State Street Exhibit
Commerce and Culture: Architecture and Society on New London’s State Street was an exhibit on display at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum from October 2005 to April 2006. Mounted by guest curator, Abigail Van Slyck, Dayton Associate Professor of Architectural History at Connecticut College, she put the students of her architectural history senior seminar to work scouting out...
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Click on the map year for zoomable Maps of State Street.
1850 • 1868 • 1884 • 1901 • 1912 • 1921 • 1951
A Century of Change
Stretching uphill from the harbor to the dignified courthouse built in 1784, State Street has been the organizing spine of New London since the town’s founding in 1646. Yet,...
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Installed in 1973, Captain’s Walk was a bold attempt to revitalize State Street as shoppers began to abandon downtown stores in favor of automobile-oriented malls. From Washington Street to Main Street (renamed Eugene O’Neill Drive), this pedestrian mall was fitted out with planters, benches, kiosks, and awnings all carefully designed to enhance the shopper’s...
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Long residential in character, the upper end of State Street was transformed into a green and leafy bower in the second half of the 19th century. While lower State Street accommodated the commercial activities and avenues of vice that Victorians associated with the masculine realm of the city, upper State Street was devoted to...
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The New London County Historical Society has collections in several areas of interest to those wishing to learn more about the county in earlier days. The largest collection is of photographs, both of people connected with the county and of various scenes in it.
Information on this area of our collection will be updated soon.
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Once known as Buttonwood Corner (after the sycamore tree that stood on the site until 1856), the intersection of State and Main streets was the heart of New London’s commercial district in the second half of the 19th century. Throughout these decades, the area was transformed in extent and character.
Eager to locate businesses along...
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The Parade—the open triangle of space at the foot of State Street—has long been a focal point for intense activity. Initially serving as a market square, by the middle of the 19th-century it came to function as New London’s transportation hub.
As civic leaders began to perceive the Parade as the gateway to downtown New...
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