He Helped Shape A Reborn Downtown

People attending musicals at the Shubert don’t see John Sawyer’s name on the marquee or in the credits. But he’s part of the reason they’re there.

Sawyer spent half a decade in New Haven overseeing the ushering in of a new era of economic development. The city’s bustling downtown is his legacy.

Sawyer recently died at the age of 72 after he ​“unexpectedly fell ill with an infection of his heart” during a visit to San Francisco and died six weeks later, according to his daughter Sydney Sawyer.

A graduate of Yale College, University of Kentucky Law School, and Harvard Graduate School of Design, and a Navy pilot who served in Vietnam, Sawyer served as the first economic development chief for then-Mayor Biagio DiLieto, who took office in 1980 with a promise to revive the city’s shuttered downtown.

A New Era

It was the Reagan Era in America, when cities could no longer count on the flow of federal dollars that enabled New Haven to demolish and rebuild so much of its landscape in the mid-20th century on its own. Although other forms of assistance — from federal Urban Development Action Grants (“UDAGs”) and historic preservation tax credits — were still available.

Meanwhile, after a historic burst of redevelopment in the 1950s and 1960s, New Haven had settled into a post-urban renewal malaise. Downtown in particular was like a ghost town at night.

Sawyer championed the idea of public-private partnerships, in which targeted government subsidies encouraged private developers to plan and carry out major building projects. And he championed the idea of using tax credits to preserve and renovate historic buildings rather than raze them. He saw government support of the arts (including the formation of Artspace, a group for local artists originally envisioned to occupy a ​“black box” space in the Shubert basement) as an engine to commercial and residential development in the central business district.

The result: the renovation and re-occupation of rundown and largely empty buildings in the College/Chapel Street area, including the reopening of the Shubert and the old Roger Sherman theater (renamed the Palace, and more recently re-reopened as the College Street Music Hall). Deserted downtown became a hot residential neighborhood. He also oversaw plans for the development of the Long Wharf Maritime Center.

“DiLieto’s supercharged development office, headed by John Sawyer and David Holmes, brought energy, experience and development skills back to New Haven,” recalled developer Joel Schiavone, who negotiated and sometimes argued with Sawyer to oversee the College-Chapel rebirth. ​“Thirty-five years later New Haven is a boom town, on the shoulders of John and David. David died five years ago, unnoticed in New Haven. John’s Sawyer’s recent demise I hope will raise a glimmer of appreciation from people in New Haven who are now enjoying the tangible manifestations of their pioneering efforts.”

Sawyer stepped on toes to carry out his plans. He dismantled the Redevelopment Authority apparatus that had dominated city government for decades and built up new departments under his control. Mayor DiLieto shielded him from the patronage demands woven into other city departments’ decision-making and backed him up when critics accused him of giving the private sector too much control over the city’s direction or of ignoring government rules.

Sawyer, prone to raising his voice inches from critics’ faces, had little patience for such critiques, especially coming from reporters or aldermen.

“We have rules in New Haven,” Republican Alderman Jonathan Einhorn said at the time. ​“John looks at the legislative process as something that just gets in his way.”

“Yeah, I’m forceful,” Sawyer responded. ​“Would people prefer that I didn’t get things done?”

The man who holds Sawyer’s New Haven development job today, Matthew Nemerson, was vice-president of the Science Park development just starting in Newhallville in the early 1980s. He remembered ​“being very nervous being ushered into [Sawyer’s] office to try to make a pitch for funding or zoning. He was a force to be reckoned with.

“He played a lot of cards. And he was just a big, big personality. He did a lot of pontificating and screaming and yelling and wouldn’t take no for answer.”

The ​“Rage Button”

To accomplish his goals, Sawyer convened a task force to study how development had been done historically in New Haven, and how to do it better. He created new departments to focus on harbor and downtown development as well as neighborhood development. He recruited top young talent from throughout the city bureaucracy to staff the departments.

Sawyer demanded much and inspired loyalty from staffers like Karen Wies, his deputy. She remembered him as a dynamic, strategic development chief who ​“recognized the untapped potential of the city” and pushed people to excel.

Wies’s assessment: ​“He loved a challenge — OK, a good fight — but was a savvy negotiator and a pragmatic leader with an extraordinary record of success. Legendary for his high temper and low tolerance for fools, he nonetheless sought different points of view and gleefully participated in ​‘vigorous discussions.’ As an inspired thinker, savvy negotiator and fearless leader, John brought people together around projects as diverse as the Shubert Theater and Government Center, and helped us all to make New Haven a better place to live and work.”

“We called it the ​“rage button,’” recalled Karyn Gilvarg, who worked for Sawyer in several capacities. ​“Sometimes people don’t hear you unless you lose your temper.”

She remembered Sawyer as ​“very, very smart, quick at appraising people and understanding things. He had this very broad-based knowledge about politics, finance, construction.”

And he had a ​“sort of Socratic method of mentoring his staff,” Gilvarg recalled. ​“He would ask me: Why do you think [late Democratic Town Chairman] Vinny Mauro did that?’ Or ​“Why do you think [mayoral chief of staff] Joey Carbone did that?’ Trying to get me to figure out what their political motivations were.”

Like other young Sawyer aides, Gilvarg made government a career. Today she serves as New Haven’s City Plan director. She said she stayed in touch with Sawyer and his family through the years. Other aides who went onto successful government careers include Lewis Bower and Ron Kysiak, who ran development offices in Eugene, Oregon and Evanston, Illinois, respectively after leaving New Haven.

After leaving New Haven, Sawyer ​“worked as an entrepreneur in real estate development” and most recently ​“was working on developing assisted living communities in Vermont,” according to daughter Sydney, who contributed the following obituary text:

“John had many passions over the course of his life. In recent years, he became an avid golfer and played in many Boston Amateur Golf Society tournaments. He especially loved spending time with his wife, his children and grandchildren, watching Boston sports, singing and traveling with the Yale Alumni Chorus and singing with his church choir.

“For 49 years, he was the beloved husband of Susan Dreyfus Sawyer, loving father of Dr. Sydney Kathryn Sawyer (husband Michael Scanlon) and John ​‘Jay’ Porter Sawyer III (wife Sharyn Sawyer). He was the cherished grandfather of Andrew, Isla and Emma Scanlon and Jameson and Liam Sawyer. He is also survived by his brothers, Chris Sawyer of Palm Bay, FL and William Sawyer of Louisville, KY. He will be dearly missed.

“A memorial service will be held at The First Congregational Church at 21 Church St, Winchester, MA 01890 on Sunday June 12th at 2 p.m. In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made to The Heifer Project International or The Wounded Warrior Project.”