to the public schools. His son Justin has become a New Haven firefighter. His daughter Jess, who played basketball at Wilbur Cross High, went on to graduate near the top of her class at Yale, Bialecki said proudly.
Even better, she’s about to become the principal of a charter school in New Orleans, he added.
Bialecki, who lives in Westville, said he plans to remain in town. In the memo sent to associates he described his tenure with the city as “an incredible run,” and he finds it gratifying to be saying so long with so much development activity under way.
“I love New Haven,” he said.
Pressed about future prospects or projects, he confirmed just the following: “The only thing I’m ruling out is running for mayor.”
Latoya Cowan, who has a background in finance with G.E. Capital and in economic development with the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation, will be sitting in his seat at the commission’s next meeting in July.