The Old Families' Parkside District

The Williams Memorial Park Historic District reflects the prosperity that mid-19th-century whaling brought to New London and the extraordinary wealth concentrated among a few leading families. Developed as an elite residential enclave on the outskirts of downtown, the neighborhood grew through the late 1800s and early 1900s around the pastoral centerpiece of Williams Memorial Park, whose design is attributed to Frederick Law Olmsted. The park's curving paths, open lawns, and mature plantings anchor a cohesive turn-of-the-century streetscape lined with high-style Gothic Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, Tudor Revival and Colonial Revival homes. Together, the park and its surrounding architecture form one of New London's most distinguished historic residential districts, illustrating both the city's whaling-era affluence and its early landscape-architectural ambitions. - AsNotedIn