For decades, the sculpture of a bird has been affixed high atop the building that now includes Brandy Melville.
It was there when the tenants included Jewels by Jason, and a salon. It may even have been there when it was the original Ice Cream Parlor.
Lynn Untermeyer Miller, Andrew Colabella, Fred Cantor and Jill Odice all recognized it. (Click here to see.)
For everyone else: The next time you’re downtown, near Savvy + Grace and Nômade, look up. You’ll see one more bit of old Westport, hidden in plain sight.
This week’s Photo Challenge may also be one of those spots you often pass by, but seldom see.
If you know where in Westport you’d see this whimsical view, click “Comments” below.
(Photo/Johanna Keyser Rossi)
(Every Sunday, “06880” hosts this Photo Challenge. We challenge you too to support your hyper-local blog. Please click here to make a tax-deductible contribution. Thank you!)
More than 240 SLOBs, students and parents formed 38 3-v-3 teams, to raise over $5,100 for Staples Tuition Grants.
SLOBS president Cole Siegner, fundraising chair Zach Gillman and the executive board planned the event, and selected the charity to support.
They also voted to create a SLOBs named award with Tuition Grants, in honor of their friend and fellow Stapleite Max Harper. To contribute, click here; then select “SHS SLOBs Named Award” from the dropdown menu.
Contratulations to the winners: seniors James Pretty, RJ Kickham and Ben Cukier.
Runners-up were Austin Heyer, Cole Landgraf, Nate Maurillo and James Moneyhun. Two teams won sportsmanship awards: Jack Schwartz, Jackson Tracey, Max Saperstein and Andre Albanese, and Grant Bozeman, Ryan Marens, Charles Nivaud and Michael Roberts.
And finally … Donald “Duck” Dunn was born on this day, in 1941. A bass guitarist/record producer/session musician/songwriter, he is best known for his work with Stax Records artists like Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Eddie Floyd and others.
Dnn is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with Booker T. & the MGs. He died in 2012, at 70.
(Hold on! Are you coming with a tax-deductible donation, to support “06880,” your hyper-local blog? If so, please click here. Thank you!)
Those answers — part of a video shot against a backdrop of water — form the heart of the environmental organization’s Community Giving Challenge.
The goal is to inspire 250 residents to invest “invest in the town we all want to live in,” and make the vision expressed by our neighbors in the video a reality.
“Every single Westporter has a role to play in shaping Westport’s future,” Sustainable Westport says.
“Your gift, no matter the amount, will power our mission to inspire, support and connect residents, organizations, and the town of Westport in making both small changes and big commitments toward a healthier, more sustainable future.”
The fund drive kicks off December 1. But you can “seed” it now. Click here to give.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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)
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.
(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!)
I don’t think there’s ever been an “06880” online art gallery without at least one nautical-themed work, and one with flowers This week is no exception — and the submissions ae gorgeous.
Along with, of course, our usual assortment of themes, from all over Westport and the world.
But no matter what style or subject you choose — and whether you’re a first-timer or old-timer — we welcome your submissions. Watercolors, oils, charcoal, pen-and-ink, acrylics, digital, lithographs, collages, macramé, jewelry, sculpture, decoupage, needlepoint — we want whatever you’ve got.
Age, level of experience, subject matter — there are no restrictions. Everyone is invited to contribute.
Email a jpeg to 06880blog@gmail.com. And remember: Please include the medium you’re working in — art lovers want to know.
Untitled — Japanese brush painting, with a touch of collage (Maj Kalfus)
“Roses From Trader Joe’s” (Kathleen Burke)
“Tiger Lily Blossom” (Peter Barlow)
“Still Full of Life” — photograph (Jerry Kuyper)
“A November Moment, Sherwood Mill Pond” (Tom Kretsch)
“High Tide and Green Grass” (Fred Cantor)
“Branch Manager” — digital illustration created by Ken Runkel for his Surrealism portfolio. Applications used include Midjourney, Lightroom and Photoshop.
Untitled (Tom Doran)
“Hold That Tiger” (Martin Ripchick)
Photographer Mike Hibbard says, “within a month of birth the baby is brought to a temple for blessing, and placed in front of the statue of Buddha. Offerings of flowers, candles and incense are made, and the monk blesses this Nepalese child, announcing her name.”
“The Great Blue Heron” (Steve Stein)
Untitled (Lawrence Weisman)
(Entrance is free to our online art gallery. But please consider a donation! Just click here — and thank you!)
On Thursday, Americans will sit down to Thanksgiving feasts.
There will be turkey, football and naps. There should also be thanks. That’s kind of the whole idea.
Next week, “06880” will share some of the things our readers are thankful for.
Individually, they’re important. Taken together, they can provide a broad picture of “06880” — both our community here Westport, and our extended online one around the globe.
Please email 06880blog@gmail.com. Let us know what you’re thankful for this year. (NOTE: Do not post your thanks in the Comments section; just email them to us.)
Big or small; concrete or abstract; individually or as a family; here in town or anywhere else — we want to hear from you. And please let us know whether we can use your name, or if you prefer anonymity.
We’ll post your “06880” thanks next week.
Thank you!
This guy is thankful he’s roaming the streets of Westport, not stuck in a supermarket case. (Photo/William Webster)
Maria White Keogh is a 1979 Staples High School graduate.
She read the recent “06880” story on “Man Rising” — a mammoth sculpture by Westport artist Matthias Alfen — and the reference to noted Westport sculptor James Earle Fraser, who among other works designed the buffalo nickel, the “End of the Trail” sculpture of a Native American slumped over a tired horse, and the Theodore Roosevelt statue at the Museum of Natural History.
She checked in, to make sure her grandfather, Berthold Nebel, is not forgotten.
Born in Switzerland in 1889, he came to the US with his parents when he was 1.
He was hired as Fraser’s studio assistant in Gramercy Park, New York City. Nebel moved to Westport in 1930, on the advice of Fraser, and bought a 9-acre piece of land with a farmhouse on it.
Nebel soon built an artist studio much like Fraser’s. Nebel lived and worked there with his family, until his death in 1964.
Berthold Nebel’s Westport studio.
Here, he worked on commissions that included 2 sets of bronze doors for the Museum of the Americna Indian, and the Museum of the National Geographic Society.
Among Nebel’s other works: a statue of Confederate General Joseph Wheeler for the rotunda of the US Captiol, and another of General John Sedgwick for the front of the Connecticut Capitol in Hartford.
Berthold Nebel, with his sculptures in his studio.
Six months before atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, Nebel designed a metal called “World Unity or Oblivion.”
It shows a US soldier aiding a wounded companion. The reverse side says:
An explosion intended to destroy enemy forces … also obliterates whole communities.
Modern warfare has developed to such a degree that civilization may vanished from the earth unless there is to be better understanding among nations. This metal was designed to help impressed that thought, which I believe is uppermost in our minds.
One of Nebel’s last works was called “Adventure.” It showed a man and woman on a farm horse, riding toward a new life. The renewal of the human spirit was one of his favorite themes.
“The Adventure” (Berthold Nebel)
His studio is still in the family, and much of his artwork remains. Maria’s mother Lucia — a noted artist herself — lived there until she died in 2017.
(Friday Flashback is one of “06880”‘s many regular features. If you enjoy this — or anything else on our website — please consider a tax-deductible contribution. Just click here. Thank you!)
Right now, 3 athletic fields in Westport have lights: Staples’ Paul Lane Field, Greens Farms Elementary School, and PJ Romano Field behind Saugatuck Elementary School
Will there be more?
The Planning & Zoning Commission’s Recreation Sub-committee meets December 4 (12 noon, Zoom), to review and discuss a draft text covering lighted athletic fields on town-owned public school property.
The public may comment during the meeting. To comment before the session, email PandZ@westportct.gov.
The nighttime crowd at this fall’s Staples Homecoming football game. (Photo/Luca Caniato)
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Amng the items on the agenda of a joint meeting of the Representative Town Meeting Finance, Parks & Recreation, Transit and Public Works Committees (November 26, 7:30 p.m., Zoom):
A request by the director of Public Works to approve a $110,000 appropriation for the analysis, design and preparation of construction documents for traffic signal and pedestrian improvements in Saugatuck, between Bridge Street and Charles Street.
The proposal includes replacement of the Saugatuck fire station traffic light, and bicycle and pedestrian improvements.
Neighbors and Newcomers of Westport has partnered with Wreathing for Community.
Volunteers created over a dozen handsome winter wreaths. They’ll be donated to local organizations, charitable events and individuals in town, as recognition for for their kindness and good deeds.
Who gets them?
“06880” readers can nominate an organization or community member to receive a wreath. Email Faith Sargent: whimsicalredheadcrafts@gmail.com.
You can also email her to donate materials for future projects, or arrange an event for your organization or group.
Neighbors and Newcomers take a break from wreath-making.
Club203 was “on strike” last night. Members of Westport’s social group for adults with disabilities made pre-Thanksgiving “turkeys,” with a party at Nutmeg Bowling in Fairfield.
Friends, volunteers, fun and food had everyone ”rolling” in new friendships.
Next up: Club203’s holiday bash, December 11 at VFW Post 399. For more information, click here.
Ukraine Aid International — the non-profit founded by Westporters Brian and Marshall Mayer, which has spent nearly 3 years delivering supplies and services to residents and officials in besieged cities in that war-torn nation — has planned a holiday celebration.
It’s both an action-packed evening, and a fundraiser. Proceeds will be earmarked for Ukrainian children, as another harsh winter begins.
The December 8 event (1 to 5 p.m., Redline Restorations, Black Rock) includes food and drinks, holiday activities, kids’ crafts, antique cars, and updates from Marshall Mayer’s recent trip to the front. Click here for details.
Ukraine Aid International
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Westport Police made 5 custodial arrests between November 13 and 20.
A 58-year-old Waterbury man was arrested for larceny and criminal mischief. he allegedly entered Kai Yoga, stole money, then removed the security camera. He was arraigned on a $175,000 bond.
A 36-year-old Bridgeport man was charged with identity theft and violation of probation, following an investigation into a fraudulent check for $6,613.32, drawn in December 2020. He was held in lieu of an $80,000 bond.
A 34-year-old Stamford man was charged with larceny, criminal mischief and simple trespass, on a complaint by Bank of America of theft of parts of the exterior irrigation system.
A 53-year-old Bridgeport man was arrested on an active re-arrest warrant, after being stopped for a motor vehicle violation.
A 28-year-old Bridgeport woman was charged with failure to appear, after an active re-arrest warrant was discovered following a stop for a motor vehicle violation.
Westport Police also issued these citations:
Failure to comply with state traffic commission regulations: 13 citations
Failure to obey traffic control signals: 6
Operating an unregistered motor vehicle: 4
Traveling unreasonably fast: 3
Operating a motor vehicle without a license: 2
Operating a motor vehicle without minimum insurance: 2
Failure to halt possession of alcohol by a minor: 1
Speeding: 1
Failure to renew registration: 1
Failure to obey stop sign: 1
Failure to drive in the proper lane: 1
Failure to display lights: 1
Improper stop: 1
Improper use of markers: 1
One arrest this week was for an adult who failed to halt possession of alcohol by a minor.
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Barbara Young, a former Westporter and noted athlete, died last week in Massachusetts. She was 91.
She achieved tremendous success in a variety of sports, including tennis, field hockey, baseball, basketball, platform tennis and golf.
Barbara played for the Chicago Colleens and Kenosha Comets in the All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball League, later made famous in “A League of Their Own.”
She is a member of 3 Halls of Fame: at Dean Junior College (for tennis), the Connecticut Golf Association HOF, and in a “Women in Baseball” exhibit at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Barbara also won the Connecticut Sports Writers’ Alliance Gold Key Award.
Barbara was a New England girls champion tennis player, and went on play #1 on the Dean Junior College men’s team. She was also a Westport women’s champ.
At Dean, she also played field hockey. In the 1960s, she played semi-pro basketball.
She was ranked among the Top 10 platform tennis players in the nation.
After receiving a set of golf clubs from her husband for Mother’s Day, she took up the game. She was a 6-time Connecticut women’s champion, and an 8-time state senior champ, along with New England senior crowns. Barbara continues her success in North Carolina.
At the Highland Country Club in Attleboro, Massachusetts, well into her 80s, she was the second-ranked female member by handicap.
Barbara is survived by her children, Janet Young See of Mansfield, Massachusetts and Lawrence of Baltimore, and grandchildren Christopher and Andrew Young, and Jason and Brian See. She was predeceased byher children Donna and Scott.
A celebration of life will be held in January, in North Attleboro, Massachusetts. Click here to send online condolences.
Barbara Parks Young
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A great blue heron showed up recently at Burying Hill Beach.
And Johanna Keyser Rossi was there, to snap this image for “Westport … Naturally.”
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