Before there were drones, there were helicopters.
One autumn day in the 1980s, Staples High School graduate Steve Turner took a flight over Westport.
The photographer snapped this dramatic shot:
(Photo/Steve Turner)
The foreground shows Winslow Park. Turner took his photo within a year or two of the July 1987 Representative Town Meeting resolution to condemn the 32-acre property owned by Baron Walter Langer von Langendorff, and a townwide referendum 5 months later affirming that decision.
The town ultimately acquired the land — under eminent domain — for $9.42 million.
Six years later, the Westport News ran a contest to name the property. The overwhelming choice: Winslow Park, in honor of the family that owned it in the mid-1800s. (The Winslows built a large estate there, which later became a sanitarium.)
Take a close look at Turner’s shot. Has Westport changed much in the nearly 40 years since it was taken? (The Playhouse Square condominiums — just to the north of the shopping center and Westport Country Playhouse — were built in 1983; they’re shown here.)
What do you see that’s the same, or different? Click “Comments” below.
(“Friday Flashback” is one of “06880”‘s many weekly features. Please click here to support them all. Thank you!)
