Lyman Allyn Art Museum works towards fulfilling founder's vision of a park
Sep. 24—NEW LONDON — The Lyman Allyn Art Museum is working to revitalize the vision of its founder to build a park on its 12-acre property.
"We're celebrating our 90th anniversary and we wanted to realize a vision by our founder, the daughter of Lyman Allyn, to a make a park with the museum, which will forever be free to the residents of New London," said Samuel Quigley, the executive director of the museum.
Founder Harriet Upson Allyn was a life-long New London resident and the youngest of Captain Lyman Allyn's six children. In 1910, Harriet Allyn had requested, in her will, that the Connecticut Trust and Safe Deposit Company of Hartford use money from her estate to create a park and a museum.
Allyn's death in 1926 established the beginning of the museum, but the building did not open until 1932.
The Lyman Allyn Park never came to fruition but Quigley and others are working to change that.
Ellen Anderson, the museum's director of development, said it wants to accomplish three goals with the park: to become a stimulating and engaging urban destination with natural and ecologically healthy areas for learning; to place the museum in a beautifully curated, environmentally sustainable setting; and to provide the community with a regional gathering place.
Anderson said the museum, located at 625 Williams St., seeks to become the greenest museum in Connecticut. She said the park intends to include inspirational sculpture gardens, low-impact natural footpaths and pollinator gardens and meadows to create a "safe harbor" for insects and butterflies.
Quigley said the museum hired the Mystic landscape architecture firm Kent + Frost in January and the firm has created a landscape master plan. He said the museum is raising money for the park and seeking permits for the work.
The proposed park still requires approval by the city's Inland Wetlands Commission and the Planning and Zoning Commission.
"If everything comes together, we will break ground in May 2023," Quigley said.
Anderson said the initiative may take the better part of three to four years to complete, and at no point does it intend to close the museum.
A welcoming green space
As the museum's executive director for eight years, Quigley said he has worked to revitalize the inside. Now, he is trying to do the same for the outside and make it a "welcoming place and green space ."
One means of doing this is creating an outside amphitheater that can accommodate up to 250 people. Quigley said people will be able to attend all sorts of events such as poetry readings, bluegrass and dance performances.
For some time, the front yard of the museum has served as a parking lot for visitors. Quigley said it is "quite unsightly" and not what was originally planned for the location. He said the museum seeks to resurrect plans for a long mall, lawn and plaza in front that is flanked by trees.
In the new landscape master plan, the museum's parking will be relocated to the rear of the building.
Anderson said the museum will not do away with its 9/11 memorial. The memorial commemorates those in the region that perished in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City in 2001. She said it will be revitalized and that part of the property will be more inviting― a place of peacefulness.
