Susette Kelo's Story

"For public use--for a bridge or a road or a school or a hospital--that's bad enough," says Ms. Kelo over tea at the kitchen table of her little house at 8 East Street in the Fort Trumbull section of the city. "But you add insult to injury if somebody else can live here. That's exactly what they plan on doing here. Making it so somebody else can live here." But "I live on East Street. I live on East Street. Why can't I live here?"

...Ms. Kelo's picturesque home on East Street is like thousands of clapboard New England cottages found in towns up and down the Atlantic coast--with one distinguishing feature: It stands in the middle of nowhere, on a treeless block that has been razed and cleared. Most of Ms. Kelo's neighbors moved out years ago, after receiving their condemnation notices. "As soon as [the development corporation] acquired a property, they'd come in here and tear it down. So when you'd go to court it would be a moot point because there would be nothing left to fight for."