Last May, “06880” reported on the demolition and reconstruction of the vest-pocket park at the corner of the Post Road and Main Street. Back in the day, that was the Westport Library’s park — and word on the street was, it would be a park in perpetuity, no matter who owned the land.
Here’s a scene from that day:
It’s amazing how swiftly these things move. Look how much progress this complex project has made in just 3 months:
At this rate, the target date for completion of November, 2019 will easily be reached.
Just in time for the 50th reunion of some of the Staples students shown in the park in this classic (and classically misspelled) Westport News photo:
Meanwhile, just a few feet away from the park renovation, there’s another downtown item that needs attending:
Last September, the major Post Road/Main Street crosswalk was eliminated. The idea was to force pedestrians to use the narrower (and presumably safer) crosswalk several yards away, just past Taylor Place.
A side benefit: There would be 2 lanes of traffic, not 1, heading west on the Post Road, presumably unclogging at least a bit the bottleneck in front of Tiffany’s.
As the photo above shows, we’re still waiting for the crosswalk to be completely eliminated.
And for the vehicle lanes to be striped.
That is quite the before and after picture. It’s like one of those “Hidden Pictures” games from the old Highlights magazine. Can you spot the changes? 🙂
I remember we called that spot “Needle Park” back in the day (for me, that would be the 70s) and the reference was clearly to people shooting up (not that it was such a private spot for such activities.) Anyone else recall using that name or another name?
Jack, when I was in junior high school in the 70s my mother worked at Project Renaissance which which was located in the office space just above Ship’s (now Tiffany’s, of course) and looked straight across at “Needle Park”. I spent a lot of time visiting her at her office after school, and I was fascinated by the presumable goings on across the street. I wrote a poem about a rather troubled looking teenager (I think he was a teenager) named Whitney who used to hang out there. I didn’t really know him, but based on the park’s nickname, I developed this elaborate idea in my head about his life and felt so sad for him. I’ve often thought about him over the last 35ish years and wonder what ever happened to him. I still have the poem.
Want to type it into this blog? We’d love to hear it.
Seems like local developers are finally opening their wallets and investing in the future of Main Street. Nice to see. Just hope they do it right.
Yesterday’s Needle Park is today’s Satrbucks. With the exception that lost teenagers hanging in a park are replaced with privileged mommies sipping advanced coffee drinks.
With the reminder that many recent reunion attendees found the same, I see many such eyesores on my long Sunday runs through and around downtown. Whether it be just neglect, a smaller budget or plain bad management, Westport is looking a little ragged these days.