To the Editor:
I was a property owner and resident of Main Street in Noank for many years and return to the
village on a regular basis to visit friends and family. As such, I wish to express my thoughts on
the potential Noank Main Street Road Reconstruction Project.
The physical characteristics, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and associations
with Noank’s Main Street are among the elements that earned the village of Noank its place on
the National Register of Historic Places. The district must retain integrity to convey its
historical significance and reflect its value and contribution to national and international history.
If any intervention on Main Street were to be considered, efforts of protection and preservation
of this feeling and the associations that maintain the historical significance of the village, rather
than modernization, are required. Infrastructure maintenance, then, should be extremely subtle.
I for one encourage the Groton Town Council to abandon multimillion-dollar modernization plans
for Noank and its Main Street. Furthermore, it is difficult to ascertain whether Wright-Pierce has
experience in preservation to the ideals of the NRHP and the required sensitivity to the historic
elements present in the village, or whether it is primarily an engineering firm geared towards
modernization. I fear the latter.
R. Andrieux
33 rue Philippe Lebon
Vannes, Brittany, France
—
Andrieux previously owned a house on Main Street in Noank