New London — Nancy Hennegan has been cutting hair on Meridian Street for 35 years and would like to continue working there until she's ready to retire her scissors.

But Hennegan and photographer A. Vincent Scarano, who has had his studio on Meridian Street even longer than Nancy's Salon has been there, both know that they may have to relocate if and when the space they lease is incorporated into a new visual and performing arts magnet high school proposed by the city and the Garde Arts Center.

"I support the Garde, I support the city and I support the whole magnet school idea," said Hennegan, at the manicure table in her art deco salon at 14 Meridian St. "I support them all, and I hope this idea is the cure-all for New London, but what I don't support is taking down historical buildings. I think New London has taken down too much already."

Both Scarano and Hennegan are mainstays in the downtown, and both said they have known for many, many years that they might be forced out of their Meridian Street premises, but what they didn't imagine, and do not agree with, is the possibility that the three-story Mercer Building, and the single-story Meridian where they are housed, could be torn down.

"I've seen New London demolished in my lifetime, so I'm kind of like, 'No, stop, we have to save our major architecture,' " said Scarano. He was instrumental in saving the former Hygienic Restaurant on Bank Street, originally built as a whaling company's provisioning store and crews' quarters and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Scarano was one of the artists funded back in the late 1970s in a city-administered program through the federal Comprehensive Education and Training Act that produced murals, sculptures and photographs, of and around New London. In 1979 that group started Hygienic Art, the hugely popular and still running annual show that is billed as "New London's only winter tourist attraction."

For almost two decades, Hennegan said, her landlord, the Garde Arts Center, has been upfront about the possibility that at some point the Meridian Building could be incorporated as part of the Garde. So news last week that the New London Public Schools and the nonprofit Garde had reached an agreement on a plan to locate a proposed arts magnet school at the downtown theater property wasn't unexpected. But it was disheartening to hear that both the Mercer and Meridian buildings, which the Garde has owned since the early 1990s, might be razed for the school project.

The Garde, Mercer and Meridian buildings were all built between 1924 and 1926 on the site of the baronial mansion of whaling merchant William Williams, according to a history of the Garde. The property where the theater is had been sold by Williams to Theodore Bodenwein, owner of The Day, and Bodenwein agreed to sell it to the theater developers "for the good of New London."

The site of Nancy's Salon was initially the home of the Mayflower Tea Room and still has the original tin ceiling and tan-and-two-tone-blue checkered tile floor. In the early 1930s, the space was converted to The Beauty Box salon and to this day has many of the original features, including the gumwood work stations, cabinets, reception desk, arches and ceiling lamps. Two women ran The Beauty Box from the early 1930s until 1981, when Hennegan bought the business from them.

If she has to relocate, Hennegan said, she will take as many of the fixtures as possible to her new location.

"I'm not ready to retire," she said, and added, "Where would I go? I don't know." 

Steve Sigel, executive director of the Garde, said Scarano and Hennegan are the two primary tenants in the Meridian Building. The Flock Theater also has storage space there.

The Garde offices are in the Mercer Building, and years ago the Mercer was connected to the Garde to provide the theater with additional space. Sigel also said that New London Main Street has signed a one-year lease for the storefront at State and Meridian streets starting this summer, but like the existing tenants, they know the building may be used for other purposes in the future.

Sigel acknowledged that for 20 years or more, the Garde has been talking about using more of the Meridian Building, and that the tenants have known that.

"We have been in complete communication with those folks, and they will be part of whatever transformation occurs, even if they are no longer here," he said.

But he added that all the discussion of the arts magnet high school is still preliminary and faces numerous approvals.

"It's a very complex project, and government operates at a very different speed," he said. "By the time this happens, Nancy could be retired and be running a cosmetology school in Florida somewhere."

Scarano said he plans to stay put and watch to see what the school system and Garde ultimately decide to do. Years ago, when his studio was in the Mercer Building, a different plan for a black box theater there caused him to move down the street to the Meridian.

"I support the Garde and  they support me, and we will see what happens," he said. "And if I need to move, I need to move. Or maybe I can be incorporated into the new plan.

"But I just think if they (raze) the Mercer Building, if you start knocking out pieces of the city, I think you start losing the fabric, the identity, of New London," he said.

Regardless of whether she stays or moves, Hennegan would like to see the Meridian and Mercer buildings preserved.

"They say it is cheaper to take down a building," she said, "but cheaper is not always the best way to do things."

 a.baldelli@theday.com