Tag Archives: Kings Highway North

Photo Challenge #465

Posted on November 26, 2023 | 17 comments

I wasn’t sure how many people would actually know the I’m-sure-I’ve-seen-it-somewhere image that was last week’s Photo Challenge.

It showed the bus shelter — built by the Westport Rotary Club — on Kings Highway North, not far from the Canal Street apartments. (Click here to see.)

As several readers noted, the site known as Duck Haven.

Which raises 2 questions:

Why, exactly, is it called “Duck Haven”?
And who, exactly, is the bus shelter for?

It is not on the Coastal Link bus line. I don’t know of any bus that passes by there.

Perhaps it was once a Minnybus stop.

Here’s an idea: If no one uses it now, can it be moved to a spot on the Post Road, where it could actually shelter people waiting for an actual bus?

Right now, it seems like a waste of good wood.

Congratulations to Andrew Colabella, Cheryl Petrone, Jamie Walsh, Ed Simek, Michael Calise, John D. McCarthy, Suzanne Ford, Michelle Vitulich, Dave Eason, Jonathan McClure, Jack Harder, Miichael Simso and Kate Caputo Squyres.

You probably noticed it while waiting on Kings Highway North for the light at Canal Street. Right now, 4 cars get through at a time — max.

But that’s a different issue.

This week’s Photo Challenge highlights a little-known fact: “Beetle Bailey”‘s creator, cartoonist Mort Walker, is buried in Westport.

(Photo/Arlene Yolles)

But where? And why?

If you know, click “Comments” below.

(The Photo Challenge is a Sunday “06880” feature. If you like it — or anything else from Westport’s hyper-local blog — please support our work. Just click here. Thank you!)

17 Comments

Posted in Photo Challenge, Transportation

Tagged Kings Highway North, Westport bus shelter, Westport Rotary Club

Pics Of The Day #1748

Posted on January 29, 2022 | 2 comments

Scenes from a nor’easter/bomb cyclone/blizzard that wasn’t.

BUT — it sure was cold. At mid-afternoon, it was just 11 degrees.

Time for lunch! (Photo/Betsy Pollak)

Kings Highway North (Photo/Claudia Sherwood Servidio)

Ellie Mae is dressed for the cold (Photo/Audrey Hertzel)

(Photo/Pat Saunders)

Molly Alger snowshoes to Winslow Park

Misty romps (Photo/Bob Weingarten)

Waiting for spring (Photo/Larry Untermeyer)

Not a great day for an outdoor nap (Photo/Robin Frank)

Looking for food (Photo/Robin Frank)

Hot coffee on a cold day (Photo/Ellen Wentworth)

Compo cannons at sunset (Photo/Tony Evans)

2 Comments

Posted in Beach, Environment, Pic of the Day, Weather

Tagged Compo cannons, Deer, Kings Highway North, snow

Photo Challenge #348

Posted on August 29, 2021 | 6 comments

The manmade structure looks like the old telephone switching station on Myrtle Avenue, opposite Sconset Square. Deadman’s Brook flows past it.

But readers who thought that was the answer to last week’s Photo Challenge did not look closely, at the waterfall in the background.

There’s no waterfall near downtown. But there is at one end of Nash’s Pond. Peter Tulupman’s photo showed he spillway near the dam and former icehouse, at Kings Highway North. (Click here to see.)

From there the water flows as Stony Brook, underneath Post Road West. It re-emerges at Sylvan Road and Riverside Avenue, where it empties into the Saugatuck River.

Elaine Marino, Diane Silfen, Jalna Jaeger, Eric Bosch, Bobbie Herman, Wendy Cusick, Dave Brown, Dave Eason, Lynn Untermeyer Miller and Derek Fuchs all knew the Nash’s Pond answer.

So did Kristan M. Nash. Then again, she should!

Can she — or anyone — guess this week’s Photo Challenge? If you know where in Westport it is, click “Comments.”

(Photo/Dick Lowenstein)

6 Comments

Posted in Environment, Photo Challenge

Tagged Kings Highway North, Nash's Pond

Photo Challenge #321

Posted on February 21, 2021 | 22 comments

Last week’s Presidents Day Photo Challenge fooled some of our most historic-minded Westporters.

Sure, in 1775 George Washington stopped (and slept) at the Disbrow Tavern, the site of the present-day Christ & Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. He returned 5 years later.

A plaque marks the spot, by the elm tree where Church Lane meets Myrtle Avenue. But that’s not the marker that Kathie Motes Bennewitz’s image showed. (Click here to see.)

A similar plaque is partially hidden near the Christ & Holy Trinity (and Assumption Church) cemetery, on Kings Highway North. It’s across from the grassy area by Old Hill Road that, in Revolutionary times, served as a militia training and parade ground.

Elaine Marino, Bob Grant, Michael Calise and Morley Boyd all knew the correct location of this plaque.

Elaine also pointed out — to my great embarrassment — this was a previous Photo Challenge, in July 2018. (I really should read “06880,” right?)

During the Washington Bi-Centennial Celebration in 1932, the Compo Hill Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution placed a bronze plaque at the base of the tree.

The plaque on Kings Highway does not indicate who placed it there.

The downtown plaque is more weather-beaten than its cemetery counterpart. It says: “George Washington stopped for refreshments at this tavern, June 28, 1775.” It also has the bicentennial dates: “1732-1932.”

That Disbrow Tavern visit — and the next — were not the only 2 times Washington stopped (and slept) here. As president, he spent the night of November 11, 1789 at Captain Ozias Marvin’s tavern, at what is now the north side of Post Road West, opposite Kings Highway South.

Sarah Marvin and her daughters cooked up a presidential feast: loaves of brown bread and pies, vegetables from their farm, huge roasts.

Yet Washington asked for only a bowl of bread and milk. To add insult to injury, he wrote in his diary: It was “not a good house, though the people of it were disposed to do all they could to accommodate me.”

No matter. For years thereafter, Marvin Tavern was known as the Washington Inn.

But enough about yesterday. Here is today’s Photo Challenge. if you know where in Westport you would see it, click “Comments” below.

(Photo/Molly Alger)

22 Comments

Posted in History, Photo Challenge, religion

Tagged Christ & Holy Trinity cemetery, Christ & Holy Trinity Church, Kings Highway North, Old Hill Road

No Surprise: Kings Highway North Construction Continues

Posted on November 30, 2019 | 7 comments

From President Kennedy’s challenge to Neil Armstrong’s first small/giant step, it took the US just over 8 years to land a man on the moon.

The 2nd Avenue subway was first proposed in 1920. It opened a mere 97 years later.

Both those timelines seem like warp speed, compared to what’s going on at Kings Highway North.

For the few residents and many offices — particularly medical — on that short stretch between Main Street and Canal Street, life has seemed disrupted for eons.

Once upon a time, traffic flowed easily on Kings Highway North. (Photo courtesy of Google Street View)

The jackhammering, pipe clanging and truck beep-beeping is one thing.

The fact that it happens randomly — a few days of “work” here, long stretches of nothing except ripped-up road there, then another day of street closure — is infuriating too.

But just as maddening is that no one living and working on Kings Highway North — and patients of the many doctors — can get a straight answer about what’s going on.

And when (if ever) it will end.

Dr. Susan Finkelstein — a psychiatrist with an office at 164 Kings Highway North — wrote:

Again this morning the road is closed on both sides. No signage, and no response from Aquarion.

I called the Westport police this a.m. They say there is access, but if you aren’t brave enough to override sawhorses, it looks closed.

NO signage or workers to direct patients. I contacted Aquarion manager Mark McCaffrey –no response.

I just wanted to update you and your readers on how the local “upgrades” are doing exactly the opposite!

Dr. Finekelstein wrote that last week. I apologize for not posting it sooner.

Then again, I can probably wait until 2098. It will still be timely.

7 Comments

Posted in Downtown, Transportation

Tagged Aquarion, Kings Highway North

Wilton Road/Kings Highway Apartment Proposal: It’s Back!

Posted on August 13, 2018 | 37 comments

Just over a year ago, the state Appellate Court denied a plan to build a 7-story, 48-unit apartment complex at one of the busiest, most environmentally sensitive spots in town.

The ruling was based on grave concerns about safety, and damage to wetlands adjacent to the 1.16-acre parcel at 122 Wilton Road — right at the Kings Highway North intersection.

Undeterred, the owner has come up with a smaller plan. Garden Homes of Stamford wants to build a 19-unit, 3-story, 20,078-square foot rental complex. With 31 parking spots at grade, that would total 4 stories.

There would be 4 1-bedroom units, 8 2-bedroom units, and 7 with 3 bedrooms.

The site plan for 122 Wilton Road. Wilton Road is at the left; it intersects with Kings Highway North (Willows Medical Complex location) at the top.

The project is being submitted to the Planning & Zoning Commission with 2 affordability plans. The default sets aside 30% of the units as “affordable,” according to state 8-30g regulations. An alternative plan offers 60% as affordable — “if certain conditions are met by the P&Z and other Westport town bodies and staff.”

The goal of the project, Garden Homes says, is “to enable low and moderate income families with children the opportunity to live in Westport and have access to its excellent public schools and amenities.”

The developer submitted a traffic impact study. It included 2 proposed roadway improvements: lengthening the westbound left-turn lane for Kings Highway North by 50 feet, and adjusting the traffic signal at that intersection.

“With these improvements,” the report said, delays there “during the critical weekday peak hours will be shorter than those under the 2015 existing conditions.”

Traffic concerns were only part of the opposition to Garden Homes’ previous proposal.

Another reason was the location: abutting the Taylortown Salt Marsh.

Safety was another major issue. Westport Fire Department officials worried about access to the site.

Former fire chief Andrew Kingsbury reviewed the new proposals. Many concerns remain.

Access is still a major issue: The emergency fire lane is not wide enough, has a tight turning radius, and can only be approached from the south. The access driveway on the east side is also too tight to accommodate Westport’s aerial apparatus.

Kingsbury adds that congestion in the area during rush hour hampers firefighting efforts.

The developer no doubt hopes that a scaled-down version of the previous proposal — and inclusion of 8-30g housing — will carry the day.

“Garden Homes” is a bucolic-sounding name. But I’m betting the reception to this new proposal will not be all peaches and cream.

(Hat tip: Wendy Pieper)

37 Comments

Posted in Local politics, Organizations, Real estate

Tagged 122 Wilton Road, Fire Chief andrew Kingsbury, Garden Homes, Kings Highway North, Westport Planning & Zoning Commission

Photo Challenge #187

Posted on July 29, 2018 | 12 comments

George Washington was born in 1732. Two hundred years later, Westport celebrated the bicentennial of his birth.

Nearly 100 years after that, he’s created a mini-controversy.

A couple of months ago, Jeff Manchester and his son were out riding bikes. They stopped at the little grass triangle at the intersection of Kings Highway North and Old Hill — across from the Christ & Holy Trinity Episcopal Church cemetery — and discovered a plaque. Dedicated in 1932, it marked the 200th anniversary of our first president’s birth.

The image Jeff sent was last week’s photo challenge. Tom Ryan, Bob Grant and Jill Turner-Odice quickly got the answer.

But Elaine Marino and Bob Weingarten disagreed. They said the plaque can be found at Christ & Holy Trinity Church itself, on Myrtle Avenue.

Elaine offered proof: a 1959 Westport Town Crier article:

According to tradition, George Washington, while en route from Philadelphia to Boston to take command of the Continental Army, stopped at the old Disbrow Inn, which then stood on the present site of the church; he stood underneath the elm which grew before the door of the Inn as he drank from the water of the well close by. This tradition (which is well substantiated by subsequent historical research) marked the old elm as Westport’s oldest and most historic landmark. When the parish was established in 1860, the old tavern was demolished to make way for the church, but the tree was carefully preserved.

During the Washington Bi-Centennial Celebration in 1932, the Compo Hill Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution placed their bronze plaque at the base of the tree.

The plaque Jeff and his son saw on Kings Highway doesn’t indicate who placed it there.

Nor does the one at Christ & Holy Trinity Church. Elaine headed there on Tuesday, and sent a photo.

The plaque is more weather-beaten than its cemetery counterpart. It says: “George Washington stopped for refreshments at this tavern, June 28, 1775.” It also has the bicentennial dates: “1732-1932.”

Too bad we can’t ask George Washington about the 2 plaques. He’d never tell a lie.

(Click here to see the plaque photo; scroll down for comments.)

Here’s this week’s photo challenge. It has nothing to do with George Washington. And there is no controversy over where it is.

(Photo/Lauren Schiller)

If you know the answer, click “Comments” below.

12 Comments

Posted in History, Photo Challenge

Tagged Christ & Holy Trinity cemetery, Christ & Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Kings Highway North, Old Hill Road

Pic Of The Day #26

Posted on May 12, 2017 | 1 comment

Kings Highway North (Photo/Jaime Bairaktaris)

1 Comment

Posted in Pic of the Day, Weather

Tagged Jaime Bairaktaris, Kings Highway North

Nash’s Pond: The (Way) Back Story

Posted on April 6, 2017 | 53 comments

Like most Westporters, you’ve probably admired the blue house set back from Kings Highway North, near the busy Post Road intersection.

You may know that behind it is Nash’s Pond.

You may or may not know that the pond — probably big enough to be a lake — was named for the Nash family. In 1835 Daniel Nash was one of the men who helped incorporate Westport, as a town separate from Norwalk, Fairfield and Weston.

You probably do not know that a Nash descendant — also named Daniel — still resides in Westport. In fact, he and his family live in that blue house.

The former Nash ice house — now Daniel Nash’s home. (Photo/Frank Rosen)

You almost surely do not know that it was originally an ice house. Or that Daniel and his wife Nicole have spent the past decade restoring it, so that future generations of Nashes can remain there too.

The next generation — his 7-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son — will be the 14th in Westport. The Nashes arrived around 1650, from southern colonies — more than 2 centuries before the ice house was built.

“We’re trying to spruce it up,” Nash says modestly. (He’s doing the same for several other buildings nearby, called “the compound.”)

He’s cleaned the foundation, brought the inside up to code, redone the vents, reshingled the roof and added molding. It now looks like a home, not a business.

But what a history it had.

The Nash family erected a dam in 1879, and built 3 identical ice houses the following year. Workers harvested the ice from the pond, and stored it through the summer. After being sawed into blocks, the ice was sent to New York City for sale.

“It was a booming business, until electrical refrigeration came along,” Nash says.

Nash’s Pond is magical in every season. (Photo/Peter Tulupman)

The family has had a number of different occupations. Nashes have worked as farmers, hat makers, cider makers, and of course ice merchants.

Daniel’s great-grandfather was the last Nash businessman. Daniel’s grandfather and father managed the property. He’s spent much of his time doing the same.

Growing up, he loved the area — the big rock outcropping, stone foundation and waterfall. Every winter, he skated on the pond named for his family.

He and Nicole were married on the pond.They moved into the ice house, fulfilling his childhood dream. As the couple had children, they “carved out” rooms inside for them.

“It’s a work in progress,” Nash says. “We want to make it look fresh for the town. It’s on a major corner, and everyone sees it.”

Daniel Nash is taking his time. He wants to make sure the renovation of the ice house into a home for future generations is done right.

After more than 360 years here, the Nash family continues to care about their town.

And take care of it.

(Hat tip: Frank Rosen)

53 Comments

Posted in History, Looking back, People, Places, Real estate

Tagged Daniel Nash, ice house, Kings Highway North, Nash's Pond