Alert “06880” reader John Karrel sent this photo of Burying Hill Beach:
Our Public Works Department is overseeing the reconstruction of the steep cement wall, heavily damaged during Hurricane Sandy.
The plan is to have the FEMA-reimbursable work finished by Memorial Day — the start of beach season.
Which — judging by today’s weather forecast — can’t come a moment too soon.
Posted in Beach, Organizations, Weather
Tagged Burying Hill Beach, Hurricane Sandy, Public Works Department
If Jean Paul Vellotti has his way, the Black Duck won’t be the only Westport restaurant literally on the water.
The local resident has his eyes on the Laurel. He calls it “America’s oldest and most historic oyster boat.” It recently retired from active oystering, and Jean Paul hopes to turn it into a floating oyster bar.
Unlike the Duck barge, though, Jean Paul’s 72-foot restaurant will actually move.
The Laurel.
“Believe it or not, there are spots in the Saugatuck deep enough for the Laurel,” he says. “A cocktail hour and farm-to-table dinner on deck by a talented local chef is entirely possible.”
Jean Paul discovered the Laurel 2 years ago. Working in East Norwalk as a photographer on a Whole Foods ad campaign, he climbed aboard a derelict boat to get a great shot of his subject.
Back at the office, Jean Paul — who spent 20 years as a photojournalist and editor, with the likes of the New York Times and Ziff Davis — decided to research the old boat.
Laurel builder A.C. Brown
He learned the Laurel was built in 1891. For over a century it harvested and transported bivalves, roaming as far as Providence and the Delaware Bay.
Yet, Jean Paul learned to his dismay, the Laurel would soon be demolished.
He vowed to save her.
Jean Paul — whose maritime skills, woodworking talents and love of oystering were all fostered as a youth in East Norwalk — came up with an idea. He would keep the Laurel’s legacy alive, by serving the oysters it once harvested.
That’s even more audacious than it sounds.
The century-old deck is structurally sound. But it leaks badly, and the wood underneath is seriously damaged.
“If we can replace the deck, we’ll give her a whole new life,” Jean Paul says. “We’ll make her the queen of the fleet once more.”
Jean Paul Vellotti, at the helm and with oysters.
The Laurel will offer a raw bar, soups and more. It will be fun; the prices, reasonable. “We can get oysters cheap,” Jean Paul notes.
It will float up the Saugatuck as far as the Bridge Street Bridge. It will head to Southport, Norwalk, Port Jefferson, Northport, and Great Peconic Bay. It’s even been invited to Pier 19, site of South Street Seaport.
But Jean Paul hopes that Westport will be the Laurel’s home.
He’ contacted Larry Bradley. The Planning and Zoning director said his authority extends only to the mean high water line.
Jean Paul also talked to the health department, fire marshal, even the Coast Guard. All said “go ahead!”
The next logical step: head to the bank.
“It’s tough for even a regular restaurant to get a loan,” Jean Paul says. “And this is a floating restaurant.”
So to kickstart his project, Jean Paul turned to Kickstarter. The funding website offers a variety of rewards, in return for pledges.
The Laurel, at Cove Marina.
Donate $5, and you’ll receive an oyster and clams on the house.
$35 gets you a 5×7 picture frame made from reclaimed deck planks. For $250, your name will be engraved on a new plank.
There are plenty of other options, including $10,000 or more. The goal is $65,000. The deadline: April 21.
If Jean Paul gets his money by May, the decks can be repaired by the end of June.
The Laurel could float up the Saugatuck in July and August.
In September, it would head to a very cool event, one town away.
That one’s a natural: the Norwalk Oyster Festival.
(Click here for more information, or to make a pledge on Kickstarter.)
(If your browser doesn’t link directly to YouTube, click here.)
Posted in Organizations, People, Restaurants, Saugatuck
Tagged Jean Paul Vellotti, Kickstarter, Laurel oyster boat, Norwalk Oyster Festival
Here’s a review every filmmaker would kill for.
Variety calls “Short Term 12”
a film about scars, some physical, others emotional, but all examined with a sensitivity and understanding that cuts deep.
Set in a group home for damaged adolescents where staff members face many of the same challenges as their young charges, this compelling human drama finds fresh energy in the inspirational-teacher genre, constantly revealing new layers to its characters….
Inexplicably passed over by Sundance…the stunning SXSW fest winner puts the recent Park City competition lineup to shame.
“SXSW” is, of course, South by Southwest — the film, music and interactive festival/conference that concludes today in Austin.
David Kaplan
“Short Term 12” — which won the SXSW Grand Jury Award for Narrative Feature — is the 1st film from Animal Kingdom Films. Co-owner David Kaplan — a 2003 Staples and 2007 Colgate grad — started his movie-making career the way you always hear it should be done: in the mailroom of a Los Angeles talent agency.
“You push a cart, and hope the desk you’re gunning for opens up,” David explains. “Then it does, and you get kicked around by the masters of the universe.”
He learned about movies at “the macro level,” but wasn’t enamored of either LA or the studio system. He moved to New york, and worked for independent producer Christine Vachon (“Boys Don’t Cry”).
After working his way up to director of development, David left to become a strategic advisor. He helped indie producers raise funds, then began consulting and producing his own films.
“Short Term 12” — his new company’s 1st effort — could be a game-changer. The response has been great, David says, and he’s now in “the incredibly fortunate place where it seems to be selling itself” to distributors.
A scene from “Short Term 12,” with Brie Larson and Keith Stanfield.
Though a decade out of high school, David credits much of his success back to Westport.
He was surrounded by students like Justin Paul, Daryl Wein, Leslye Headland and Peter Duchan — all of whom are making significant marks on Hollywood and Broadway.
At Staples David took a very meaningful film course taught by Gerry Kuroghlian. At Coleytown Middle School, David was inspired by drama teacher Ben Frimmer.
He also credits his supportive parents. “They didn’t push law school on me — even though they’re both lawyers,” he says.
David looks forward to the day “Short Term 12” is screened in his home town. He’s excited by the news that a theater is planned for Main Street.
He says, “it’s crazy Westport doesn’t have one now.”
Particularly since we’ve just added a SXSW Grand Jury winner to our long list of clever, creative film-making pros.
Posted in Arts, Entertainment, Organizations, People, Staples HS
Tagged "Short Term 12", Animal Kingdom Films, David Kaplan, SXSW Film
When SafeRides was first proposed several years ago, there were big concerns.
Giving teenagers free rides home from parties — no questions asked — will encourage drinking!
Kids will use it as a taxi service!
People will join just to put it on their college application!
Those fears were unfounded. In the years since Alix Dulin and a few friends got the confidential service up and running, it’s become a low-key, but very important, part of local adolescent life.
And, in typical Westport fashion, it’s made a national impact.
Staples parent Isaac Levi appreciated SafeRides — but was surprised its lack of an even rudimentary website made scheduling and operations difficult. In 2009 he and friend Amiel Dabush developed software to schedule drivers, e-mail members, distribute messages and update calendars.
Then they made the system available to every other SafeRides chapter in the country. SafeRidesUS.com makes scheduling and dispatching easy — and starting a new chapter painless. Over 60 high school and college groups now use the SafeRidesUS software.
But a website is so early 2000s.
So Isaac and Amiel set their sights on the smartphone market.
Isaac Levi
With GPS — and all the other stuff iPhones and Androids can do — scheduling volunteers, getting substitutes, dispatching and routing rides, and communicating with riders, drivers and navigators will be cake.
With just one or two swipes, users can ask for a ride, then find out how soon the driver will arrive. GPS will pinpoint where someone needing a ride is calling from if they don’t know (or are too drunk to explain).
Isaac and Amiel funded the initial website themselves. But they figure it will cost $50,000 to get the SafeRides app developed, running and marketed.
Drew Angus — a 2007 Staples grad who admits he “never knew SafeRides existed” — produced a video for Isaac and Amiel. They’re using it to raise money on the crowd-funding site IndieGoGo.
There’s great potential for expanding the app. Bartenders, for example, could prevent patrons from driving home drunk.
But right now Isaac and Amiel are concentrating on raising capital. In Westport, it can take 15 minutes for a SafeRides car to pick up a rider.
Coincidentally, every 15 minutes someone in America dies in a drunk driving accident.
Isaac, Amiel and everyone in SafeRides wants to cut both numbers down.
(To contribute to the SafeRides app, or view the IndieGoGo video, click here.)
Posted in Organizations, People, technology, Teenagers
Tagged Alex Dulin, Amiel Dabush, Drew Angus, Isaac Levi, SafeRides, SafeRidesUS.com
Esta Freedman’s mother left Poland for Ellis Island at 17. Esta’s father worked in the gold mines of South Africa as a teenager. He stowed away on a US-bound ship, but gambled away his nest egg before it docked.
Esta was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1913. She and her 4 siblings shared a room. At 17, she left home for New York.
Esta Freedman at 17.
A chance meeting in the subway led to a meeting with Bernie Burroughs, an illustrator. They hit it off. Soon they eloped. They lived in Greenwich Village, then Neptune, N.J. In 1946 their son Miggs was born.
Bernie’s artist friends were moving to Connecticut. The Burroughses followed: to Stamford in 1948, then Westport in 1950 when their 2nd son Tracy was born.
Bernie and Esta quickly joined the local artists and writers’ circle, making friends with the likes of Howard Munce, Tracy Sugarman, Max Shulman, Evan Hunter, John G. Fuller and their families.
Bernie played poker; Esta, bridge. They entertained often, and went to parties. At some, couples put car keys in a bowl, and drove home with the owner of whichever set they pulled out. Esta says she and Bernie always left before that happened.
She wrote articles for local newsletters. Then she met Sidney and Esther Kramer. They were opening a bookstore, called Remarkable — the name included “Kramer” spelled backwards — and asked her to join them.
The Remarkable Book Shop. (Photo by Dave Matlow)
Esta stayed in the iconic pink building on Main Street — working in the warren of rooms, loving the tall stacks of books, sloping floors and comfy chairs — until the day it closed.
She also partnered with Pat Fay — running tag sales as “Those 2 Girls” — but her Remarkable work really defined Esta Burroughs for generations of Westporters.
She waited on Paul Newman, Liz Taylor, Bette Davis, Keir Dullea, Christopher Plummer and Patty Hearst. She also massaged the egos of many local authors, who visited constantly to check on sales of their books.
An avid reader, Esta enjoyed meeting writers. The opportunity to read any title was a great perk — and a huge advantage for customers. They asked countless questions about books. She answered them all.
After Remarkable closed, Esta worked at the Save the Children Gift Shop. Until recently she volunteered at the Westport Historical Society.
Today, Esta Burroughs turns 100. The Remarkable Book Shop is long gone. So are Paul Newman, Bette Davis — and key parties.
But Esta remembers them all, quite clearly. Those memories are all part of her 6 decades in Westport — and her much-loved, seldom-acknowledged contributions to our town.
Happy Birthday, Esta Burroughs! (Photo by Miggs Burroughs)
(More Burroughs news! Tomorrow — Saturday, March 16, 2 p.m. — Esta’s son Miggs will sign copies of his book, The What If? Book of Questions — at Barnes & Noble. It’s a benefit for the Coleytown Middle School Book Fair.)
Writing in the Wall Street Journal last Saturday — and riffing off something the novelist Walker Percy supposedly said — Paul Baumann noted that the next pope “should be a bit of a Californian.”
Paul Baumann
By that, Baumann– editor of Commonweal (the oldest independent lay-edited Catholic opinion journal in the US), and a 1969 Staples graduate — meant that Rome must be willing “to think anew about once settled understandings of sexual morality and about how the church is governed.”
The future, Baumann wrote 4 days before a new pope was selected,
will surprise us as much as Benedict XVI’s resignation did. Rome should prepare to be joyously surprised by what is new, for that is what the church’s founder promised.
So was Baumann surprised — joyously or otherwise — by the choice of Pope Francis?
Not completely.
“It looks as though the cardinals went with a colleague they felt they knew well,” the Commonweal editor said of the runner-up at the previous conclave.
“Pope Francis appears to be very conservative theologically, much in the manner of John Paul II. His election is another reminder of how insular the hierarchy remains, but that should not be much of a surprise either.”
So what does Francis’s election mean for local Catholics? “Steady as she goes, I imagine,” the Westport native said.
However, he added, “the new pope’s emphasis on the problems of the poor might mean that American Catholics generally will be asked to do more on social justice issues.”
Posted in People, religion, Staples HS
Tagged Commonweal Magazine, Paul Baumann, Pope Francis
The other day, a big wooden door appeared in the Staples High School main office.
Not just any door. Both sides were covered with names and dates — one per year, from 1967 to 1988.
And not just a regular door. This one started life on an outhouse.
The door’s first decade…
One day, someone brought it to Westport Adult Ed class. The teacher was Milton Fisher. The course was “Applied Creativity.”
Fisher — very creatively — found a use for the door. He called it “the door to creativity.”
Each year, his class ended with the judging of students’ term projects. The winner painted his or her name on the door — in a suitably creative font and style — and kept it for a year.
But times change. The course ended. This year it looked like the door was headed for the junkyard. Who would want it, a quarter century after the final winner won it?
Fisher’s daughter — Stanford professor and Mark Twain expert Shelley Fisher Fishkin — dropped it off at Staples. It sat there, leaning against a wall. Principal John Dodig was unsure how — or even whether — to display it.
But it caught the eye of art teacher Jackie Jeselnick. Now she plans to take it home, encase it in glass, and turn it into a coffee table.
For an outhouse door, you can’t get more creative than that.
…and its 2nd.
Posted in Arts, Education, People, Staples HS, Totally random
Tagged Jackie Jeselnick, John Dodig, Milton Fisher, Shelley Fisher Fishkin
Back in the day, Westport was the marketing capital of the world.
That was then. Hedge funds are now.
Though Bridgewater Associates gets most of the press, Main Street is home (metaphorically) to other firms that a few years ago would have been on Wall Street.
At the end of last year, Reuters reported on one:
Andy Hall, one of the world’s largest commodity hedge fund managers, has returned his Astenbeck fund to profit just before year end, helped by what he described as new winning positions in crude oil and corn.
Until last month, the Westport, Connecticut-based Astenbeck, which has about $4.8 billion under management, appeared headed for a second year of losses after an unexpected slump in crude prices in October tripped up its long positions in oil. …
Its fortunes reversed with November’s performance, when it recouped almost everything it lost the previous month after a rebound in crude prices put its bullish bets on oil back on track.
I’m not sure how many Westporters — those not in the industry, anyway — have heard of Astenbeck.
They share the Nyala Farm office complex with Bridgewater. Unlike that bigger hedge fund, though — whose main headquarters are in the woods off Weston Road — Astenbeck has not gotten a sweetheart deal to move to Stamford.
The Nyala Farms office complex, near I-95 Exit 18. It’s one of the hedge fund centers of the world.
Yesterday, Astenbeck CEO Hall was back in the news. Bloomberg reported:
Andrew J. Hall, the former Citigroup Inc. oil trader whose pay package of about $100 million ensnared him in the fight over compensation at bailed- out banks in 2009, is selling handmade lavender soap and grass- fed Angus beef from a farm in Reading, Vermont.
There’s more to the story, of course. Bloomberg says:
He has torn down at least half a dozen homes in the 666-person central Vermont town and opened an appointment-only art museum there last year. His holdings, including Newhall Farm, are valued at more than $13.8 million, the records show.
Some townspeople think Hall’s work is “wonderful.” Others said they were “less sure, citing razed homes, the lower tax rate Hall pays on some of his land and a dispute with a next-door neighbor over power lines.”
Interesting. The truth — as it usually does — probably lies somewhere in the middle.
If you’ve got a Westport hedge-fund-that-usually-flies-under-the-radar story, click “Comments” to share.
Posted in Local business, People
Tagged Andrew Hall, Astenbeck Capital, Bridgewater Associates
Opening night for “A Chorus Line” is not until Friday.
But the Staples Players show has created such a buzz in town, they’ve already added an extra performance.
A 3 p.m. matinee on Saturday, March 23 joins shows set for this weekend and next; a matinee this Sunday, and a Thursday evening performance on March 21.
The extra date is vital. Ticket sales for the dance-and-music spectacular have been as hot as — well, for the original Broadway run.
Tyler Jent can do that. (Photo by Kerry Long)
Since 1958, Westporters have flocked to Players productions. Audiences include proud parents and classmates, sure, but also tons of alumni, parents of alums, families of future Players, and many others with no connection whatsoever to Staples. All appreciate professional-style shows — acting, dancing, singing, sets, costumes, lighting and the pit — right here in their hometown.
“A Chorus Line” will sell 7,000 tickets during its 2-week run.
As the added matinee indicates, they’re going fast.
(“A Chorus Line” performances are set for Friday and Saturday, March 15, 16, 22 and 23, at 7:30 p.m.; matinees Saturday, March 23 and Sunday, March 17 at 3 p.m., and Thursday, March 21 at 7 p.m. Click here for tickets, and more information.)
Staples Players: one singular sensation. (Photo by Kerry Long)
Michael Sixsmith, one of many talented actors and dancers in “A Chorus Line.” (Photo by Kerry Long)
Posted in Arts, Entertainment, Organizations, People, Staples HS
In November — a couple of weeks after Hurricane Sandy — “06880” reader Fran White and her son Michael went to Compo Beach.
They noticed their memorial bench dedicated to David — Fran’s husband and Michael’s dad, who was killed in a bicycle accident several years ago — was gone from its usual spot, just over the wall from the cannons.
David White’s original bench by the cannons, just before Christmas 2011.
A number of benches — tossed and upended by the wind and storm surge — had been stored near the skate park. But David’s was not one of them.
Fran called Parks & Rec. She was told the department knew of the missing benches and plaques.
“They were still dealing with damage from Sandy, and weren’t far enough along to think about replacing and repairing benches,” Fran says. “So we pretty much came to terms with its loss, and made up adventure stories about where it might be. The loss of homes for many seemed far more important.”
Last week, a friend of the Whites went down to Compo, for a final walk on the beach before moving. She spotted a group of benches, near Joey’s. David’s plaque was there — not on its original wooden bench, but an older fiberglass one.
David White’s plaque, now on a different bench at a different site.
Fran has faith that — with everything else on Parks & Rec’s plate — it will be able to sort everything out by summer. They have a site map for the benches.
Parks & Rec knows the importance of the benches to donors, and honorees. They know how popular the benches are with beachgoers too, who may seek out certain benches because of the plaques — or may never read them, but just like sitting in certain spots.
Sandy left a big mess at the beach. Our town is still cleaning up from it.
One day, David White — and all the others — will be back where they belong.
Posted in Beach, People, Weather
Tagged Compo Beach, David White, Fran White, Westport Parks and Rec
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