Fred and Minnie at ground breaking ceremony for 1 Dixwell Plaza, Sept 22, 1965.

y 1963, my father's office at 84 Dixwell Avenue was scheduled for demolition. The 80-plus-year-old building was going to be torn down as part of the Redevelopment Agency's renewal plans for the Dixwell area.

While talking to my father in the Agency's Dixwell Project Office, one day, the head of the agency proposed to my father that he and my mother develop a 47,000-square-foot site. It was determined a complex with 22 apartments and two professional offices could be developed on the site at a cost of about $330,000.

The site was part of a plaza that was to be the centerpiece of Dixwell Renewal.

It was across the street from the Dixwell Shopping Center. It would form one point in the base of a triangle of buildings that also included the new Dixwell Avenue United Church of Christ, with the new Dixwell Community House at the top of the triangle. The plaza was in between.

If developed completely with private money, my parents would have had to come up with about a third of the total cost. However, with assistance provided by the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), they would only have to provide 10 percent, still a sizable amount of money, especially in 1963 dollars. The final cost of the project was $362,000.

My father wrote, "I went home and told Minnie about it. She thought a minute and said very solemnly, 'We could cash (in) your annuity. You know the community needs this and we're a part of it.'"