It's hard not to get excited about the prospects of New London's Fort Trumbull, to hear Allan Plattus of the Yale Urban Design Workshop talk about them.

And that's what Plattus, director of the world famous design group, did quite enthusiastically Thursday night, for a public planning workshop at the Public Library of New London.

Plattus' talk, with its inspiring notions of everything from a grand pedestrian bridge linking Fort Trumbull with the city's downtown, or a new train stop, was the start of a hearing in which the public was invited to submit ideas for developing Fort Trumbull.

Indeed, before the evening was out, members of the sizeable audience contributed a number of their own ideas, from improving the streetscape of the Howard Street corridor, leading from the downtown to Fort Trumbull, to bringing back the sense of the old Fort Trumbull neighborhood, a working-class community.

Plattus promised at the outset that the public hearing would be the first of a series as the design workshop, which was hired this spring by the City Council to develop plans for Fort Trumbull, continues its work.

The planners also distributed questionnaires, soliciting peoples' thoughts about the city, their transportation habits and ideas about what a new Fort Trumbull should look or how it might connect with the rest of the city.

Deputy Mayor Adam Sprecace, who has led efforts to bring the Yale-affiliated planners to the city, introduced Plattus Thursday and noted that a steering committee of city officials and interested citizens have been meeting regularly with the planners.

Sprecace began the evening by noting the good news that Electric Boat, which recently purchased the Pfizer office towers at Fort Trumbull, may end up employing almost twice as many people in the neighborhood as the drug company did.

"Obviously there is a history here," Sprecace said in reference to the long Fort Trumbull battle over eminent domain. "But this effort is about the future, not about the past."

Plattus, too, referred to the previous struggle over the peninsula. He said it has come up in his professional discussions of what he's working on, as far away as Germany.

"Everyone around the world has heard of Fort Trumbull, for better or worse," Plattus said at the opening of his talk, saying he has been both excited and apprehensive about the project, in part because of its history.

But like Sprecace, who talked about the excitement of Electric Boat moving into Fort Trumbull, Plattus noted that the time is right for the city to move forward to develop plans for what it wants to see happen there.

"We want to strive to move forward happily and productively," he said, adding that the designers have a background in architecture.

"We are not interested in plans that sit around and gather dust," he said. "We like to build things or see them built."

Plattus said city residents need to develop their own vision of what they want to see in Fort Trumbull and be positive and proactive, not passive. Developers interested in working in the area, he said, should know what the city wants there before they start work.

He talked about some of the neighborhood's natural assets and features, like the historic fort itself, the waterfront and the proximity to transportation.

He showed slides, in inspiring ideas, of ferries in Hong Kong, commuter trains in Italy, urban trams and some grand pedestrian bridges around the world which have become urban monuments in their own rights.

The steering committee, he said, "has been fantasizing a lot" about pedestrian bridges, something that could connect the downtown waterfront park with Fort Trumbull.

Plattus also talked about modern museums that have invigorated urban areas, famous waterfront hotels and resorts and neighborhoods on a scale small enough to accommodate an interesting retail streetscape or home businesses.

He said that developing a new rail stop, something auxiliary to the downtown station, is something that has been done around the country, as close as New Haven.

Plattus also said New Londoners of today need to think in terms of future generations.

"People should visualize what they might want New London to look like 25 to 50 years from now," he said.

This is the opinion of David Collins