The Planning and Zoning Commission adopted a 5-year affordable housing plan last night. The bipartisan vote was 5-0, with 2 abstentions.
Highlights include:
Creating a new affordable community designed specifically for families.
• The formation of a town-funded Affordable Housing Trust Fund to direct resources towards future development of affordable housing.
• The immediate development of location specific plans for town-owned land to meaningfully expand and/or renovate existing rental housing/structures to create affordable housing, and potentially partner with nonprofits engaged in this work.
• Allocation of the approximately $1,700,000 in the town’s Real Property Fund to acquire land for future development of affordable housing.
• The deed restriction of existing town-owned rental properties so that they are affordable and remain affordable to renters.
• The adoption of a new zoning district at Powell Place to ensure that existing deeply affordable housing (40% State Median Income or less) can be more intensively redeveloped with flexible parking requirements reflecting the availability of public lots nearby.
There is much more in the 5-year plan. Click here for a full “06880” report.
Part of the 5-year affordable housing plan envisions a “model pocket neighborhood/cottage commons” design. (Courtesy of Ross Chapin AIA)
You’d think by now everyone would have gotten the message.
Nope. Here’s the latest Groundhog Day news from the Westport Police Department:
On Saturday, several cars were broken into. All were unlocked. Go figure.
This often happens at night. However, these crimes occurred in late afternoon and early evening.
The WPD once again reminds Westporters to lock your cars and bring your keys or fobs inside. And never leave valuables — cash purses, wallets, electronics — in your car.
The Police Department also offers this advice, for the June 30th fireworks:
Spectators should arrive early. Traffic delays are inevitable.
Compo Beach closes at 4 p.m. Only vehicles with fireworks passes can remain. Parks & Recreation staff will collect passes. The beach should reopen to ticket holders by 5 p.m.
Vehicles with tickets can access the beach through South Compo Road only. Hillspoint Road south of Greens Farms Road will be open to residents who live south of that intersection.
Firework attendees should display their ticket prominently on the dashboard. It will be collected at the parking gate.
All ticket holders must be inside Compo Beach by 9 p.m. No beach traffic will be allowed south of the Minute Man monument after that time.
Vehicles without tickets will not be allowed any further toward Compo Beach than the Minute Man.
Uber, Lyft or taxi users will be directed straight past the Minute Man, on Compo Road South. They can be dropped off at Soundview Drive. Return service will not be available until after 11 p.m., due to 1-way traffic leaving the beach.
When the fireworks end, there will be 2 lanes of 1-way traffic only on Compo Beach Road and South Compo, to the intersection of Greens Farms Road. Residents of that area returning from elsewhere should expect a delay of 1 hour or so.
The fun doesn’t end with the fireworks. On Saturday, July 9, Westport Sunrise Rotary’s Great Duck Race returns. There’s a new location — Jesup Green — but the same family fun.
The day begins with a 10 a.m. Fun Fair in the Westport Library parking lot. Activities include a Nerdy Derby, face painting and bubble machines.
At 1 p.m. on Jesup Green, 3,000 plastic ducks will slide down a 160-foot sluice course. Each wears a number, matching a $20 raffle ticket. The first 10 ducks down the course win money for their ticket holders. First place is $5,000. Second place wins $1,000. The next 8 finishers get $500 each.
The event is a major Sunrise Rotary fundraiser. Proceeds support charitable endeavors in this area, the state and around the world.
Click here for tickets, and to learn more about Sunrise Rotary.
When Dick Lowenstein received his 2022-23 tax bill yesterday, he was surprised to see that the gross assessment had risen on his 2 vehicles. The dollar amounts were not huge, but the percentages were: 29% higher for his 2002 Lexus, 11% for his 2014 Honda CRV.
He called tax assessor Paul Friia. The immediate response: Gross assessment is based on standard information provided to the assessor. “Presumably, because of supply shortages, new car production has been delayed. Many people are instead buying used cars, which has driven up their value,” Dick reports.
I wonder what this Maserati will be assessed at next year. (Photo/Jerry Kuyper)
Our “Westport … Naturally” feature is open to everyone. We run photos of anything “natural” in town: animals, birds, flowers, trees — you name it. If it lives, we want to showcase it.
We are especially interested in images from young readers. Today we welcome 15-year-old Benji Porosoff, who captured this scene:
And finally … on this day in 1969, the Stonewall riots began in New York. The uprising — sparked by a police raid on the Stonewall Inn gay bar — is considered the start of the LGBTQ rights movement.
Ten years later, Diana Ross commissioned Chic founder (and current Westporter) Nile Rodgers to create material for her new album. One song was inspired after he saw drag queens dressed as Diana Ross at a New York club. It is now considered an anthem of the LGBTQ community.
(“06880” is supported solely by readers. Please click here to contribute.)
Posted onJune 28, 2022|Comments Off on Burt Grad: Univac Pioneer Looks Back, And Ahead
For many older Americans, technology is wonderful. They FaceTime grandkids, stream videos, and stay in touch with the online world.
But they’re not digital natives. They rely on those grandkids for technological help. There’s always fear of pushing the wrong button. Computers can seem like a foreign language.
Not to Burt Grad, though. He’s spent his life around technology. He was in on the ground floor of some of the first computers — literally.
And now — at 94 years old — he’s working on a project to save as much of its history as he can.
Burt Grad, at his 85th birthday party.
His office is in the Westport home he shares with his second wife, Carol Anne Ances. There’s a computer, of course, and a cellphone. It has exponentially more power, he says, than “the whole building” that housed the original machines he worked on.
They were at GE. The company bought the first commercial-use Univac 1 computer ever made. There were only 2 others in existence: one at the Census Bureau, the other used by the Air Force.
Its main memory consisted of 1,000 words, of 12 characters each. Grad points to his cellphone — with exponentially more power — and laughs.
Remington Rand’s Univac 1, at the US Census Bureau in 1951.
He grew up in Washington. The summer after graduating from high school, in 1945, he worked at the Pentagon doing statistical analyses of Army Air Force training flights. It was his introduction to punch cards.
Grad earned a scholarship to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and majored in management engineering. He was hired by GE, headquartered in nearby Schenectady, New York.
Burt Grad, 1959.
Working there, then in New York City and Louisville, he created the first commercial business applications on that Univac, helping automate factories.
Moving on to IBM, he managed the development of over 100 application program products. He represented IBM in the software industry trade association.
IBM’s legendary former chair Thomas Watson once said that the maximum number of computers that the world needed was 17. “He was slightly wrong,” Grad notes.
As great and important a company as IBM became in computers, Grad adds, it missed the boat with software. They saw it only as a way to sell hardware — not something with intrinsic value.
His third career was in consulting. In a 3 decade-plus career, Grad worked for over 200 clients. He did strategic planning, due diligence studies and valuation projects for software and services companies.
An industry titan, he recognized the need to compile some of the history he was seeing (and participating in). As co-chair of the Software Industry Special Interest Group at the Computer History Museum, Grad has collected oral histories and pored through files from software pioneers from the 1950s through the ’80s.
Software — not hardware — is the force that truly powered the computer revolution, Grad says.
And this has been more powerful than the previous seismic one. “All the Industrial Revolution did was change how we move physical objects,” Grad says. “Now, we move ideas around the world.”
The computer revolution began in earnest in the 1970s. In 1971, when Burt Grad’s future stepson Michael Ances was 1, he played with this IBM 3270 terminal, connected to an IBM mainframe computer. Michael’s mother Carol Anne worked with Grad at IBM.
“Software” is a hard-to-define term, of course. “Google is really a software company,” Grad says. “So is Amazon. The only reason we use them is because they’re online.”
By that definition, Uber may be a software company too. And what about banks? They spend a significant amount of money on computing, Grad says.
Documenting the importance of software is one of the Westporter’s several passions. He has recorded 130 oral histories — each lasting 2 to 6 hours — for the Computer History Museum.
Topics include the development of spreadsheets, word processors and desktop publishing.
Why is it important? “Why is the history of the Gold Rush important?” Grad counters. “This is an incredible industry. It has impacted nearly everyone’s life. Except for a couple of people, like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, it wasn’t being captured.”
There’s an irony to his work. During the Gold Rush, people wrote letters and journals. Those physical objects remain, a century and a half later.
Thanks to software itself, we have very little physical documentation of the development of that software.
Burt Grad, at work.
Grad knows a lot — and at 94, his mind is as sharp as it was when he was devising the first commercial applications for Univac 1.
But he draws the line at predicting what’s next.
“I’m not smart enough to do that,” Grad says. “No one is. No one in the 1960s and ’70s knew where we would be in 30 or 40 years. No one knows where we’ll be 10 years from now.
“I won’t be around then. But my kids, my grandkids and great-grandkids will be.”
Whatever world they live in, they’ll have Burt Grad to thank for helping them live in it.
And for keeping its history alive.
(Hat tip: Michele Solis)
(“06880” relies on reader donations. To support this blog, please click here.)
Comments Off on Burt Grad: Univac Pioneer Looks Back, And Ahead
As much as I enjoy writing “06880,” I know many readers come for the photos.
And in a constellation of stellar “06880” photographers, John Videler shines very, very brightly.
The other day he put down his camera, headed to the Westport Library, and chatted about his craft.
I spoke with the 2nd-generation Videler Photography owner (his father started the business) about how he works; the variety of his clients; his favorite shots in Westport, and (of course) what it was like to grow up here.
Click below for our interview. To see some of John’s “06880” work, click here.
Westport just celebrated our annual, wonderful. warm and welcoming jUNe Day.
So let’s start the week with a jUNe Day complaint.
A reader sends this photo —
— and writes:
“I noticed that the Russian flag is flying on the bridge — next to the American flag.
“Shouldn’t that flag come done while we are boycotting and protesting Russia’s invasion of sovereign Ukraine? Additionally, the Russian flag is right at the center of the bridge, next to the American flag — certainly a special spot. Can the town change the flags to reflect the current state of affairs?”
Well!
I’ve always been told the flags fly in alphabetical order. Right now, 193 countries are members of the UN. I did not count the flags this year. Besides, I’m no flags-of-the-world expert, so I can’t answer whether they are in alphabetical order or not.
(I would have contacted the Department of Public Works, which sets up and removes the flags each year, but they were closed for the weekend.)
My next thought: Maybe Russia still goes by its former name — the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. That would, amazingly, put it smack next to the United States.
I checked the UN website. Nope: It’s “Russian Federation.”
Then I wondered if the DPW simply uses the same list year after year. The wheels of municipal government grind slowly, but I can’t imagine they’d use a list from the last century without anyone noticing.
Finally, I wondered: What are those other flags next to Russia?
The one on its right seems to be Romania — which, alphabetically, comes right before Russia.
The one on the left — interrupted by the US — appears to be Rwanda. Bingo!
Perhaps the American flag is placed smack in the middle of the bridge because, hey, this is our country — and Russia just happens, ironically, to be where it is by the luck of the alphabet.
At any rate, there’s no reason to remove the Russian flag, even if the country is an international pariah.
A flag kerfuffle and looming constitutional crisis notwithstanding, this was a perfect weekend for a walk at the beach.
My path took me along Bradley Street. I spotted this subtle — but hopefully strong — reminder to dog owners: Their lawn is not a canine crapper.
(Photo/Dan Woog)
I also noticed an astonishing amount of trash left on the tables outside the Hook’d concession stand, under the brick pavilion roof, and on South Beach.
How difficult is it to take your trash 5 steps to the nearby receptacle?
Kick off the holiday weekend by doing something for others. VFW Post 399 hosts its 24th straight monthly Red Cross blood drive this Friday (July 1, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., 465 Riverside Avenue).
“Cheese Fries & Froot Loops” — the true, moving and humorous one-man show written and performed by Weston native Chris Fuller about his attempt to make it to the PGA Tour while struggling with bipolar mental illness — debuted at Fairfield Theater Company last month.
It led to an invitation to perform at the United Solo Theater Festival in New York this fall.
First though, Fuller plans 2 shows here, to benefit the Artists Collective of Westport: July 23 and 24, 8 p.m. at the Westport Woman’s Club.
The suggestion donation is $15 a tickets, and includes complimentary wine and cheese.. Funds raised will help provide art supplies and activities to those in need. For reservations, email aspetuck@optonline.net or call 203-349-8786
Fuller — son of famed author John G. Fuller and playwright Elizabeth Fuller — will give away copies of his book “Goodnight, Golf!” after an on-stage putting contest during the show.
Dennis Poster died at home, surrounded by his family. on Friday. He was 82.
The Syracuse native, and Syracuse University graduate ran specialist books on the New York Mercantile Exchange and American Stock Exchange. He later managed D.B. Poster Associates, working from Connecticut to be closer to his family.
He was on the Executive Committee of Weill Cornell Medicine’s Dean Council, was emeritus chair of the JHE Foundation, and served on the boards of The Hole in the Wall Gang Fund, Save our Strays and The Compass Fund. He was also a trustee for The Aronson Family Foundation, which supports education, the arts, healthcare, and animal rescue charities.
Dennis loved golf, Pepe’s Pizza, DQ Blizzards, blackjack, backgammon, Shark Tank, watching CNBC, his cat Shadow, feeding the surrounding wildlife by his home, and most importantly, his family.
He had a near 50-year Father’s Day tradition of mini-golfing with his daughters, and then his grandchildren. He played semi-pro golf, and often joined pro-am golf tournaments with friends. He once shot a 66 at Winged Foot.
Dennis had a big heart, a warm soul and was fiercely loyal to his family and friends. We will miss his contagious chuckle, generosity, sage advice and especially his love.
Dennis is survived by his wife, Joan of 57 years; daughters Meredith and Cindy (David) of Westport; grandchildren Hannah, Lillie, Matthew, Max, Jack and Sam; brother Greg and sister Wendy.
In these polarized days, there is little that Westporters agree on.
From national issues like reproductive rights and our leaders, to local ones like the Cribari Bridge and affordable housing, battle lines have hardened.
But there is one thing all “06880” readers know: We love Tim Harman.
You’ve seen him — always smiling — bagging groceries at Stop & Shop.
Tim recently celebrated 30 years an an employee there. He started as part of Staples High School’s work/study program. For 3 decades, he’s been one of the supermarket’s most loyal employees.
Tim’s sister-in-law Karen writes proudly about other parts of Tim’s life:
In addition to Stop & Shop, Tim — who is now 51 — works at the wonderful Prospector Theater In Ridgefield. Its mission is to offer work opportunities to residents with special needs.
Tim Harman, working at the Prospector Theater …
Tim is also a longtime member of Our Vision. The organization’s mission is to enrich the lives for persons with disabilities by providing social, cultural and recreational activities which foster enduring friendships, and expand their potential through teamwork and training in Special Olympics.
But Tim’s greatest gifts are his infectious smile, and that he knows almost everyone in town — from everyday shoppers to teachers and coaches, and the town firefighters who come in almost daily.
In fact, he is an honorary firefighter, riding in the fire truck every Memorial Day parade.
… riding in the Memorial Day parade …
Every new customer is a new friend. The next time you meet him, he will remember your name. You can’t go anywhere without him knowing somebody. Some refer to him as the unofficial Ambassador of Westport.
Tim is a life-long Westporter. He attended Westport schools as a special education student, all the way, from Coleytown Elementary and Middle Schools, through Staples High. Tim was a member of the Wreckers swim team, and a manager for the baseball team.
His sports talent is evident at annual Connecticut Special Olympics competitions. He has run, swum, and even tried shot putting this year.
He’s pretty good. He has won close to 100 medals over the past 45 years ,including 3 last month. Tim doesn’t even count his ribbons.
… starring at Special Olympics …
Ask him about his favorite teams. He is a long-suffering fan of the Mets, Knicks and Giants. He can tell you the scores of each team’s games the next day.
Tim’s parents, Gail and Jim Harman, moved to Westport in 1963. Gail spent many years as a paraprofessional at Staples. Jim is well known as the proprietor of the garage next to The Porch @ Christe’s. Tim’s brother Jim lives locally, while his sister Liz calls New York City home. Both went through Westport schools, as did Tim’s niece Chase Harman Burke and nephew Andrew Harman.
Tim is a proud and loving uncle to 6 adults, and grand-uncle to 7 little ones.
… and with a great-nephew.
Congratulations, Tim, on your 30 years at Stop & Shop. And thank you for making Westport a better place, every day!
(“06880” relies completely on reader support. Please click here to contribute.)
For the 3rd time in less than 2 months, hundreds of residents thronged the Ruth Steinkraus Cohen Bridge, to show support for reproductive rights.
(Photo/Charlie Scott)
This time, they protested what they only feared twice before. On Friday, the Supreme Court declared Roe v. Wade — for 49 years, settled law affirming a right to abortion — unconstitutional.
(Photo/Charlie Scott)
The rally marked the second time that Senator Richard Blumenthal and Congressman Jim Himes delivered forceful remarks about a woman’s right to choose to a Westport crowd.
Congressman Jim Himes speaks. Senator Richard Blumenthal and rally organizer Darcy Hicks look on. (Photo/Charlie Scott)
Other speakers included Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewiez, Governor Ned Lamont’s wife Annie, State Representative Stephanie Thomas, and DefenDemocracy rally co-organizer Darcy Hicks.
They spoke against a backdrop of flags of 193 nations — part of Westport’s annual jUNe Day celebration yesterday.
(Photo/Charlie Scott)
1st Selectwoman Jen Tooker — who issued a statement yesterday affirming her commitment to protecting women’s rights to choose — was among the large crowd.
1st Selectwoman Jen Tooker, at today’s rally. (Photo/Charlie Scott)
Protestors included men as well as women, and families with young children.
(Photo/Charlie Scott)
(Photo/David Vita)
They were all ages, too.
(Photo/David Vita)
(Photo/Charlie Scott)
Crowds gather early, on both sides of the bridge. (Drone photo/Charlie Scott)
(Photo/Jerry Kuyper)
(Photo/Charlie Scott)
(Drone photo/Charlie Scott)
(Photo/Charlie Scott)
Many drivers honked in support. This one had their own sign. (Photo/David Vita)
Since opening in the middle of the pandemic, The Porch @ Christie’s has become exactly what owners Bill and Andrea Pecoriello envisioned: a worthy successor to the long-lived market/deli on Cross Highway.
Also: place for people with disabilities to learn skills, and work.
And a gathering spot for friends.
Which is why a sign saying “Friends” hangs proudly on the back wall, near the fireplace.
Andrew Colabella, Lynn Untermeyer Miller, Barbara Greenspan, Cia Marion, Martin Gitlin and Paul Cahill all knew exactly where to find last week’s Photo Challenge. Click here to see — then head over yourself, for breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee, ice cream or sweets.
But first, check out this week’s Photo Challenge. If you know where in Westport you’d find this charging station, click “Comments” below.
Click here to help support “06880” via credit card or PayPal. Any amount is welcome, appreciated — and tax-deductible! Reader contributions keep this blog going. (Alternate methods: Please send a check to “06880”: PO Box 744, Westport, CT 06881. Or use Venmo: @blog06880. Or Zelle: dwoog@optonline.net. Thanks!)
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