Hundreds of power brokers past, present, and (they hope) future converged on New Haven for the opening of Yale-New Haven’s new 14-story cancer hospital, as its top doc held out hope for eliminating the disease for good.
The festive ribbon-cutting at the new $467 million Smilow Cancer Hospital took place late Wednesday afternoon on York Street. Pictured: Eponymous benefactor Joel Smilow, a retired Playtex Product CEO; Joan Smilow; and Yale-New Haven Hospital CEO Marna Borgstrom. The 497,000 square-foot hospital includes 168 inpatient beds, a breast care center, and 12 operating rooms. (Click here for more background details.)
“We cure more than half of all human cancer. Let’s think of how we will cure all of human cancer,” Thomas J. Lynch (pictured) told some 500 movers and shakers filling folding chairs and surrounding aisles below the dramatic steel-and-glass canopy outside Smilow’s entrance. Lynch came here from Boston to serve as physician-in-chief of Smilow, which sees its first patient Monday. Lynch said that a “revolution in genetics” gives him hope that we will “find a cure for cancer in our lifetime.” (Read more about Lynch here.)
That pursuit will take place in part among Yale medical school researchers working alongside colleagues at Smilow. Medical school Dean Robert J. Alpern (pictured schmoozing with New Haven State Rep. Pat Dillon during the refreshments portion of the event) told the crowd that Yale’s launching an affiliated 20,000-plus square-foot cancer biology institute at its West Campus (in West Haven). It plans to recruit 12 new faculty members to work on finding new cancer treatments.
The new center’s mission was personified by Bonnie Kaplan Tymniak, who has survived three separate bouts of cancer at Yale-New Haven. Her speech elicited a standing ovation. “I watched the building being built as an inpatient, thinking of all the lives that were going to be saved,” Tymniak said.
The event had its share of political ambition and appearance-making as well as medical striving. The ubiquitous Rob Simmons — one of (count ‘em!) five Republicans already vying for a chance to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd a year from now — made it, and stuck around. In a conversation during the mingling portion of the event, he took shots at Dodd for his “behind-closed-doors” leadership role in crafting health-care reform. He also called for putting tort reform and “all” other “options” “on the table” in the reform debate. Click on the play arrow to watch him discuss whether the first was a cheap shot, and whether he’d support keeping a public option insurance plan on the table, too.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell proclaimed the new hospital a “jewel” for New Haven and a part of a medical “economic engine” for Connecticut’s economy. (Combined with two nearby related developments, the hospital will create an estimated 400 long-term jobs.) Talk about the healing power of a health care photo op: Rell even had kind words for her erstwhile gubernatorial campaign opponent, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano …
… who returned the compliment. In his remarks to the crowd, DeStefano (pictured sitting front-row center between Yale-New Haven Board Chair Joseph R. Crespo and hospital board member Bishop Theodore L. Brooks) praised Rell for the second day in a row for paying the tab for the new downtown Gateway Community College campus. He made nice with hospital officials with whom he once sparred over the terms of building the cancer hospital. “We have come to know each other a little better,” he said. He also plugged his school reform drive as a top-shelf economic development and “violence-reduction strategy.”
Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Jim Amann got a shout-out from Borgstrom as he sat in a row — appropriately, at the far right end — beside, from left, fellow Democrats State Rep. Juan Candelaria, Alderwoman Alfreda Edwards, State Sen. Martin Looney, and State Rep. Dillon.
Nearby up-and-coming New Haven Democrats Alderman Joseph Rodriguez and State Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield took in the scene, beside, at right, Alderman Gerald Antunes.
Off to the side, longtime New Haven Register editorial page chief Charles Kochakian compared notes with Chamber of Commerce chief Anthony Resicgno …
… while regional NAACP President and Yale-New Haven community-health point man James Rawlings (at right in photo) checked in with Bishop Brooks.
For decades Yale-New Haven’s Board of Directors has served as a who’s who’s of New Haven’s corporate and educational power brokers. Longtime board member Julia McNamara of Albertus Magnus College made the event Wednesday …
… as did faces from the past such as retired banker Patrick McFadden …
… and hospital CEO Borgstrom’s predecessor, Joe Zaccagnino. With the white tents set up on the grounds, the old handshakes and crowd-spotting, with U2’s “Beautiful Day” blaring from speakers, it felt almost like a homecoming football game.
The Rev. Boise Kimber showed up, of course …
… as did lifelong Hill activist and former Alderman Anthony Dawson. A lieutenant in Yale-New Haven’s security force, Dawson helped keep watch over the crowd, as well as over Joel Smilow’s car …
… while State Rep. Dillon was overheard conferring with Economic Development Corporation chief Michelle Whelley about the future of the soon-to-be-abandoned Staples store on Whalley Avenue.
They schmoozed near a water wall that greets visitors inside the lobby’s entrance, courtesy of donors Helaine and Marvin Lender.
I just want to comment on the building itself. Because we all know fighting cancer is a good thing and having this facility is a great thing.
But the building... as I watched it go up everyday and saw the siding I was a bit concerned with it's appearance (like the god ugly yellow one next to it) but as they started to to the end and the street scape level of the building was reveled I have to say it is quit a pleasing building to look at. Good job to the group that designed it.