The Downtown Plan Implementation Committee has released the results of its most recent study.
What do 1,955 respondents, plus attendees at focus groups and a townwide charette say>
Surprise!*
Most want Jesup Green to be untouched, for parking or any other use. Some people would even like the open space expanded, toward the river.
The Imperial Avenue parking lot, while used for the Westport Farmers’ Market, Westport Woman’s Club, Levitt Pavilion and Westport Library, is not utilized for downtown shopping and dining.
Presented with 3 sites for a downtown parking deck, nearly 50% favored the Baldwin lot on Elm Street.
For details on those results, and other questions like parking limits, click here.
*Not really.
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Speaking of downtown: With Japanese, Israeli and French cuisine — plus Spotted Horse, Emmy Squared and Mrs. London’s — Church Lane is already a food mecca.
Soon, there will be an ice cream place too.
Van Leeuwen will open in the space previously home to Franny’s Farmacy.
It’s the 4th location in Connecticut for the chain, which features ice cream (including vegan), chocolate chip cookies, cookie sandwiches, sundaes and milkshakes.
The other sites are New Canaan, Darien and Greenwich.
Van Leeuwen also operates shops in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington, Colorado, Texas and California.
(Photo/Sal Liccione)
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Westport River Gallery is filled with fine American, European and Asian art.
There are many different price points.
Nothing there sells for $6.2 million, however. To pay that amount for art, you need to go to Sotheyby’s, and be a Hong Kong crypto entrepreneur willing to pony up for a duct-taped banana.
But wait!
What was that, duct-taped yesterday to a utility pole, outside the Riverside Avenue gallery?
Looks like anyone could have had it for free.
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The Representative Town Meeting Environment and Health & Human Services Committees meet together on Monday (November 25, 7:30 p.m., Zoom).
They’ll continue their discussion about “concerns related to a potential artificial turf field being added to Long Lots School property, during the new school construction.”
The athletic fields at Long Lots Elementary School are now all grass.
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Speaking of the environment: Next year marks the 95th anniversary of the Greens Farms Garden Club.
Members got a jump on the celebration Tuesday. The warm, sunny morning was perfect for palnting daffodils, at Machamux Park on Greens Farms Road.
The name comes from the Mohawk and Wallup Native Americans who settled in the area. They called the area overlooking Long Island Sound “Machaux” (“the beautiful land”).
In the mid-1600’s, colonists arrived. The 5 “Bankside Farmers” bought land along the shore from the Wallups.
It named Greens Farms in honor of John Green, one of the Bankside Farmers. A large memorial rock in the park will be surrounded by daffodils and grape hyacinths next spring — the Greens Farms Garden Club’s contribution to this “beautiful land.”
Second Selectwoman Andrea Moore and Westport parks superintendent Michael West helped prepare the garden bed for the volunteers.
In a few months, we’ll all enjoy their work.
Greens Farms Garden Club members, at Machamux Park.
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Och and oy!
That was the title of last night’s sold-out Westport Country Playhouse show.
Actor Alan Cumming (“Cabaret,” “The Good Wife”) and American journalist and singer Ari Shapiro (NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Pink Martini) joined forces for an evening of entertainment.
The event’s title paid homage to Cumming’s Scottish and Shapiro’s Jewish roots. It was a night of thought-provoking conversations, slightly bawdy musical numbers and personal storytelling.
Alan Cumming and Ari Shapiro: Och and oy! (Photo/Susan Garment)
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Duck!
It’s today’s “Westport … Naturally” photo:
(Photo/Johanna Keyser Rossi)
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And finally … Vic Flick, the delightfully named guitarist whose “driving riff in the theme for the James Bond movies captured the spy’s suave confidence and tacit danger,” says the New York Times, died November 14 in Los Angeles. He was 87. and suffered from Alzheimer’s.
Click here for a full obituary.
(New businesses, art, gardening, sports, schools — it’s all here, just like it is every day, in our “06880” Roundup. If you rely us on for news you can use, please click here to support our work. Thanks!)