New London — The claw of an excavator tore into the side of a nine-story Crystal Avenue high-rise apartment building on Wednesday, marking the end of an era in the city.

It was the ceremonial start of demolition for the 124-unit Thames River Apartments, which had for decades been the source of complaints of substandard living conditions by the families that had lived there.

Mayor Michael Passero marked the occasion with a news conference, saying it was with mixed emotions that this chapter in New London’s history was coming to an end. While hundreds of families had raised their children here in the decades after it opened in 1967, it was also an example of a failed government policy in an era of urban renewal that forced low-income families to live in an industrial zone.

Thames River Apartments was a federally subsidized complex managed by the New London Housing Authority that was a constant source of complaints about crime and poor living conditions. It is surrounded by commercial and industrial facilities, in the shadow of the Gold Star Memorial Bridge and within view of the city’s transfer station.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development had cited the housing authority on various occasions for violations in upkeep of the buildings through the years. The housing authority was taken to task in a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of residents by the Reardon Law Firm in New London. The suit started with the case of a resident and single mother of five, who in 2003 had fallen in a puddle of urine and was injured in the hallway inside one of the buildings.

The lawsuit claimed “substandard, dangerous and uninhabitable conditions” and cited police statistics showing that in the six years preceding the lawsuit, police had reported more than 3,000 incidents and 300 arrests at the complex that included robberies, assaults, sex crimes and drug and weapons cases.

The suit led to a court-stipulated agreement in 2014 that the housing authority needed to act and provide better homes for residents. Under pressure from Reardon and tenants, the city joined with the housing authority on the effort to vacate the buildings and gain federal housing vouchers for tenants. The last of the more than 300 tenants moved out in 2018.

Attorney Robert Reardon, whose firm represented the tenants pro bono, was present at Wednesday’s news conference to hail the demolition as a victory. “We found it was a community of people that cared about one another," he said. "Unfortunately, over time the buildings outlived their purpose. It was necessary to do something about that."

“This is a good example of why a class action does work for the benefit of society. Not all the time, as we know, but certainly under the circumstance of this case,” he added.

New London City Council President Efrain Dominguez lived at Thames River Apartments for 19 years during the 1980s and 1990s.

"I'll tell you one thing: I have many, many fond memories of this place," he said. "Here is where I began to learn how to speak English. Here is where I learned to how to play basketball, how to play football..."

It wasn’t until after he moved out that Dominguez was able to look on the complex in a new light. “Coming from the outside now, I looked and said to myself, ‘Why would anyone build a building behind a bridge, behind a waste center?’ It just didn’t dawn on me," he said. "It took me a while to understand the reality of things.”

“This is a chapter here we’re closing in the city of New London,” he said.

Among the crowd watching the demolition from the courtyard of the apartment complex was Fred Cleveland, 56, who had lived in the high-rises from age 13 to 20. It was a place where “everybody knew everybody.”

“It taught me a lot about life, living in this quote-unquote ghetto,” Cleveland said. “I learned how to be a man, how strong you’ve got to be. It was considered a ghetto because it was a bad area of town, Crystal Avenue, the drugs and whatnot. But it was home.”

He questioned whether the demolition and future use of the property might somehow benefit residents in poverty, like the families who once lived there.

The demolition by Stamford Wrecking Co. is expected to be completed by the end of the May at a cost of more than $4 million, all but $700,000 being funded by the state. Passero said that once it is cleaned up, the land would become marketable to a tax-paying entity.

g.smith@theday.com