Save Mercer Building on State Street
For a few years, it has seemed like there couldn’t be a more exciting project for New London in the works than the proposal to combine the Garde Arts Center with a new magnet arts high school.
But with demolition of a State Street landmark building now in the plan, I’m not so sure.
The combined school and arts center is, first, an ambitious education program — putting students with an interest in the arts in the midst of an active arts center, participating in live productions and learning at the same time.
It could be groundbreaking and become another facet from which the city’s new magnet school system might shine.
The program also is exciting for the way it would integrate a new school into the downtown, an urban outreach that would bring students, parents and faculty into a new environment.
They, in turn, would enliven the downtown.
Finally, it would help the Garde sustain its commitment to be a vibrant performing arts hub for the region.
The legislature has committed $31 million to make the downtown arts school happen.
So with all the promise this project offers, I was more than disappointed to hear schools Superintendent Manuel J. Rivera tell The Day’s editorial board this week that current plans for the new arts high school envision tearing down the Garde’s Mercer Building on State Street.
The plans originally called for the 1926 Mercer Building, about the same age as the Garde and a prominent part of the streetscape of upper State Street, to be rebuilt and reused as part of the project.
The Garde purchased the Mercer Building in 1993 with some of the proceeds from an $803,000 urban development project grant from the state for an expansion of the arts center.
It has remained largely unrenovated.
Rivera told the editorial board that he brought in some architects who suggested it would be cheaper and simpler to tear down the Mercer Building and build something in its place to accommodate all the school space needs.
So demolition and a new building is now the plan, he said.
Steve Sigel, executive director of the Garde, told me the directors of the arts center have gone along with the new school plan for demolition of the Mercer Building.
The arts center would give the city a long-term lease on the property.
How sad that New London, once again, might become host to bulldozers, whistled in in the name of progress.
Even Claire Gaudiani, the former president of Connecticut College,
who, as head of the New London Development Corp., presided over the destruction of an entire neighborhood, did her best to preserve the majesty of State Street.
Indeed, the college, in addition to buying some of the big State Street buildings, installed downtown classrooms in the Mercer Building.
Among all the laments of all the things that have gone wrong in New London, I can’t think of any more persistent over the years than the regret about all the demolition that took place downtown in the name of urban renewal.
What’s left of the Whaling City’s once great architectural heritage is largely up and down Bank and State streets.
To allow any more of it to be torn down is, I think, truly a crime.
There are lots of creative ways to gut the inside of the Mercer Building, build hidden new floors on top, away from the façade, in the name of preservation.
But if they can’t find a way to fit what they need into the existing buildings, then they should find a new location.
Demolishing the downtown is no way to save it. New London has been down that road before, and it didn’t work out well.
I had a subsequent conversation with the school superintendent after his disclosure of the demolition plan, and he seemed understanding of the complaint about destroying a big piece of State Street, a large building that has held that place on that block for almost a century.
He said he would further discuss preserving the Mercer Building with Garde officials and the architects as project planning progresses.
I would suggest all the preservation-minded in the city take it as a call to arms.
The wrecking balls have swung too freely in the city before. But there is also a history of preservation, too.
For evidence of that, you need look no further than the magnificent Henry Hobson Richardson Union Station, at City Pier, and the fine 18th Century Superior Court courthouse at the opposite end of downtown, bookending a still stately State Street.