Museum’s best potential is at Fort Trumbull

The interview with retired Adm. Robert Papp July 30 is sobering, all “true, true and related.”

The project is not a slam-dunk, probably will proceed as currently envisioned, and may well be sited in the wrong place.

This well-deserved project was originally proposed to be sited, with work done by the Coast Guard Alumni Association, at Fort Trumbull , actually at the exact site of the former Kelo property.

Then came “The Troubles,” and they unfortunately withdrew. That was then. This is now. Fort Trumbull, with its history of the Revenue Cutter Service and ultimately of the U.S. Coast Guard going back to Alexander Hamilton and the 1790s, should be the site of the National Coast Guard Museum. And it still can be. New London could exchange the waterfront site for a comparable or larger site near the water at Fort Trumbull, probably without even losing the architectural plans for the museum, enhancing its attraction and effectiveness for itself and city.

And, I predict, many “potential major donors” would open their wallets to this revised project.

I have no special knowledge of what is going on here, but I have been a New London observer and participant for 54 years. Enough with “potential.” Let’s get something done, something of which to be proud. Dr. George A. Sprecace New London