Snapshots From the Connecticut Sub Trail

BILL MEMORIAL LIBRARY, GROTON

If there's any place in the world where the marriage of submarines and public art makes perfect sense, it's southeastern Connecticut. The only thing that's surprising about the CT Sub Trail is that it didn't happen earlier. But as it turns out, the timing is perfect: these 21 roly-poly little subs were created as a part of the celebration of Connecticut's Submarine Century. In the tradition of cows, guitars, apples, and hundreds of other themed objects, the fiberglass subs (designed by local artists and unveiled in Groton on the 4th of July) will be on display around the region through October.

The subs are stationed at schools, museums, and businesses. You can locate them using the CT Sub Trail mobile app. I went looking for a few of them and found a colorful and creative expression of appreciation for Connecticut's history, shoreline, and military and maritime heritage.

BILL MEMORIAL LIBRARY, GROTON

CHILDREN'S MUSEUM OF SOUTHEASTERN CONNECTICUT, NIANTIC

CHILDREN'S MUSEUM OF SOUTHEASTERN CONNECTICUT, NIANTIC

CITY PIER, NEW LONDON

CITY PIER, NEW LONDON

ROUTE 32, UNCASVILLE

COCA-COLA BOTTLING CO. OF SOUTHEASTERN NEW ENGLAND, WATERFORD

COCA-COLA BOTTLING CO. OF SOUTHEASTERN NEW ENGLAND, WATERFORD

LESTERTOWN ROAD, GROTON

LESTERTOWN ROAD, GROTON

WWII NATIONAL SUBMARINE MEMORIAL, GROTON

295 MERIDIAN STREET, GROTON

ELLA T. GRASSO TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL, GROTON

BANK SQUARE BOOKS, MYSTIC

BANK SQUARE BOOKS, MYSTIC

UCONN-AVERY POINT, GROTON

BANK SQUARE BOOKS, MYSTIC

The Wait Is Over

Most people, if asked to imagine a sidewalk situated between some busy train tracks and a nuclear power plant, would picture something pretty unappealing. Those who have been to Niantic recently, however, might conjure up something like this.

The mile-long Niantic Bay Boardwalk, having been under construction for seemingly forever (it was damaged by hurricanes Irene and Sandy) is now finally fully open. That means walkers can access the boardwalk from both Hole-in-the-Wall Beach and Cini Park, and stroll the length of it uninterrupted by orange cones, warning signs, or wire fences.

As you walk along the boardwalk, seagulls strutting below and Acela trains speeding by above, there are signs explaining various facets of Niantic's past and the ecology of the region. There are steps down to the beach, as well, if you want to get off the concrete and onto the sand.

The new boardwalk was built to withstand harsh coastal storms, and there is something inherently New England about the way it encourages visitors to appreciate this area's subtly astonishing beauty - even as commuters whoosh past to more exciting destinations and industry lurks in the distance - while we can, before we're all swept away.

The Smith-Harris House

I discovered the Smith-Harris House (a.k.a. the Thomas Avery House) by accident.

Really by a series of accidents, too many and too boring to relate.

Let's just say that if a character in a movie was having a day as comically pathetic as my day was, she would have ended it by meeting the love of her life, not finding a 19th century house. 

The house, built around 1845, was sold to the town of East Lyme in 1955. Then it was boarded up and ignored - except by vandals, who targeted it until the town thought it might be easier to just tear it down. But some citizens of East Lyme fought for its preservation, and in 1976 it opened as a museum.

That's all anyone can hope for, I think: sometimes you find good places by accident, and occasionally some people believe in things everyone else has given up on.

By the way, this is my 500th post on The Size of Connecticut. There's no actual significance to that number; it's not as if when I publish the post a light goes off above my head and I get a free ice cream, like at Stew Leonard's. Yet somehow, I couldn't let that fact go unmentioned.

Grace, Niantic

Maybe it's because too many of my formative years were spent in Fairfield County, but few things make me as happy as a good shopping discovery.

When I walked into Grace in Niantic, I was not expecting much. What I was expecting was a slew of that tacky, touristy junk you find in gift shops in so many coastal towns. Or, worse, the $250 brightly patterned tunic blouses you find in gift shops in so many other coastal towns.

But what I found instead was the kind of store you wander into and instantly feel compelled to buy all the clothing (arranged by color!) and the accessories (so cute; probably meant for girls half my age) and the adorable inexpensive ceramics. I actually stood for a minute with my hand on the cover of a pretty book about juice fasting, wondering if I needed it. (Fasting, I need. A decorative volume explaining it, probably not so much.)

I resisted, mostly. If I'd had more money, it could have gotten out of hand.

I Want Candy

Gumdrops and Lollipops is old school - it's not just a candy shop, it's a candy shoppe. But not in a pretentious way. It's really a classic, old-fashioned little seaside purveyor of fudge and chocolate and every kind of colorful sugary thing you could want.

And it's in Niantic, which is probably tied with Stonington for the top spot in the "Connecticut places I blather on about way too much" category.

There's also ice cream. And yogurt (which I've heard is very good and I intend to try) and smoothies and other wonderfully cold things.

(If you saw me in person you'd probably think "You do not need any candy." But here's the secret about candy: if you take pictures of it instead of eating it, it has no calories.)

You Never Miss the Water Till the Well Runs Dry

That's pretty old, right?

Yes, it is - it's the Thomas Lee House, "one of the oldest wood frame houses in Connecticut in its primitive state," according to the East Lyme Historical Society. I wasn't planning to write yet another post about yet another old weathered building reminiscent of a simpler time and all that, but then the rain got in the way of what I was going to write about. And then I saw this place; I'd seen it before, but this time, for some reason, I had to turn around and stop for it, and walk across this lawn, soaking the bottom 3 or 4 inches of my jeans and probably damaging my shoes and exposing my feet to whatever horrors lurk in the grasses of East Lyme.

And of course there's a schoolhouse. When I get it together I'm going to update the categories on this blog, and one of them is going to be Schoolhouses, because at this point they're just finding me.

The Little Boston School was called that because "the quality of the education was considered to be comparable to that of Boston." Which I guess was their version of T-shirts reading, "East Lyme, the Harvard of Southeastern Connecticut." Classes were held here until 1922.

There's also a well! You don't see too many of them around here, surprisingly - or maybe not; I suppose many people would see no reason to preserve them. Most of the ones you do see tend to have a pretty little  peaked roof over them, and I've never seen one that still has its ancient-looking water-drawing mechanism thingy still standing. (You can see my Colonial-era well technology vocab is not exactly what it could be.) At first, from across the lawn, I wasn't sure it really was a well, but:

It is. The grate was obviously added later. I suppose, if the well had no little roof, there would have been some form of cover to protect the water from leaves and animals and to protect little 17th century children from the water.

I did a quick search for similar wells, wondering whether Connecticut was in fact full of examples that I'd somehow overlooked. But all the pictures I could find of wells like this came from far away places, rural regions where poverty and tradition appeared to have stopped the progress of time in countries that had nothing to do with Connecticut or even with the English origins of the people who settled here. And maybe that's why I had to stop at this house in the rain. It's not just another time that's evoked by these old weathered buildings and abandoned technologies, it's a lost link to another world.