Hoping to get an early start on shopping, you head downtown. You pull into the Parker Harding lot — but it’s already nearly full.
A great sign of Westport’s booming retail economy?
No. A distressing sign that employees are taking advantage of free all-day parking.
The decision during COVID to lift limits seemed wise. Many stores were closed, or on reduced hours. Why not make things easier on the folks we needed?
Now though — as the holiday season nears — parking needs have changed.
Parker Harding Plaza
A longtime (and very frustrated) Westporter writes: “All day long, the cars just sit there. There’s no room for anyone except the employees. Why can’t they park in other lots and walk a couple of blocks, like they used to?”
Why can’t shoppers do the same? you may ask.
The answer is: Because we’re supposed to make shopping attractive and easy.
The nickname for Parker Harder is “Harder Parking.” Seems like downtown employees — and their employers — make it even more so.
Saturday’s International Market and Festival at Lachat Town Farm yesterday was a huge success.
Global cultures was celebrated through food trucks, world music, dance troupes, artisanal vendors, kids’ activities, and (of course) a German beer garden.
If you weren’t there, this photo will have to suffice.
Westporters continue to help Horace Lewis, Staples High School’s head custodian who suffered a major stroke just 5 months after retiring last summer.
The latest update from his family:
“He is making small gains with his therapies. He can hear us, and makes sounds verbally in response. It takes a lot of energy for him to do. We continue to pray for God’s will to be done for Horace’s healing.
“We ask for your support to help with his long-term rehabilitation journey. To find a safe place of comprehensive rehabilitation for brain injury as close to home would be what he would have liked. His family, friends and all involved are so thankful for your help.”
Two requests, from an organizer of a December holiday event: “Do you know someone who could be a Santa Claus? And anyone with a boat still in the water who could decorate it with holiday lights, to be admired by the Ruth Steinkraus Cohen Bridge?”
If you can help, email dwoog@optonline.net. Thanks!
Looking for a Santa — and a boat. Two separate items, despite this photo.
With all eyes on the Staples High School boys soccer team, as it roars into the post-season with a 9-1-4 record, here’s a reminder of some players who grew up here before taking their talents elsewhere.
The Hopkins private school varsity team is captained by Max Gordon. They’re having a great season, having beaten longtime powerhouses Avon Old Farms and Kent.
Max is joined by fellow Westport Soccer Association graduates Liam Spellacy and Albert Yang. Good luck as they begin the Fairchester league playoffs next month — seeded first.
Rowene Weems describes the back story to today’s “Westport … Naturally” photo, taken on the boardwalk by Bartaco:
“I did not use a zoom. The gull waited patiently while I got closer and closer, seemingly expecting a treat. He bolted, when he realized all I had was a camera.”
When Eric Chiang moved to Westport in 1993, he lived across the street from the legendary illustrator Howard Munce.
Growing up in Taiwan, Chiang had loved art. But he didn’t know anyone who made a career of it. So he went to New York University, majored in computer science and math, earned a master’s, and got a “normal job” as a programmer and financial modeler at Goldman Sachs.
Watching Munce — then in his 80s — create sculptures outside, even in winter, intrigued Chiang. He watched with added interest as Leonard Everett Fisher — another iconic artist — came to visit Munce.
Chiang realized that Westport’s arts legacy lived on, in the spirit of real, working artists.
Around 1997, he carved out half an hour or so every night to create art. He had no formal training. He did not have an actual studio either — just a small easel in a corner of his living room.
But after nearly a decade, he’d accumulated plenty of works. He had ideas for many more.
Chiang wanted no regrets. He decided to leave Wall Street. His wife gave her blessing.
In 2007, Chiang became a full-time artist. His painted realistic objects, arranged surrealistically.
“The Year 2020, No. 2” — oil on canvas.
In the past few years he’s moved into less precise landscapes. His works are big, and tied to his love of nature.
For example, he says, he always wondered what would happen if the earth wrote a story about itself.
To keep his hands off the work — he wanted the art to be as primordial as possible — Chiang sprayed paint to represent rain, storms and the erosive process at work. To mimic gravity, he tilted the canvas.
The resulting “Land Scripts” series of more than a dozen paintings is 50 feet wide.
Eric Chiang with his “Land Scripts XIII.”
Chiang applied the same technique to “Water Scripts,” a series of 12-foot high waves and waterfalls.
“Water Scripts I” — oil on canvas.
Another work fills a large space at Coleytown Middle School. When Westport Permanent Arts Collections officials realized they had nothing suitable to hang near a staircase and skylight in the newly renovated school, they asked Chiang to help.
He presented 5 options. Students chose an intriguing work called “Are We Born Connected?,” which included guitars.
“Are We Born Connected?” (Eric Chiang, acrylic on canvas)
When that was selected for an exhibit at the Housatonic Museum of Art, the second choice — a 16-foot, 4-panel “History of Civilization” — took its place.
“A History of Civilizations,” at Coleytown Middle School.
Not all of the artist’s creations are enormous. His most recent work — “Westport: A Perspective From Early Days” — is one of 5 murals unveiled this month at the Main Street entrance to Bedford Square. His depicts the earliest days of our town.
Chiang explains:
This mural brings us into an imaginary world back in the early days of Westport, when the Paugussett Indians occupied the area with a farming and fishing culture. Then the European traders came to transact with the indigenous tribes, just to be followed by the English colonists, who built towns, church, and farms.
From there, someone in the painting invited us to peek into the future – Let’s go over the bridge and see a bigger town and a much greater nation in the making.
“Westport: A Perspective From Early Days”
Inspired by Howard Munce and Leonard Everett Fisher — and his own career change — Chiang is a firm believer in the importance of arts to Westport.
“It’s less about the exhibits and displays, than the spirit of the people,” he says. “And it’s not just visual artists. It’s musicians, dancers and writers. Their activities make the whole town artistic.”
In Taiwan, Chiang had no role models. In his first years as an artist here, he worked alone. But when the Westport Artists Collective began in 2014, he was an avid founding member.
He is eager to keep passing Westport arts’ “spirit and culture” on to future generations.
Meanwhile, visitors to Bedford Square — and hundreds of students at Coleytown — are enjoying Eric Chiang’s work.
A long way from Taiwan — and Goldman Sachs — he enjoys creating it too.
(To see more art at Eric Chiang’s website, click here. Hat tip: Kris Szabo.)
Today marks the middle of Restaurant Week. Rowene Weems had “a lovely dinner outside on a beautiful night at Harvest. The atmosphere was magical, with lights and a full moon. There is also something cool about being next to the train station.”
For more on the Westport Weston Chamber of Commerce event, click here.
It’s an anomaly: a Post Road house that has withstood decades of growth all around it.
On one side, there’s Westport’s central fire station. On the other, Terrain replaced a car dealership. The lifestyle brand tried to get rid of the wooden structure — for parking, so they wouldn’t have to maintain it, and probably other reasons — but it still stands there, at the corner of Crescent Road.
It’s dilapidated. It’s forlorn. It was also last week’s Photo Challenge. (Click here to see.)
Elaine Marino, Andrew Colabella and Clark Thiemann all knew where and what it was.
It’s easy to overlook. But it’s still — after all these years — an important part of the Westport streetscape.
It’s “time” now for this week’s Photo Challenge. If you know where in Westport you’d see this, click “Comments” below.
Today’s arresting New York Times Magazine cover photograph is by Pulitzer Prize winning (and 1988 Staples High School graduate Tyler Hicks.
The Contributors’ page explains that the photography for the story — on sharks and Cape Cod — was shot over the course of 3 months. Luckily, it says, both Hicks and the author “are men of the ocean and have plenty of boating experience. They were still at the mercy of nature, with the weather and an unpredictable predator to cover. But they also had technology to deal with. Drone batteries run out very quickly.” (Hat tip: John Karrel)
The noted artist is relocating to Florida, for her husband’s job. Her current Newtown Roux Gallery show, “Dreamweaves,” closes Tuesday.
Today, she hosts a reception there (14 Elm Street, 2nd floor, 3 to 5 p.m.). Share a glass of bubbly, and thank her for all she’s done for our artistic community.
Rowene Weems attended yesterday’s OAKtober/Halloween celebration on Jesup Green. She reports: “Lots of costumes, young and old. Earthplace brought a snake and a bat. There were 50 pumpkins to decorate. We got an oak tree too!”
The event was sponsored by Westport Book Shop, Earthplace and the Westport Tree Board.
It’s bad enough when traffic for the Starbucks drive-thru backs up on the Post Road, coming from the west (downtown).
But yesterday, this very entitled driver coming from the other direction decided his (or her) Trenti iced coffee, 12 pumps [sugar-free] vanilla, 12 pumps [sugar-free] hazelnut, 12 pumps [sugar-free] caramel, 5 pumps skinny mocha, a splash of soy, coffee to the star on the siren’s head, ice, double-blended drink could not wait.
Hey … why park and go inside, when I can block one lane of traffic on Westport’s main thoroughfare, right? I’m thirsty!
Once upon a time, Halloween was a hallowed — and very neighborly — holiday.
Some kids wore mom-made costumes. Others had store-bought masks. The younger ones went out with parents. But everyone 8-ish or older roamed their road, and one or two nearby, on their own.
They scarfed up as much candy as they could, in an hour or so. A few pennies were collected for UNICEF. Sometimes a pumpkin got smashed, an egg tossed.
Then the arms race began. Costumes grew more elaborate. Parents drove their kids to Westport’s densest neighborhoods,* maximizing the candy-to-ground-covered ratio.
Adults joined in the fun, opening their homes (and liquor cabinets) to friends and srangers chaperoning ever-older trick-or-treaters. With so many parents (and security cameras) around now, kids have no idea how to smash a pumpkin or toss an egg.
Last year, the pandemic threw Halloween for a loop. Would trick-or-treating on crowded streets turn into a super-spreader event? Was it dangerous to grab candy from a communal bowl? Wasn’t everyone sick of wearing masks,, anyway?
Some parents said: Go for it. Kids have lost so much already, let’s not take away Halloween.
Others said: Not this year. COVID before candy.
Which brings us to Halloween 2021. The virus still lurks here. Many in their prime candy-grabbing years have not yet been vaccinated. What’s a parent to do?
Full steam ahead? Only with friends? Sorry — no candy this year, kids?
“06880” wants to know how your family is handling Halloween. Click “Comments” below.
Whatever your choice — and speaking now as an adult, not a youngster — let’s hope it does not involve eggs.
At least, not at my house.
2021?
* If you don’t know where, I’m not going to tell you.
Annual reports are usually ho-hum affairs. Whether they come from your favorite non-profit or a business you don’t even know is part of your portfolio, odds are you toss them without opening. What a waste, for all the work done by top executives on down to interns.
You will not throw away the Westport Library’s annual report.
For one thing, it’s digital. For another, it’s fantastic. Dense, filled with numbers, they
In 20 video testimonials, users speak passionately about what the library means to them. The children’s section, research, pleasure reading, events — it’s all there, all recorded in the facility’s own Verso Studios.
The Westport Library is the gift that keeps on giving. This unique annual report is one more reason you should give back even more. (Click here to see.)
Screen shot of the Westport Library’s annual report. Each thumbnail links to a different short video.
Captains David Farrell and Ryan Paulsson were promoted this week, at a Town Hall ceremony. Chief Foti Koskinas praised their outstanding worth ethic, high character and strong commitment to the town.
Farrell served as a crisis negotiator with the Southwest Regional Emergency Response Team, and is a former member of the department’s Honor Guard. He was vice president of the Westport police union and Police Benevolent Association, and worked closely with Special Olympics organizing charity torch runs and fundraisers.
Farrell holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Connecticut. He lives in Fairfield with his wife and 2 daughters.
Paulsson — a Staples High School graduate — was hired as a patrol officer in 2000. Since rising to captain in 2017, Paulsson has commanded the Professional Standards Division. He is currently in charge of the Operations Division, and the Westport Police/Fire Dive Rescue Team.
He is a former K-9 handler and team leader for the Southwest Regional Emergency Response Team. He is a certified law enforcement instructor.
Paulsson holds a bachelor’s degree in justice and law administration from Western Connecticut State University, and is pursuing his master’s degree in criminal justice at Sacred Heart University. He lives in Milford with his wife and 2 daughters.
Since opening this summer, La Plage — the new Inn at Longshore restaurant — has become a go-to destination. The food equals the always stunning view.
La Plage is run by Greenwich Hospitality Group — operators of the wildly popular Delamar Hotels and and Artisan Restaurants. Now, they’ll take over catering at the Inn too.
The Inn’s culinary team is led by Frederic Kieffer, executive chef of La Plage. He also oversees food service for Artisan restaurants in Southport, West Hartford and Traverse City, Michigan.
“I keep myself busy by walking around the Longshore golf course. In the course of my walks I pick up stray golf balls. I now have over 1,000.
“I want to give them away. Ideally, I would like to donate them to a youth group involved with golf. Local high schools are not interested. Can you come up with some clever ideas to help me direct this gift? Maybe an organization that can raffle them off?”
I’m not sure — but I’m sure our readers will tee up on this one. If you have any ideas of where our friend can donate over 1,000 golf balls, click “Comments” below. Fore!
The National Basketball Association is 75 years old. The NBA Retired Players Association is 3o. Heartlent is one.
But the Westport-based digitial, social strategy and creative content team has teamed up with those 2 organizations to refresh their visual identity. Heartlent created a new logo, and a series of custom animations based on untold stories from hoop legends. The first features Charles Barkley (below)
You can review stills from the first animation as well as the logo here. to check out those stills. Access the full video via NBRPA Twitter.
The animation has tons of easter eggs. How many can you find?
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