Demolishing failed legacy

Not all history is worth preserving in a tangible form and we suspect no one will shed tears when the Thames River Apartments are demolished.

New London moved closer to that day with the announcement this week that the city is seeking bids for the environmental cleanup and demolition of the high-rise apartments, located on 12 acres of property not far from State Pier. Rezoned as commercial and industrial, ideally the property can be redeveloped and generating tax dollars for New London before long.

According to Mayor Michael Passero, the buildings could be gone by this spring.

Often referred to by the grimmer, informal name “Crystal Avenue projects,” the 124-unit apartment complex is a legacy of urban renewal and the 1960s’ War on Poverty.

First, an entire neighborhood was lost to the Winthrop Cove Urban Renewal project. Rather than seek avenues to revive this predominantly African-American neighborhood of roughly 700 families, with its substandard housing, the wisdom of the time was to demolish and abolish it.

Many of those displaced families would end up in the Thames River Apartments public housing. It was newer, cleaner and affordable

— the intentions were good. But time would prove that warehousing people suffering under the same economic hardships, with many terrorized by the drug trade that would arise in response to the privations, was a doomed social experiment.

As infrastructure deteriorated and funding failed to keep up with maintenance needs, conditions grew increasingly unlivable. In 2004, led by the pro bono work of New London attorney Robert I. Reardon Jr. and his law firm, tenants sued the New London Housing Authority to force it to fix the situation or find residents new housing.

It was a long legal fight, with numerous twists and turns, but through the efforts of Mayor Passero, his administration, and the housing authority, it finally resulted in residents receiving Section 8 housing vouchers from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to find privately owned apartments. The last tenants left in 2018.

The nation has learned how not to provide affordable housing. Mixed housing combining those of various socioeconomic circumstances has proved the better model.

The next challenge is demolishing the barriers that prevent such housing from being distributed throughout our local communities.