On the night of February 9, Westport Police were notified by a local rabbi to the existence of a snowman with antisemitic features at the Newman Poses Preserve.
The person who found the snowman notified the eabbi and a local blog. On the morning of February 10, Westport Police initiated an investigation which included responding to the Newman Poses Preserve where a snowman was located, but without any antisemitic symbols.
We contacted the complainant and spoke with him about the incident. He reported finding the snowman at approximately 5:40 p.m. on Sunday, Februray 9 while walking in the preserve. The complainant took a photo of the snowman, and then removed the antisemitic symbols prior to leaving the preserve.
The Westport Police Department is investigating the incident, and asks anyone who knows who is responsible for this incident to contact the Westport Police Department at 203-341-6000. Furthermore, we ask that incidents like this be reported immediately to the Police Department so they can be investigated in a timely manner.
First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker stated, “This incident does not reflect the beliefs of our community. Westport strives to be a welcoming community, where everyone feels like they belong. I will continue to lead with that goal as my north star, and will work with the Police Department to ensure everyone feels safe and heard.”
Snowman with Nazi symbols, at Newman Poses Preserve.
More than a decade after his death, Paul Newman continues to give back to Westport.
His and his family’s gift of land from their property — along with their neighbors, the Poses family — resulted in a 39-acre preserve, now managed by Aspetuck Land Trust.
There is a small parking area on Bayberry Lane.
Among the woods, wetlands, open fields, stands of old white pine and a trail,, there’s a half-hidden sign. “Warning Bridge Out,” it says. (Click here to see.)
An old, broken wooden bridge lies nearby. It’s nothing that anyone would think of using.
But it was the subject of last week’s Photo Challenge. Sandra Rothenberg, Lynn Untermeyer Miller, Brandon Malin and Andrew Colabella all knew where in Westport’s woods it can be found.
Newman-Poses preserve is one more of our town’s hidden gems. Along with the hidden sign, about a long-forgotten bridge.
Today’s Photo Challenge is in Spanish. But the “May peace prevail on earth” pole can be found somewhere in Westport.
If you know where it is, click “Comments” below.
(Photo/Richard Fogel)
(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!)
With fall foliage at its peak, Aspetuck Land Trust recommends several great hikes. Two are in Westport.
Caryl & Edna Haskins Preserve is tucked away off Compo Road South. Gentle flat trails circle both ponds. They’re great spots to observe wildlife, and beautiful foliage colors reflecting off the water. A wooded trail near the brook is moderately steep. Click here for the back story on Haskins Preserve.
The red trail through the Newman Poses Preserve (off Bayberry Lane) winds through a wetland on a boardwalk to a meadow marked by large bayberry bushes. Through the meadow towards the lowlands lies the Aspetuck River. A favorite spot for quiet contemplation is the stone bench on the riverbank where neighbor Paul Newman enjoyed floating. The trail loops back by the meadow, into the uplands and back to its starting point.
Trout Brook Valley Conservation Area in Weston is ALT’s biggest preserve: 1,009 acres, with 20 miles of trails. For the best views, start at the orchard. Hike to the highest point; then look south all the way to the Sound and Long Island.
Click here for full details on Aspetuck Land Trust’s preserves.
Cris Jacobs and his band returned to Westport last night for a long-awaited return of the “Supper & Soul” series.
The event — sponsored by the Westport Weston Chamber of Commerce — included a concert at the Westport Library. It was sandwiched in between a 3-course dinner at participating restaurants, and post-concert drinks.
A large crowd enjoyed the music, the food and beverages — and the return to normal entertainment, following the long COVID siege.
“Supper & Soul” at the Westport Library. (Photo/Dinkin Fotografix)
The Westport Country Playhouse production of “From the Mississippi Delta” explores the African American experience in the South, during the Great Migration and civil rights movement.
An insert in the program describes Westport’s role in the movement. An accompanying exhibit on the Great Migration of Blacks out of the South is on view at the Playhouse’s Lucille Lortel White Barn, weekdays from noon to 6 p.m. and on performance dates until intermission.
But the Playhouse also acknowledges current issues. Another insert urges theater-goers to support the Mississippi Rising Coalitions, which addresses the water crisis in Jackson. Click here for more information on that project.
Clck here for more information on “From the Mississippi Delta.” The show runs through October 30.
The cast of “Mississippi Delta” acknowledges applause, From left: Tameishia Peterson, Claudia Logan, Erin Margaret Pettigrew. (Photo/Dave Matlow)
If the weather is clear Tuesday, November 8, the Westport Astronomical Society will have telescopes available for the public to view the lunar eclipse. The observatory is at 182 Bayberry Lane, behind the Aspetuck Health District.
It’s from 4 to 6 a.m. — before the polls open. They’ll post on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Meetup if bad weather scraps their plan.
This is the first Election Day total lunar eclipse in US history. The next one won’t happen again until November 8, 2394. Chances are good you won’t be around for that one.
Unlike a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse is perfectly safe to view == and lasts hours. The moon glides into earth’s shadow, and can be viewed over a large part of the planet.
It will turn a notable reddish color for 84 minutes, as the light from the sun passes through the earth’s atmosphere to reach the moon’s surface. This “blood moon” is the final total lunar eclipse visible from North America until 2025.
This partial lunar eclipse was photographed by Westport Astronomical Society member Carl Lancaster this past May.
And finally … on this day in 1998, a court supported the superintendent at Fort Zumwalt High School in St. Louis, and his decision that the marching band could not play “White Rabbit” in their act, because of its drug references.
(After your Aspetuck Land Trust preserve hike, thank “06880” for the suggestion. Contributions of any amount are welcome! Please click here to help.)
Last week’s posting hit the Photo Challenge sweet spot.
It was indeed a challenge. Most guesses were wrong (and all over the Westport map). A few were right.
It impelled readers to provide thoughts on the back story too. Along the way, we traveled back in (and learned about) our town’s history.
Frank Rosen’s image of an abandoned brick and rock structure deep in some woods was not taken at Baron’s South, Nash’s Pond, Post Road West near Kings Highway South, or either the Evergreen Avenue, Willowbrook or Wilton Road/Kings Highway cemetery.
The correct answer: Newman Poses Preserve off Bayberry Lane. Specifically, it’s past a dilapidated bridge, near the river. (Click here to see.)
Was it an ice house? A cow tunnel? Something to do with an onion farm?
We still don’t know.
But we do know that Janis Wasserman and Kathie Bennewitz both correctly identified whatever it is correctly. They know their open spaces!
This week’s Photo Challenge was taken last month, during our only snowfall this winter.
If you know where in Westport you’d see this sad, ineffective fence, click “Comments” below.
Whenever I post a photo of a bucolic, water-rippling-over-boulders, looks-like-Vermont-but-it’s-actually-Westport shot, the default response is: the Saugatuck, River, at Ford Road.
Sure, that’s one of Westport’s most beautiful, underrated spots.
But it’s not the only one.
Last week’s Photo Challenge showed a scene that readers thought was Ford Road. (Click here to see.) In fact, it was Newman Poses Preserve. The river is the Aspetuck.
Leigh Gage was first with the correct answer. Seth Schachter, Jonathan McClure and Alice Ely followed soon.
This hidden gem — located off Bayberry Lane and Easton Road — is the only public memorial approved by the family of the late Paul Newman as a way to honor the actor/philanthropist/race car driver/popcorn and salad dressing king. He lived nearby, and donated much of the land for the preserve.
The parcel also includes land sold to the town by Lillian Poses, a neighbor and friend of the Newmans. She worked on the New Deal in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration, and was one of the first female graduates of NYU Law School.
Newman Poses Preserve is managed by the Aspetuck Land Trust. For more information, click here.
This week’s Photo Challenge is also wonderfully scenic. If you know where in Westport you’d see this — and everyone here has — click “Comments” below.
Scott Smith is an alert “06880” reader, a longtime Westporter and an ardent outdoorsman. He writes:
If you ask Westporters to comment on our community’s natural charms, chances are most would cite the dazzling string of beaches and coastal places: Compo Beach, Sherwood Mill Pond, Gray’s Creek and Burying Hill. If pressed, they might claims Sherwood Island too.
Others would tout the Saugatuck River, from the fly fishing shallows along Ford Road to the impoundment of Lees Pond, and the tidal stretch through town leading to the mouth at Longshore and Cedar Point. Cockenoe Island gets a shout-out, too, especially from those with the nautical means to visit it.
Fishing off Ford Road (Photo/Richard Wiese)
But plenty of other places across Westport beguile with bucolic beauty. Many of these underappreciated open spaces are in the midst of a welcome renaissance, sparked by renovation efforts from those who love and tend them.
I’m talking about the town parks, preserves, land trusts and wildlife sanctuaries that constitute our remaining inland open spaces. Over the past year or two, I’ve visited quite a few. I always come away thinking how fortunate we are to be able to trod upon them.
“06880” has covered these developments over time, noting singular efforts and improvements. But if you step back and tally them all up, it’s quite an impressive list, covering virtually every part of town.
Over in Old Hill there’s the Lillian Wadsworth Arboretum. I toured it a couple of seasons ago with its caretakers, including Lou Mall and tree warden Bruce Lindsay. They’re spearheading its transformation from an untended patch of blow-downs and invasive vines to a fetching enhancement to the adjacent Earthplace facility.
Dead creepers line a Wadswworth Arboretum trail.
Coleytown has the Newman Poses Preserve, which affords a wonderful walk through meadows along the Saugatuck stream and through upland woods. Having the memory of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward and their family as you traipse along is a nice bonus. Their neighbors — and the Aspetuck Land Trust — get credit for giving us that open space.
Right near downtown there’s the blossoming of long-neglected Baron’s South, another town-led reclamation project with even brighter prospects in store as a nature-driven arts campus.
A path in Baron’s South. (Photo/Judy James)
And just down Compo, off Greenacre Road, is the hidden gem of the Haskins Preserve, my longtime favorite place for a weekend stroll.
Haskins Preserve’s dogwoods and daffodils — a lovely combination.
I have “06680” to thank for cluing me in to my newest place to take a hike: the Smith Richardson Preserve in Greens Farms. I’ve long known about the 2 parcels north of I-95. The Christmas tree farm off Sasco Creek Road is where I chop down a tree every year. I consider it in part my annual donation to the Connecticut Audubon Society, which manages the farm and the open space across the road.
But I had no idea of the separate property just across 95, a 36-acre parcel stretching from Sasco Creek all the way to the playing fields behind Greens Farms Academy off Beachside Avenue.
I walked it the other day, taking advantage of frozen ground to course through fields that are in the midst of being cleared of smothering vines and other invasive species.
It’s an impressive project, even if the space is hard by the highway and Metro-North rails. Hemmed in by neighboring houses big and small, and what looks to be a refuse depot managed by the railroad or state, the area has the look of a pocket-size Central Park in the making, with Olmstedian trails that wind through woods, and alongside meadows and ponds. I can’t wait to see how the property develops, with its ambitious new plantings and clearings, and whether the caretaking crews can keep the tick-haven invasives at bay.
Smith Richardson Preserve (Photo/Scott Smith)
These public/private corners of our community are all discovered places, at least for me. When I visit them, either with my dog or solo, I’m often the only one around. I like the solitude, and question why I’d even want to spread the word about them. Parking is often a pinch, and I’m not even sure about the proper access to the new Smith Richardson preserve behind GFA’s sprawling athletic fields.
But these largely hidden local natural spaces deserve recognition, and our support for the groups that manage them — the town, Aspetuck Land Trust, and the Connecticut Audubon Society — whether by check or volunteer hand.
Separately and together, they all make Westport a wonderful place to live and to explore.
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