Nina Sankovitch is a talented researcher and gifted writer. Her most recent book — American Rebels: How the Hancock, Adams, and Quincy Families Fanned the Flames of Revolution — is a deep dive into our nation’s fascinating 18th-century founding.
She is also a keen observer of her longtime home town, 21st-century style.
Yesterday, Vogue Daily published her “Letter From Westport: Together Again, But Still at a Distance.”
Sankovitch headed downtown on Friday, the first day many stores were allowed to reopen.
Nina Sankovitch
The doors to Anthropologie were open; she did not venture in. She chatted with bespoke clothier Stephen Kempson — outside.
And she checked out Mitchells, where “a deluxe hand-sanitizing-and-mask-station welcomed shoppers.” A host of store personnel greeted her with what she “assumed to be smiles behind their masks.”
Three days later — Memorial Day — brought more shoppers to Main Street, Sankovitch writes.
But, she wonders, “is a new shirt worth putting on a face mask for?”
And, she concludes:
Compo Beach is usually a favorite spot for locals, but right now the beach cannot give us what we, as a community, need: a place for us to gather as a community. To watch sunsets, grill dinners, throw frisbees, play pickle ball, basketball, baseball, and softball, hold book groups and hands and beers, all together.
Westport will truly be open when the library flings its doors wide, when the Levitt Pavilion starts holding free concerts again, when restaurant and café tables are filled, when the Senior Center is hopping, when I’m dancing with my fellow aqua-fitters in the Y pool. When we can once again come together as a community—together, yes, even if it means doing so at a safe distance.
(To read Nina Sankovitch’s entire Vogue Daily story, click here.)
This is what Nina Sankovitch is waitingi for.
