From Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary,'' in GoLocal24.com:

I’ve long been fond of New London,  Conn., with its dramatic setting where the Thames River meets Long Island Sound, with its ferry service to Orient Point and Block Island, the submarine base across the river in Groton, the Coast Guard Academy, Connecticut College and other institutions. The city still has some glorious old – but badly maintained -- downtown buildings constructed in its ocean-shipping days, which included the whaling boom. But there’s not been the sort of architectural preservation that has saved much of downtown New Bedford, with a somewhat similar history as New London’s, from the wrecking ball.

To help protect and repair its gorgeous old downtown buildings, New London, as David Collins, of the local paper, The Day, has suggested, needs a downtown historic district as rigorous as New Bedford’s. It would then benefit more strongly from tourism and other synergies associated with its role as a ferry port through which many thousands of travelers, tourists and students go every year.