page_title: New London Union Station
section_title: Decline and revival
hierarchical_section_title: New London Union Station / History and design / Decline and revival
caption_attribution_description: English: The pedestrian bridge at New London Union Station in September 1961, just before its removal. Built in 1912 to provide better and safer access to ferries, it was by 1961 dilapidated and mostly used as an observation point to view the river.
context_page_description: New London Union Station is a historic regional rail station located in New London, Connecticut, United States. Located on the Northeast Corridor, the busiest railway in the United States, it is the primary railroad station in southeastern Connecticut. Union Station is a station stop for most of Amtrak's Northeast Regional trains and a small number of high-speed Acela Express trains. Certain ConnDOT Shore Line East commuter rail trains also stop at New London, making it the eastern terminus of commuter rail in Connecticut.
  Union Station serves as the centerpiece of the Regional Intermodal Transit Center serving southeastern Connecticut, with connections to local and intercity buses as well as ferries to Long Island and Fishers Island, New York, and Block Island, Rhode Island. The current Union Station building, built in 1887, is the sixth station to serve New London and one of the oldest stations still in use along the Northeast Corridor. It was the last and largest railroad station designed by famed architect H. H. Richardson, and his best according to biographer Henry-Russell Hitchcock.
context_section_description: Central Vermont passenger service running north ended in 1949, but service running east and west along the Shore Line has remained continuous since the station was built. In the latter days of the New Haven Railroad, infrastructure was not maintained in order to cut costs, and stations like New London suffered for it. In 1953, the railroad asked the Public Utilities Commission for permission to remove the footbridge, but the request was denied. The railroad petitioned again in 1961, seeking to spend $1,250 to remove the bridge rather than $15,000 repairing it. Of the average 132 people using the bridge daily (versus 612 crossing the tracks on the street), most were reportedly using it as an "observation post" to view the harbor. 
  In 1961, the New London Redevelopment Agency called for the station to be demolished to make room for a shopping mall or department store as an "urban renewal" project. This began a fifteen-year fight over the station building, pitting the Redevelopment Agency against a small group of private citizens who wished to have the building restored for further use. The city paid $120,000 to buy the station; demolition costs were estimated at $55,000. The New Haven Railroad folded into Penn Central in 1969; continually beset with financial problems, Penn Central had no interest in investing in the station. The station by this time was "a dust-covered derelict with urine-soaked floors and peeling ceilings." Amtrak took over intercity passenger service on May 1, 1971; Penn Central continued to operate a limited amount of local service that was discontinued over the rest of the decade. After a local effort, Union Station was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in June 1971 over the lobbying efforts of former mayor Richard Martin. Martin claimed that ninety percent of the city agreed with the redevelopment plans. Under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the addition to the NRHP prevented local authorities from using federal funds for demolition, although the law did not provide for enforcement or punishment.
  The conflict was generally seen locally as outside "meddlers" – state officials, rich "out-of-state bleeding hearts", and historians – interfering with local plans that would improve the city. Robert P. Turk, director of the Redevelopment Agency, wrote a letter accusing preservationists of dealing in "pure academic nonsense". Frank Scheetz, a Groton local and former submariner, attempted to buy the station for use as a submarine museum, with plans to berth a decommissioned submarine nearby. The Redevelopment Agency rejected Scheetz's offer, claiming he was a speculator; Scheetz alleged that the city duplicitously changed prices in order to refuse the legitimate offer. (Scheetz later funded the display of the USS Croaker in Groton from 1977 to 1987, and was "instrumental" in bringing the USS Nautilus to permanent display at Submarine Force Library and Museum at the Naval Submarine Base New London in the 1980s.) In September 1973, the City Council voted to allow demolition. Amtrak responded with a letter stating that the company wanted to discuss the possibility of preservation and would be willing to contribute financially. That year, a number of the same local activists formed the Union Railroad Station Trust, intending to restore the station.
  On February 20, 1975, the Redevelopment Agency voted to demolish the building. Union Railroad Station Trust asked the Boston architectural firm Anderson-Notter to prepare a study of adding office and restaurant space. George M. Notter, one of the firm's principals (and later president of the American Institute of Architects), was an early advocate of adaptive reuse. Surprised that no developers were pursuing what he saw as a sure profit, Notter formed Union Station Associates as a subsidiary of Anderson-Notter and invested a substantial sum of his own money into the station. Notter convinced Amtrak to agree to a 20-year lease for part of the station at $45,000 annually, thus giving the group a stronger negotiating point. After eig
caption: The 1912-built pedestrian bridge shortly before its 1961 demolition
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