The 'accidental historian'
As a boy, Ted Hendrickson chipped his front tooth on the bus along State Street. He shopped at the local Five & Ten, learned to fish on the Long Island Sound and roamed the halls of New London High.
During the 1960s and 1970s, he watched the decentralization of downtown as Waterford shopping centers put New London stores out of business. He saw poor neighborhoods get poorer and early Victorian and colonial buildings demolished to make space for parking garages. Hendrickson has seen the city go through waves of what he calls "sinking and rebounding" from the 1970s through today. And he has seen it all through a wide-angle lens.
A photographer with half a century's experience in one city is bound to have some sort of archive. Thus is the case with Hendrickson, Connecticut College's photography-focused assistant professor of art. So when the Custom House Maritime Museum in New London decided to host an exhibition about the history of the New London Parade, a public open area at the entrance of the city, Hendrickson reached back into his collection and emerged with a prominent set of historic photographs.
Ten of Hendrickson´s photographs now decorate the front alcove of the museum's second floor. They are displayed alongside old postcards, drawings and paintings, as well as architect blueprints for the Parade renovation.
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July 14, 2009
