Recently, author Jeff Benedict has proposed that to move forward from the Fort Trumbull eminent domain fiasco, New London forego the “fair market value price tag and offer building lots for 'one dollar' to the seven individuals whose properties were part of the landmark case." However, doing so would assign the penance of the city’s past transgressions to the city’s taxpayers and would continue to erase the faces of residents who were not part of the case but were still affected by it. 

Fort Trumbull residents were quite simply not what the city wanted in its backyard as it courted corporate suitors.

Rather than stand behind its Whalers, the city forced them to walk the plank. Little did residents such as my mother know that when they signed away the deeds, they signed confessions to being weeds? How else to explain that more than a decade later not one 2x4 has ever been placed on top of the dust of former homes? 

The city’s eminent domain history has been reimagined in a sentimental way that erases the lives of all who lived it. The pink house has devolved into a white lie. In order to move forward, the city has to stop pretending that it had altruistic goals in mind that didn’t come with the high price of selling out all who sold.

Jose Gonzalez

Waterford