When I posted last week’s photo challenge, I thought it was pretty easy. Everyone knows the Mediterranean-style windows on the old Positano — the former restaurant on Old Mill Beach — right?
Wrong!
The 2nd person to comment guessed it was the now-closed Acqua and Boca restaurants, in the back of Parker Harding Plaza. So did another person, a few minutes later.
Hey, they are similar.
But Fred Cantor, Andrew Colabella, Matt Murray, David Sampson, Tom Siebrasse, Christopher Buckley, Seth Braunstein, Ed Gerber, Ken Palumbo, Lois Hines, Jim Hood, Patricia McMahon, Amy Schneider, Karen Como, Vanessa Bradford, Martin Gitlin, Sarah Menninger Kit Lee, Tina Torraco, Beau James, Peter Ritchey and Mary Ann Batsell all posted “Positano” (or “Cafe de la Plage,” its long-lived predecessor). (Click here for the photo.)
Sadly, the building may soon be gone. And then we’ll have only memories of it, and the restaurants before it, that gave that neighborhood a bit of a European feel.
Today’s challenge shows beautiful flower boxes. We have many, all around town. But where are these?
If you know, click “Comments” below.
(Photo/Susan Iseman)
THE MILL! Richmondville
He’s right
I think this is on Riverside but, if so, I can’t place the exact location.
Richmondville commercial building
Yeah, def the old mill on Richmondville.
The front facade to the Old Mill on Richmondville Avenue
It is Old Mill building on Richmondville Ave just Before the bottom of Oak Street
You guys are VERY good. I thought this would be a tough one. Obviously, you know Westport. This is indeed the Mill Building on Richmondville. Anyone know anything about its history? I’m sure you do!
Lee’s Mill
I learned a lot about Mr. Lees and his cotton twine business in the Mill on Richmondville Ave. from one of your columns (that you authored when the film “Lincoln” was released). My recollection is that the most relevant real estate data about the mill was posed by Jack Whittle. By the 1990s, the building was identified as the Army Aviation Association of America (since relocated to Monroe CT).
You have a great memory! Here are two stories from 2013:
https://06880danwoog.com/2013/04/27/southern-cotton-westport-twine/
https://06880danwoog.com/2013/04/28/more-on-lees/
I think it is on Riverside right before Dunville’s! Where the stain glass store used to be.
History not identification…is it by any chance one of the old buildings that are just below Lee’s Dam and part of the old mill factory? We used to walk through the woods from the Clinton Avenue Merritt Parkway Bridge to the river and then down to the dam to Richmondville Avenue. My brother had a friend who lived there..
OOPS! I did not read Dan’s post carefully. Sorry. Now, what did they make at the Mill? Was it string?
They made tinsel ribbon cords, fringes, ribbons, boucle, seine and cotton twines, candlewick and cords. It was powered by a millrace diversion of the Saugatuck River.
There were a lot of colored dyes used in this work and on most afternoons the water in the canal along Canal Street would be a bright red one day and yellow or green the next day. It all flowed into the Saugatuck River with everything else.
The old plastic factory. Glendenning.
Looks like the factory building on ZRichmondville.
When we lived in our first house in Westport, it was on Richmondville Ave in the early 60’s. I remember that it was an embalming fluid factory — we all got spooked by it? The sickening sweet smell of the embalming fluid was strong around the factory and I can still remember it to this day as we used to ride bikes down into that parking lot to the side of the building. Anyone else remember the embalming fluid part of this building’s history? We lived there from 60 to 64 and then moved to Bridge St.
The Mill on Richmondville Avenue
Mill on Richmondville
Missed that one, even though I once worked in that building! Besides “tinsel ribbon cords, fringes, ribbons, boucle, seine and cotton twines, candlewick and cords” and according to rumor–coffin nails, there was also a great deal of art “manufactured”. Studios on the top floor once were once rented by Famous Artists Schools for the use of their faculty. Alfred Chadbourn, Charles Reid, Mort Rosenfeld, Stanley Bleifield, Robert Baxter, Ann Toulmin-Rothe, Bert Dodson, Ward Brackett and many others worked there for years. It was also home to weaving, interior design and graphics studios. Looks a little different today!