Preserve Connecticut's History

Awesome architect, sometime radio star, and all-around nice guy Duo Dickinson has an important reminder in today's Hartford Courant.

"When budgets are stretched thin, as Connecticut's surely is, lawmakers will point their pencils at expenses they view as marginal. This year that includes historic preservation. Most funds from the Community Investment Act, which are supposed to be dedicated to historic preservation as well as open space and farmland preservation and affordable housing, are being swept into the general fund under proposals to help balance the current and coming budgets.

This shortsighted cut would have permanent costs. In Connecticut and New England, our history is anything but marginal..."

Read the rest here.

Placemaking

It's good to see someone else taking on the problems of the "myth of home" in practical ways. There has been a lot of talk about this lately, and I hope it leads to good things for Connecticut, and for America.

R.J. Julia's for Homegrown Terror

 

I enjoyed the release party for Homegrown Terror: Benedict Arnold and the Burning of New London at R.J. Julia's this week. The room was packed, and I sold a lot of books for them. While there, I asked about getting my photo up on the wall (since I have been there four times now) and was told that they don't do that any more. But I was encouraged to bring my own photo next time and just kind of put it up somewhere. I might just do that!

At Hamden Library this Wednesday

Hope to see you this Wednesday night, April 16 at 7 pm at the Hamden Senior Center (attached to the library) where I'll be talking about Becoming Tom Thumb: Charles Stratton, P.T. Barnum, and the Dawn of American Celebrity.