The state Department of Transportation’s announcement of possible work on the Route 136/Route 57 intersection — where Main Street, Weston Road and Easton Road meet in a confusing number of ways — is welcome news.
But it’s not the first plan.
Nor is it the second. Or even the third, fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh.
Former 2nd Selectman Avi Kaner sends along a slew of previous solutions to the confounding confluence. All were prepared by ConnDOT, and discussed with town officials between 2004 and 2006.
Here they are. Click on or hover over each image to enalrge.
One envisioned 3 small roundabouts:
Another showed one large rotary:
Five others involved some combination of road widening, adding turning lanes, and eliminating or modifying the center island:
As the saying goes: Whatever goes around, comes around.
Or, in the case of the roads near Exit 42, whatever goes around may crash into whatever else goes around, unless everyone going around pays close attention.
Westporters learn to carefully navigate it. Visitors coming off Merritt Parkway Exit 42 are completely flummoxed by it.
At last — after decades of confusion — the Route 57 (Main Street)/Route 136 (Easton Road and Weston Road) cluster**** may get some improvement.
The state Department of Transportation has designed a plan. They’ll discuss it in a virtual public information program this Thursday (June 9, 7 p.m.), with a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session.
The meeting will be recorded. To access the meeting, provide comments or ask questions, click here (then scroll down to “Live Event Links”).
The plan includes replacing the existing flashing light with a full traffic signal, and widening the road.
The state Department of Transportation plan. Click on or hover over to enlarge.
Right-of-way impacts could include partial land acquisitions and easements.
The project is in the early stages of concept development. No funding or schedule has been identified. The public meeting is to discuss feasibility and solicit feedback.
Staples Players’ first Studio Theater production in over 2 years takes center stage on Thursday. Studios are directed, designed and run entirely run by students.
“At the Bottom of Missoula” portrays loss and grief in such an impactful way. Co-directors Chloe Manna and Chloe Nevas — both seniors — say, “It was a challenging piece but one we were excited to take on with our amazing cast and crew. The show takes the audience on a rollercoaster of emotions within its 35 minute run. The lighting design and sound is unique too, and creates really beautiful moments we hope the audience will be touched by.”
The plot: After losing her family in a fatal tornado, college student Pan embarks on an unimaginable journey. She transfers schools and isolates herself, but cannot escape feeling sad and guilty. Finally, a classmate helps Pam realize that healing need not be a solitary endeavor.
Performances are Thursday and Saturday, June 9 and 11 at 7:30 p.m., in Staples’ Black Box Theater. Click here for tickets.
The cast of “At the Bottom of Lake Missoula.” (Photo/Chloe Nevas)
The rugby team defeated Trumbull last night 41-21 in the state tournament semifinals.
The Wreckers advance to the state championship. The match is home (Paul Lane Stadium) this Thursday (June 9, 5:30 p.m.) against perennial powerhouse Greenwich — winner of 11 state titles. The Westporters shoot for their first.
Staples and the Cardinals have a great history. The Wreckers won their league match this spring; 3 weeks later, Greenwich got revenge at nationals.
Award winning singer-songwriter Diana Jones headlines this Saturday’s Voices Café at the Unitarian Church. Her 8 p.m. concert is both in-person and livestreamed.
The concert is dedicated to the efforts of 6 area faith communities. All help settle refugees in Fairfield County, through the Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants.
Volunteers come from Westport’s Christ & Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Unitarian Church and United Methodist Church; Weston’s Norfield Congregational Church, the Greenfield Hill Congregational, and First Church Congregational of Fairfield.
Jones has performed at the Cambridge Folk Festival, Galway Arts Festival, Levon Helm’s Ramble in Woodstock, New York, and Bimhuis in Amsterdam, and shared stages with Richard Thompson, Janis Ian and Mary Gauthier. Joan Baez has recorded her songs.
Voices Café offers café-style and individual seating. Click here for tickets, and more information.
It took 3 years of planning (and COVID), but Staples’ Class of 1980 will celebrate their 40th reunion — okay their42nd — at LaKota Oaks in Norwalk. It’s also a giant 60th birthday party for all. LaKota Oaks’ 65 acres includes a pool, basketball and volleyball courts, horseshoes and more.
The event begins Thursday, August 11 at Viva Zapata; continues Friday at the Black Duck, and concludes Saturday at LaKota Oaks. There’s jazz music in the afternoon, and a DJ at night.
As always, the Class of ’80 will raise money for the Susan Fund, in honor of classmate Susan Lloyd. For tickets and more information, click here. Questions? Email amy@aapk.com or szrobins84@gmail.com.
The Susan Fund — in honor of Susan Lloyd, Staples ’80 — provides scholarships for students with cancer, and survivors.
The refrigerator needs replacing. Then you add the cabinets next to it.
Soon you decide to redo the full kitchen. When you’re finally done, you’ve renovated the entire first floor.
Green’s Farms Church is a lot older than most Westport homes. Founded more than 3 centuries ago, and occupying the same storied spot on Hillandale Road since 1789, it has a remarkable history.
Green’s Farms Congregational Church
The church was formed when area residents grew tired of traveling by horse and cart to Fairfield every Sunday for services. The meetinghouse served as the site for important religious, political, educational and social meetings. It was rebuilt when the British burned it. After moving from what is now the southern side of the Exit 18 commuter parking lot, it endured more fires, hurricanes, and everything else that happens in 311 years.
One of Green’s Farms Church’s most cherished items is a pitcher donated by Martha Washington. It honors Rev. Hezekiah Ripley, who served from 1762 to 1821.
Parishioners first gathered on June 12, 1711. This Sunday — June 12, 2022 — Green’s Farms Church celebrates its most recent renovation.
It is thorough. It is handsome. It is in keeping with the understated Congregational tradition. But it brings Westport’s first religious institution firmly into the 21st century.
Yet much of it would not have happened without our 21st-century curse: COVID.
Several years ago, it was time to replace the organ. First installed in 1964, it had outlived its life span.
Soon, church leaders decided to also address structural issues like drainage and leaks at the same time. When they looked around the building — and saw that rooms like the social and banquet halls needed modernizing to better serve smaller gatherings like youth and bible study groups, and 12-step programs — they developed an integrated plan.
In 2019, architect Steve Orban and interior designer Betsy Cameron — both Green’s Farms members — began their designs. The next important step — fundraising — started too.
A few months later, the pandemic slammed the door on all in-person worship and meetings. Services went virtual — and contractor Rick Benson (also a parishioner) went to work.
The organ was removed. Contractors dug right to the foundation. They were surprised to find not boulders, but stacks of small rocks, supporting the structure.
Much of the work — steel, HVAC, drainage, fire suppression and more — will never be seen by congregants.
But what they see is quite impressive.
Beams from the original 1853 building — constructed after a fire destroyed the 1789 structure — were uncovered. Quickly, they were incorporated into the vestibule design.
One of 2 original beams, now in the narthex. They extend up to the 2nd floor.
The handsome narthex leads to a large area that can be used as an art gallery. It opens this Friday (June 10, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.), with an exhibit of paintings by Rebecca Swanson called — appropriately — “Emerging.”
Artwork will be hung this week in the new gallery.
At the rear of the gallery is a full kitchen. Among its uses: cooking meals for Westport’s Gillespie Center.
Two new classrooms bring the nursery school total to 6.
A handsome table upstairs was donated in memory of Stan Atwood. The Atwood family lived near the church.
The meetinghouse itself feels the same. But it’s deeper than before. The stained glass is much brighter (and built into a cabinet, with LED lights). The balcony has been brought forward too.
(From left): Diane Parrish, Peter Jennings and Claire England, iin the sanctuary.
A view from the rear shows newly restored stained glass.
As for the Aeolian-Skinner organ — the genesis of the ambitious project — it’s fully restored. But, in a nod to history, music director Rick Tripodi named several stops after choir members. He won’t be there to use the new instrument, unfortunately; he died just before the renovation was completed.
The restored church organ.
Green’s Farms parish was the original heart of what is now Westport. Over 300 years later, “we want to be more engaged and enmeshed in the community,” says Diane Parrish, co-chair of the capital campaign and renovation project.
“This is such a wonderful place for events and gatherings. We hope everyone will use it as much as possible.”
Several civic organizations are doing that. The Rotary Club and Sunrise Rotary are meeting weekly at Green’s Farms Church; the Chamber of Commerce will meet monthly. The Greens Farms Garden Club, Greens Farms Association and New Neighbors all use the space.
So will church-sponsored Scout troops. Four 12-step groups, and another one focused on mental health, have all been added.
A redesigned youth group room is also used for 12-step meetings.
“We owed the people who came before us the responsibility of caring for this building,” Parrish adds. “We owe it to the people here now — everyone in Westport — to be the best community members we can be.
“And we owe it to the people who come after us to make sure this is a building that lasts.”
If it lasts as long as the current one, Green’s Farms Church will be still serve Westporters in the year 2191.
(The rededication ceremony this Sunday, June 12, begins with a 9 a.m. ribbon cutting by 1st Selectwoman Jen Tooker. Services at 10 a.m. led by Rev. Jeff Rider feature music performed on the restored pipe organ. A festival at 11 a.m. includes food, games, ice cream and cake. The public is invited to all activities.
(In between the June 10 gallery opening and the June 12 ceremony is this: At 8 p.m. on Saturday, June 11, the Remarkable Theatre screens “The Bad News Bears.” Green’s Farms faith formation minister David Stambaugh played Toby Whitewood in the classic film. Click here for tickets.)
(“06880” relies entirely on contributions from readers. Please click here to donate.)
A new curved wall in front of Green’s Farms Church has proved to be a popular spot to meet and relax. (All photos/Dan Woog)
But that’s only 2/3 of her life. Tomorrow (Tuesday), she turns 100.
Fran Mande at Compo Beach, 2021.
An avid community member, Fran was a regular at the Senior Center, Westport Library and Levitt Pavilion before the pandemic. During COVID she has stayed engaged over Zoom, participating in current event classes and book clubs.
Frances moved to Westport in 1956 with her husband, Irving Mande. They raised 3 children — Alan, Jerry and Susan — here. Irv died in 2006. Fran continued to live in their home until the pandemic. She moved in with her son in Maryland, waiting for Covid to end.
Fran and Irv Mande, 1967.
Fran has many fond memories from her decades in Westport. She loved attending shows at the Westport Country Playhouse, taking her kids and grandkids to Compo Beach and Mario’s restaurant, and participating in many town programs.
She also enjoyed the Westport Road Runners program. She proudly remembers her picture in the Westport News for finishing a 10-mile race, in her 70s.
“I miss going to the Senior Center,” she says. “I used to spend 2 or 3 hours a day there. Suddenly, all that was gone.”
Several years ago Fran Mande posed for Pam Einarsen’s Westport Library photo project, “i geek …”
Happily, her return is imminent. Fran comes back Friday, to celebrate her birthday with friends and family.
“I like that,” she says. “It’s sort of a circle. It’s where I raised my family, and where I’m celebrating.”
Her thoughts on turning 100?
“Wow,” she laughs. “How’d I make it?”
The Westport Center for Senior Activities will hold a birthday celebration for Frances Mande this Friday, June 10, from 2 to 4 p.m. All friends and community members are invited.
(Hat tip for this report: Fran’s grandson, Thomas Mande.)
Westport Moms send word of a “Stand up Against Gun Violence” march this Wednesday (June 8). It begins at 10:30 a.m. on the Anthropologie steps, and continues through town.
1st Selectwoman Jen Tooker and Police Chief Foti Koskinas will join the crowd. Marchers are urged to wear orange, and bring signs.
At 10 a.m. yesterday morning, the “06880” Roundup included 2 photos of Grace Salmon Park. They showed benches at the popular Imperial Avenue park, covered in weeds and brush.
This was the scene at 9 a.m. today — less than 24 hours later:
Staples High School held its 21st annual Scholar-Athlete Dinner last night — but the first since COVID struck.
It was a fascinating evening. Each varsity sport selects one senior. Each coach asks each scholar-athlete a question about his or her passions, achievements, hobbies, extracurricular activities or sports.
The answers — a minute or so each — are insightful, poised, poignant, and often funny. Taken together, they paint a remarkable picture of the student-athletes at Staples.
Last night’s questions ranged from volunteer efforts (Food Rescue US, helping a Holocaust survivor, transcribing Library of Congress records) to lessons learned from coaching little kids, building models to predict the spread of COVID, working on political campaigns and against gun violence, and selling South African snacks.
Even more remarkably, the scholar-athletes were on top of their game despite having attended the senior prom the night before (and post-prom parties after that).
As several speakers noted after hearing the 36 students speak: The future is in great hands.
Scholar-athletes honored, and their sports:
Fall: Emily Epstein (cheer), Zach Taubman (boys cross country), Josie Dolan (girls cross country), Ava Ekholdt (field hockey), Andrew O’Loughlin (football), Ben Epes (boys golf), Aidan Mermagen (boys soccer), Madison Sansone (girls soccer), Raina Mandayam (girls swimming), Ally Schwartz (girls volleyball), Jasper Cahn (boys water polo).
Winter: Michael Brody (boys basketball), Sydelle Bernstein (girls basketball), Mimi Schindler (gymnastics), Johnny Raho (ice hockey), Rory Tarsy (boys indoor track), Emma Nordberg (girls indoor track), Will Heisler (boys skiing), Kate Smith (girls skiing), Brian Fullenbaum (boys squash), Romy Nusbaum (girls squash), Jacob Lee (boys swimming), Reese Watkins (wrestling).
Spring: Finn Popken (baseball), Lizzie Kuehndorf (girls golf), Derek Sale (boys lacrosse), Sara DiGiovanni (girls lacrosse), Alex Harrington (boys indoor track), Tessa Moore (girls outdoor track), Nick Prior (rugby), Erin Durkin (sailing), Caroline Coffey (softball), Matthew Chiang (boys tennis), Jordana Latzman, Ethan Moskowitz (boys volleyball), Rachel Offir (girls water polo).
The evening also included the awarding of several scholar-athlete scholarships. The Coleman Brothers Foundation presented Brewster Galley with a $40,000 award. Jalen St. Fort and George Kocadag each received a $6,500 Laddie Lawrence grant. Jaden Mueller got the $2,000 Albie Loeffler Scholarship.
Two other honors were handed out. Rory Tarsy was named the Thomas DeHuff Award winner, while Molly Liles earned the Jinny Parker Award.
After dinner, the scholar-athletes posed with their plaques. Here’s boys skiing honoree Will Heisler, and his parents.
Speaking of sports: The Staples boys tennis team has repeated as state champions.
For the 5th time.
The Wreckers won their 6th straight title Saturday. They beat Greenwich 4-1 at Wesleyan University.
Winners included singles players Robbie Daus and Noah Wolff, and the doubles teams of Luke Brodsky and Alex Guadarrama, and Brett Lampert and Lucas Ceballas-Cala.
The individual invitation tourney begins today, also at Wesleyan. Tighe Brunetti and Daus will play singles, Brodsky and Guadarrama doubles.
Congratulations and good luck to all — including coach Kris Hrisovulos!
The state champion Staples boys tennis team (from left): coach Kris Hrisovulos, Holden Dalzell, Clint Graham, Hayden Frey, Noah Wolff, Tighe Brunetti, Luke Brodsky, Robbie Daus, Matthew Chiang, Jared Evans, Brett Lampert, Alex Guadarrama, Lucas Ceballos-Cala. (Photo/Bob Daus)
Speaking once again of sports: Good luck to Staples’ boys lacrosse team. Ranked #2 in the state tournament, they face #3 Ridgefield on Wednesday (5 p.m., Fairfield University), in the semifinal round.
This past weekend, 5 girls from Saugatuck Elementary School participated in the Fairfeld 5K along Jennings Beach.
But they didn’t run alone. The youngsters took part in Girls on the Run. The after-school program is part of a national positive youth development project for grades 3 to 7.
The season runs for 10 weeks. Twice a week, girls learn about and practice skills and positive mindsets, including positive self-talk, friendship, and the importance of individuality.
Each session includes running. Girls build endurance, culminating in that celebratory 5K.
Westport’s Girls on the Run has partnered with Westport Continuing Education. Three parent volunteers lead the local program. They hope to bring the program to other schools in town. Parents interested in helping can email mary.bentley@girlsontherun.org. All abilities are welcome.
“I admit this photo has the quality of some yahoo’s version of a sasquatch. I have sympathy for that yahoo.
“On Saturday night as I sat at my dinner table a very large and muscular bobcat sauntered across my backyard. I was both shocked and anxious as I dropped some pizza to distract my dog, and scrambled to get this photo.
“In its confident walk, the bobcat stopped for a moment to look at me while I feebly attempted to get my phone open for the photo. Imagine if it was a sasquatch!”
The sold-out audience at Saturday’s Westport Pride drag show at MoCA included a numberof families with children. In addition to dancing the performers offered a bit of LGBTQ history.
Yesterday, the mother of one youngster wrote to “06880”: “I feel very strongly that exposing children to all sorts of personal expressions and pathways is essential in order for them to know that there is not one cookie-cutter way to be in this world.
“To have our children witness a person living life, full of joy, as their 100% authentic and beautiful selves is a powerful gift I intend on exposing them to always.”
15-year-old Desmond is Amazing — a New York City drag artist — posed with young fans.
Westport Lifestyle magazine does a great job highlighting the beauty and benefits of Westport.
But it does not neglect the more human, less talked-about, often unseen parts of life in our town.
This month, editor Robin Moyer Chung wrote about homelessness. It’s an important piece. Here’s a slightly edited version:
Antwayn, like every other Gillespie Center client, never thought he’d be homeless. Four years ago he had a full-time job, a home in Bridgeport with his girlfriend, a newborn and a toddler. Then one evening in March he lost everything.
Please take a moment to consider that we live in the town in which Antwayn briefly lived, but in an alternate universe. We enjoy advantages, trust and liberties that he did not.
Antwayn, today. (Photo/Mindy Briar)
Antwayn’s parents divorced when he was young. His mom raised him in Stamford. At 12 years old “I thought I knew everything,” he admits. His friend, Pookie, was in a gang, the Ebony Kings, and persuaded him to join. For initiation, 4 older members jumped him. He fought back. He walked away with a “busted lip” and an indoctrination into the Ebony Kings family.
He willingly assumed the life of a gang member. If a brother said “Jump that guy” he did.
When he turned 13 his mom sent him to live with his dad in Georgia. “I was furious,” he recalls. “But she knew I’d end up getting shot or shooting someone. At 13 you don’t understand the consequences.”
Today, he concedes that his mother saved his life by shipping him South.
He graduated from Jenkins High School in Savannah. At 19 he had 2 kids with 2 different women. “No one was teaching me anything,” Antwayn says. “My dad let me do anything.”
After graduating high school he earned a certificate and worked as a daycare assistant at the YMCA. Then he worked as an assistant camp counselor. “I love kids,” he says.
In 2003 he moved back to Connecticut and lived with his mother. He worked at Party City, then got a gig at Costco in 2007. He worked these 2 jobs for 10 years. “I was earning $21.95 at Costco,” he proudly says.
He later moved in with his girlfriend. Together they had 2 kids, Aalyah (now 7) and Antwayn (now 4). Then that day in March, after he returned from work, his girlfriend kicked him out of their home, and the police arrested him for violating a restraining order.
Antwayn couldn’t pay the $25,000 bond so they locked him in a cell for 28 days. “You don’t want to go jail,” he cautions, shaking his head.
Costco fired him for work abandonment. He had no home, no access to his money. His car was towed shortly after his arrest, his mother had no room for him in her home, and no business would hire a man fresh from the slammer. And he was not allowed to see his kids.
The only thing he had on the 29th day, finally out of prison, was his innocence. Not that it mattered. “I was confused. Lost. I lost it all in the snap of a finger.”
Devastated and shell-shocked, he dialed 211, the hotline for essential community services. They guided him toward a shelter in Bridgeport. For 15 days he lined up at 5 p.m. to get a bed for the night. Then he was granted room in Gillespie.
The Gillespie Center, in downtown Westport.
After 6 months in Gillespie, program manager Ryan Soto located and contacted Antwayn’s father in Oregon. He agreed to share his home with his son. So Antwayn relocated across the country. 33 days later he returned, shaken by his father’s violent mental health issues and veiled threats.
Again, he found himself with nowhere to turn. By miracle, Ryan discovered he was back in the system. He got a room for Antwayn in Gillespie. During the long months of his second residency he was pessimistic and untethered. Then slowly, with Ryan’s help, he took the difficult, unnerving steps to overcome fear and submit to the power of hope. Ryan says, “He says ‘Ryan, you give great advice so I’m going to listen to you.’”
Then Antwayn became one of Gillespie’s favorite success stories.
Gillespie found him affordable housing and hired him part-time in the food pantry. He serves meals, cleans up, assists with food and clothing donations. Every morning he comes an hour early — a free hour, no one pays him — to make coffee, clean the refrigerator, whatever needs to be done.
Antwayn, at work in the food pantry.
“I want to stay working here,” he says. “Miss Pat’s worked here for 17 years. I want to beat her record.” He’s strong, good, and happy. His eyes light up when speaking of his manager, Ryan, “Man he’s the best boss I ever had in my life. He knows how to talk to people with good respect.” Then adds, “I love this job.”
On April 5, after a slew of court appearances, he won sole custody of his son and daughter. He beams, “I’m so happy! I take it day by day — everything’s fresh. It hasn’t been a week yet!
When he has a moment to talk to Gillespie residents he tells them to look on the bright side, to pick themselves up and start over. He tells his story to help others like him find the smallest toehold in the crag of hope, so they can, one day, follow him to the summit.
About that summit: Helen McAlinden, director of Homes with Hope, nominated Antwayn for the Carol E. Walter Think, Be, Lead, Change Award, from the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness. Recipients are honored for their
perseverance and drive.
Antwayn won, and received a plaque last June. He calls that one of the proudest moments of his life.
(To learn more about the Gillespie Center and its parent organization, Homes with Hope, click here.)
Saugatuck Congregational Church occupies an important place in Westport — not only spiritually, but historically and geographically.
It was where our town began — literally. Meetings to form “Westport” — separate from Norwalk, Wilton, Weston and Fairfield, each of which we were once part of — took place there in the 1830s.
The church was originally located diagonally across the street, where the bank and Shell station are now. It was moved across the Post Road in 1950 (on logs!) in 1950, an event commemorated in Life magazine.
Now, the broad lawn a few yards from Myrtle Avenue and downtown marks it as a quintessential New England church. It’s a perfect spot for things like a healing labyrinth, and the Blessing of the Animals.
It’s also where a pair of angel wings stand. The original idea, Lois Himes notes, was for people to stand in front of the wings for a photo, then “go forth and do God’s work by being an angel.” (Click here to see.)
The wings were the subject of last week’s Photo Challenge. Lois identified Nancy Engel’s image correctly. So did Diane Bosch, Susan Iseman, Jenny Rago McCarthy, Janice Strizever, Jalna Jaeger, Karen Kim, Lynn Wilson, Joelle Malec, Susan Miller and (the lone male) Eugene C. Gavin. Congratulations to all!
This week’s Challenge involves Fred Born (who, like everyone who is born, eventually died). Do you know where his plaque is? And if so, can you tell us more about him (beyond his talents as a boater, machinist and storyteller)? Just click “Comments” below.
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