[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 184 (Wednesday, December 9, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Page S12802]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         REMEMBERING ABE POLLIN

  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to the life and 
legacy of my friend Abe Pollin. He was a businessman, community leader, 
philanthropist, familyman. He was someone who simply made our community 
and our Nation a better place.
  Abe was a great man who did great things. But he did it without a lot 
of fanfare. He was a team owner who thought first about the community 
that supported his teams. He was an employer who didn't treat his 
athletes or his employees as commodities--but as members of his team.
  Abe Pollin was also a developer. But he didn't just invest in 
buildings, he invested in communities. He built one of the first big 
apartment buildings in Bethesda, named after his beloved wife Irene, 
long before Bethesda became the vibrant downtown that it is today. He 
never lost faith in Washington--building the MCI Center, now the 
Verizon Center, in the mid 1990s--which led to the revival of downtown 
Washington.
  Here in the DC Metro area, there are few community organizations that 
did not benefit from his advice, his philanthropy or his leadership. 
Abe made our region a better place, and will be greatly missed.
  My thoughts and prayers are with the Pollin family--his wife Irene, 
who is a founding mother of the effort to empower women to fight heart 
disease, and his children and grandchildren. I will be forever grateful 
for the Pollin family's early support of a young city council woman 
from Baltimore who wanted to run for Congress. Abe Pollin was one of my 
earliest supporters, and his faith in me meant a great deal.
  Last night, thousands of people gathered at the Verizon Center to 
celebrate Abe Pollin's life. His legacy is a community that is 
stronger, more vibrant--and simply a better place to live.

                          ____________________