A Dramatic City

New London is a seaport city and a port of entry on the northeast coast of the United States. It is located at the mouth of the Thames River in New London County, Southeastern Connecticut, it is also part of the Mystic Country, a marketing tourism strategy by the state which markets Mystic Country as "A breath of fresh air. Between New York and Boston. The relaxed New England charm that has made Mystic Country a well-known vacation destination can be felt all through the area – from the quiet farm areas of the Northeast corner of Connecticut, to the coastal towns of Connecticut and neighboring Rhode Island. As a result, it has become known as Mystic Country."

Lets talk a little about the past, for several decades beginning in the early 19th century, New London was one of the world's three busiest whaling ports, along with Nantucket and New Bedford, Massachusetts. The wealth that whaling brought into the city furnished the capital to fund much of the city's present architecture. New London subsequently became home to other shipping and manufacturing industries, but has gradually lost its commercial and industrial heart.

Although I think we are experiencing a comeback. I think the city is coming back to life. There are more open businesses in the streets of downtown now than when I first moved in, in 2008.

New London skyline from Fort Griswold in December 2017

I have been calling New London NeLo because I felt in love with the concept of minimizing names when I visited NOLA in late 2017.

New London is home to the United States Coast Guard Academy, Connecticut College, Mitchell College, and The Williams School. The Coast Guard Station and the New London Harbor are home port to the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Chinook and the Coast Guard's tall ship Eagle. The city had a population of 27,620 at the 2010 census.

My NeLo Story

I moved here for High School in 2008 and I have been in love with this town since then. I remember walking around town after school, imagining the potential of the city for the future. A lot of my friends hated it here, they said that they will move out when they completed High School, some of them did, most of them did not.

The first time I visited New London was in 2001, my uncle lived & worked here, so he invited my grandma, my brother & I for vacations. I don't have a lot of memories of that visit, I do remember spending time in old Jennings Playground, and the old brick structure it was before the redevelopment of the school. Interesting how I spent time here when I was just 9, and this is the place I volunteer one of my Wednesday every month at the mobile food pantry. I have always been involve in the community here, I have volunteered for multiple local charities & non-profits, because certainly the community is the heart that keeps the city alive.

When I graduated from New London High School in 2010, my intersectionality made me choose to go back to Puerto Rico, for college. Neither me or my family could afford my college experience in the US, so I moved back to Puerto Rico, (I keep forgetting this post is not about me! It is about New London). I finished college in the Island, but every summer and every winter vacation I had, I spent it in NeLo. I moved back permanently in the spring of 2016, I returned to my old Neighborhood, the Winthrop Square Apartments Complex on Huntington St. for the first six months while I saved money to get my own place. I was working at a local Urban Farming & Education Center, growing food, empowering youth, & promoting food & social justice. I saved enough to move to my dream apartment at The Crocker House, a lot of my friends while in high school told me I will never make it to live there, and I proved them wrong.

I think what really made me fall in love with this place, is the size of it, the arts, the architecture, the diversity of food, culture, people & scene. And this is why I think it is a dramatic city, because the act has never stopped for NeLo, it has just started, this is not the end of a dramatic city, this is the beginning.

You can learn more about NeLo:

The New London County Historical Society

The Public Library of New London

Mystic Country Connecticut