The other morning, while strolling from Connecticut College to downtown New London, I took a favorite detour away from the speeding cars and trucks on Route 32 and cut through the city’s long-neglected landmark, Riverside Park.

To be honest, the 18-acre sliver of rolling hills overlooking the Thames River does not exactly resemble the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Trash and broken bottles litter cracked-pavement walkways, rust covers playground equipment, vines overgrow flora, and the only fauna I encountered were a couple of chattering squirrels, seemingly astonished to see a two-legged creature traipsing through their terrain.

I don’t blame city officials for failing to maintain this once-popular recreation area – cash-strapped New London, with an over-abundance of nontaxable property by way of its many colleges, churches and government buildings, has a hard enough time paying for schools, police, fire protection and other basic services. But I wish enough citizens would use the park for purposes other than drinking and late-night rendezvous so that they would rally opposition to a plan to sell the property for $3 million as part of an expansion plan by the adjacent U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

Now, I have nothing against the academy. It’s a wonderful institution that offers many free public programs, such as concerts by the Coast Guard Band (a good friend of mine is the pianist) and interesting lectures at Leamy Hall. I’ve also run on the academy track, launched my kayak at the academy pier and seen two U.S. presidents deliver speeches at academy commencement exercises.

All the same, I’d hate to see the academy cut further into Riverside Park. I say further because, as my colleague, Day columnist David Collins has reported, the city already gave a small strip of the park’s waterfront to the state in 1915 for a steamship terminal (plans eventually fell through), then gave another chunk in 1949 to the academy for a chapel, and in 1961, was forced to sell through eminent domain 13 acres to the academy, at a price of $36,000, for new buildings.

At least the most recent academy expansion proposal is preferable to the cockamamie OceanQuest plan floated unsuccessfully a decade ago, or a luxury housing project proposed in 1982.

Nevertheless, bit by bit Riverside Park has been shrinking, and the city seems all-too-eager to get rid of the rest of the property, which includes 11 acres donated 100 years ago by benefactors Frank Brandegee and Sebastian Duffy Lawrence.

From my admittedly selfish perspective as a non-resident who doesn’t have to pay New London’s high property taxes, I’d like to see Riverside Park remain undeveloped, warts and all.

People don’t seem to appreciate open space for its intrinsic value. Just as nature hates a vacuum, some people hate unused land. If it’s not going to contain houses or stores or school buildings, then by God it’s got to have ball fields, tennis courts, picnic pavilions, bath houses, or well-marked hiking trails, they insist.

Well, what’s wrong with simply having land that has none of the above? It gives your eyes a rest to see trees instead of asphalt and concrete. What’s more, people like me who occasionally like to venture off the beaten path but don’t always stray too far from civilization can enjoy a short respite from internal combustion engines.

And it wouldn’t hurt if we wanderers picked up a candy wrapper or two along the way.

Let’s keep Riverside a park.