Tag Archives: Rod Serling

Roundup: J. Crew, Twilight Zone, New Year’s Day …

Posted on December 30, 2024 | 7 comments

J. Crew is moving.

But not far.

The new location will be 27 Main Street — the former Pottery Barn.

The current location is 145 Main Street. That’s 2 doors down from the now-shuttered 159 Main (previously Rye Ridge Deli; before that, Oscar’s).

The new J. Crew store. (Hat tip and photo/Sal Liccione)

==================================================

Speaking of the holiday: If it’s New Year’s, it must be SyFy’s annual “Twilight Zone” marathon.

The annual event — an homage to the show and its creator, former Westporter Rod Serling — begins at 1 a.m. tomorrow (Tuesday). It runs through 3:30 a.m. Thursday.

Click here for the full schedule. Looking for “A Stop at Willoughby” — the episode that includes a commuter heading to Westport, who never quite makes it?

It airs at 11:40 p.m. on Wednesday, January 1.

=================================================

Experience Camps — the Westport-based national, no-cost program for grieving children who have experienced the death of a parent, sibling or primary caregiver — hosts a New Year’s Day Polar Plunge (January 1, 10 a.m., Compo Beach).

The event ceelbrates the opening of their newest location. It will be at KenMont and KenWood Camp in Kent, Connecticut (August 18-23).

The weather should be much warmer then.

 ================================================

Friends of Sherwood Island welcome New Year’s with a beach walk.

Everyone — “official” Friends members and not; children, and dogs on short leashes — is invited to meet in front of the Nature Center at 11 a.m. on Wednesday (January 1). Follow signs to East Beach.

Start the new year at Sherwood Island State Park. (Photo/Susan Leone)

=================================================

Hungry to learn more about where your food comes from?

The Westport Farmers’ Market co-hosts the Fairfield County premiere of “Food & Country” — Ruth Reichl’s award-winning documentary about our food supply — next Sunday (January 5, 4:30 p.m., FTC Warehouse).

An extra course: Reichl (former New York Times food critic, and editor of Gourmet magazine) will be at the screening. After, she’ll join 2 other culinary icons to talk about the fim, and answer questions from the audience.

Panelists include Michel Nischan and Ed Levine.

Nischan is a 4-time James Beard Award-winning chef, who has spent over 40 years advocating for a more healthful, sustainable food system. He worked with Paul Newman to help low-income families access fresh fruits and vegetables (now a permanent part of the federal farm bill). Nischan and Newman also co-founded The Dressing Room, the popular restaurant next to the Westport Country Playhouse.

Levine is the host and creator of the “Special Sauce” podcast, and a 3-time James Beard Award winner.

Click here for tickets, and more information.

Paul Newman, flanked by Westport Farmers’ Market director Lori Cochran-Dougall and Michel Nischan, proudly sported WFM gear.

==================================================

Yesterday’s New York Times Styles section included a story on “Knitting with Dog Hair.”

The popular “lighthearted yet serious instructional book on the quirky craft that shows how to collect dog fuzz and spin, dye and knit with the yarn known as chiengora” has just been reissued in a revised 30th anniversary edition.

What makes this “06880”-worthy is that author Kendall Crolius — now 70 years old — grew up in Westport.

Linda Smith calls her “the favorite child I babysat for 66 years ago.” The Croliuses lived on Cavalry Road, and Linda says that 4-year-old Kendall explained to her the difference between Cavalry and Calvary.”

Click here for the full Times story.

==================================================

Earthplace’s winter after-school programs for children and teenagers begin next month.

They include:

  • Eco-Explorers (grades 3-5; 4 to 5 p.m.)
  • Nature Art Club (grades 3-6; 4 to 5 p.m.)
  • Teen Volunteer Club
  • Harbor Watch Student Programs.

Click here for more information.

================================================

There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

But free s’mores — compliments of Nômade — were on the menu yesterday, outside the Main Street restaurant in front of Savvy + Grace.

The marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate have been one of the most popular items the last 2 years, at the “06880”/Westport Downtown Association Holiday Stroll.

(Photo/Sal Liccione)

=================================================

Yesterday’s fog elicited several “Westport … Naturally” photos.

Andrew Fishman captured this scene on Larch Tree Lane, off Cavalry Road.

(Photo/Andrew Fishman)

==================================================

And finally … today is the birthday of not 1, but 2 Monkees.

Michael Nesmith was born on this date in 1942. He died in 2021.

Davy Jones was born 3 years later. He died in 2012.

(Cheer up, sleepy Jean! There’s still time to make a 2024 donation to “06880.” Just click here. And thank you!)

7 Comments

Posted in Beach, Downtown, Environment, Local business, Restaurants

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Rod Serling Festival: Library Enters New Dimension Of Sight And Sound

Posted on September 8, 2024 | 7 comments

One hundred years after his birth — and half a century after his death — Rod Serling’s legacy remains strong.

His TV scripts — for “Kraft Television Theatre,” “Playhouse 90” and most memorably, “The Twilight Zone” — explored themes of censorship, racism and war that still resonate today.

Serling wrote a few of his best-known scripts in Westport. He lived here in the 1950s, before moving with his wife and daughters to California.

Later this month the Westport Library explores Rod Serling’s impact, with a 4-day symposium. It includes landmark “Twilight Zone” episodes, films inspired by the series, and discussions of his life and work.

The event kicks off Thursday, September 26 (6 to 9 p.m.), with Serling’s most Westport-themed work: “A Stop at Willoughby.”

In what Serling called his favorite show of the first season, an overstressed ad executive naps on the train ride home. The conductor calls out an upcoming stop: “Westport/Saugatuck.”

He awakens to find the train stopped in Willoughby — in the year 1888.  He asks about the idyllic town, but the conductor tells him there is no such place.

Is there?

The familiar face of Rod Serling reappears at the end.  In his trademark voice, he says:

Willoughby?  Maybe it’s wishful thinking nestled in a hidden part of a man’s mind, or maybe it’s the last stop in the vast design of things, or perhaps, for a man who climbed on a world that went by too fast, it’s a place around the bend where he could jump off.

Willoughby?  Whatever it is, it comes with sunlight and serenity, and is a part of the Twilight Zone.

Arlen Schumer — author of “The Five Themes of The Twilight Zone” — will screen “Willoughby.” It will be followed by “The Swimmer,” the Burt Lancaster film based on John Cheever’s 1964 short story, which has thematic ties to “Willoughby” — and was filmed partly in Westport.

On Friday, September 27 (6 to 9 p.m.), Schumer talks with author Nick Parisi about his books “Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination,” and “America’s Twilight Zone: How Rod Serling Foreshadowed the Age of Trump.”

Two episodes will be screened: “Walking Distance” (about another ad executive’s desire to return to the past), and “He’s Alive” (a rare 1-hour episode from 1963 starring a young Dennis Hopper as an American neo-Nazi who is visited by the ghost of Adolf Hitler).

Saturday, September 28 (5 to 9 p.m.) features a conversation with Schumer and author Mark Dawidziak about his book, “Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in The Twilight Zone.”

Their talk is followed by a screening of the Oscar-winning “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (based on the Ambrose Bierce short story), and “Jacob’s Ladder,” a 1990 film inspired by that episode.

The festival ends Sunday, September 29 (1 to 5 p.m.) with a pop-up art show of Staples High School student artwork inspired by Serling’s “Eye of the Beholder” — the mind-bending episode in which today’s standards of beauty and ugliness are reversed.

A screening of that show will be followed by “Number 12 Looks Just Like You,” set in a dystopian future in which every adult has their body surgically altered into one of a set of physically attractive models. It will be shown complete with original commercials from its 1964 air date.

The final event is a screening of the cult classic 1975 movie “The Stepford Wives.” It shares of “Number 12″‘s themes — and was partially filmed in Westport.

DEE-DEE dee-dee DEE-DEE dee-dee…

(Click here for full details of the 4-day Rod Serling symposium.)

(“06880” is “where Westport meets the world.” Today, for example, Rod Serling meets the 2024 Library — and we travel back to his 1950s years here. Please click here to help us continue our work!)

7 Comments

Posted in Entertainment, Library, Looking back, Media

Tagged , ,

Roundup: Wynston Browne; 2024 …

Posted on December 31, 2023 | 3 comments

If you’re looking for an inspiring story to end 2023 — or a great way to ring in ’24 — it’s right here.

Yesterday, News12 aired a warm, insightful and important story about Wynston Browne.

As first reported on “06880” in 2022, the 16-year-old Staples High School junior has non-speaking autism.

But boy, can he talk.

With the help of a spelling device and communication specialist, he has spent the past year and a half letting the world know that he has a brilliant mind, a kind and loving spirit, and the same dreams as any kid.

He wants to be challenged in school — not presumed to be stupid or incompetent, because he can’t speak out loud.

He wants to have friends. He wants to sit in the cafeteria and laugh with them, not be laughed at.

News12’s Mark Sudol story brings Wynston’s story to a broad audience.

“I like to be called Winnie, because winners never give up,” he says.

Click here to see Winnie’s News12 story. It may be the best 5 minutes you spend in 2023.

Or ’24.

(To read more “06880” stories on Winnie Browne, click here.)

Wynston Browne

==================================================

2024 is not yet here, but you’ve probably already been wished “Happy New Year!” by many people.

But let “06880” be the first blog to do so.

And Weston’s Jolantha is definitely the first pig.

==================================================

Speaking of the holiday: If it’s New Year’s, it must be SyFy’s annual “Twilight Zone” marathon.

The annual event — an homage to the show and its creator, former Westporter Rod Serling — began yesterday. It runs through 3 a.m. on Tuesday.

Click here for the full schedule.  (In case you’re wondering: “A Stop at Willoughby” — the classic Westport-themed episode — aired yesterday.)

==================================================

The sun finally broke through Friday.

Toni Simonetti was at the Library Riverwalk behind the Levitt Pavilion, to capture the moment, for “Westport … Naturally.”

So were her husband and dog.

(Photo/Toni Simonetti)

==================================================

And finally … one pretty old, and one only relatively old, songs to ring out the “old” year:

(Happy New Year! We promise, this is the last request to support “06880” you’ll get in 2023. Thank you!)

3 Comments

Posted in Media, Staples HS

Tagged , , ,

Roundup: Tyler Hicks’ Lyman, Connecticut Mag’s 40 Under 40, Farmers’ Market’s Lectures …

Posted on December 31, 2022 | 1 comment

As the year ends, Westporters look back on a tough one. COVID is still hanging around. The stock market plummeted. Our nation is politically divided.

Compared to Ukraine though, we live on Easy Street.

Our new sister city of Lyman is entering its 10th month of hell. The Russians are gone after 5 months of occupation. But they left devastation behind.

Buildings lack roofs and walls. There is virtually no electricity or heat. Fire trucks and police cars were demolished. Debris is everywhere.

You can click here to read the latest devastating news, from yesterday’s New York Times. (This news just in: Earlier today, a Russian missile hit the police station. Only 2 patrol cars are left in the town.)

You can see some brutal images too — taken, coincidentally, by Westport native/Staples High School graduate/Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Tyler Hicks.

A Lyman firefighter battles a blaze with just a trickle of water, in bitter cold. (Photo/Tyler Hicks for the New York Times)

On this final day of 2022, please help Westport’s drive to help Lyman.

Our goal is $250,000. As of yesterday — less than 2 weeks after we began — we’ve raised $219,200. Wouldn’t it be great to reach our target today?

Tax-deductible donations can be made to Lyman through Ukraine Aid International — the non-profit co-founded by Westporter Brian Mayer. Please click here. Click the “I want to support” box; then select “Support for the City of Lyman.” Scroll down on that page for other tax-deductible donation options (mail, wire transfer and Venmo). You can also donate directly, via Stripe (click here). 

(Hat tips: Elisabeth Keane and Sharon Fiarman)

====================================================

After Italian and Chinese food, what’s next?

Peruvian.

When blandly named but popular Westport Chinese Takeout closed in October, it left a void in Saugatuck.

That’s where — decades earlier — the original Arrow Restaurant began. (The name comes from the angle of the road, where Franklin Street meets Saugatuck Avenue.) When it outgrow that location, the Arrow moved around the corner to Charles Street.

Work has begun on Lomito. The windows are still papered over. But there are new steps, and a spiffy logo. Two signs promise: “Opening soon.”

(Photo/JD Dworkow)=======================================================

Connecticut Magazine is out with their annual “40 Under 40” list.

Among the 40 people under 40 years old who are “changing the game in Connecticut and beyond”: Westporters Drew Angus and Julia Marino.

The writeup on Angus — a 2007 Staples High School graduate — says:

Finding success as a musician is not easy, explains this Bridgeport-based and Westport-raised singer-songwriter. “In this business, behind all the accomplishments and successes are many more unsuccessful projects and ideas that just never quite worked out,” Angus says. “It takes a certain kind of drive and a sick love for things not working out to be successful in creative ventures like music.”

Fortunately for him and fans of music everywhere, Angus has that drive, as his easy-to-listen-to, melodic New Americana music propelled him to be a finalist on American Idol in 2016. He’s also shared the stage with Harry Styles and Nile Rogers on Saturday Night Live, as well as Pat Benatar, Ann Wilson of Heart, and Andrea Bocelli. He has also toured with Marc Broussard and last summer impressed his hometown music fans with a set at Sound on Sound festival in Bridgeport.

When asked what advice he has for aspiring songwriters, he urges artists to not over-revise their work. “Finish those songs and put them out,” he says. “There’s a point of diminishing returns when changing lyric, melody or mix on a song no longer makes it better but just different or actually worse. Sometimes version one is actually the magic take.”

Drew Angus

For Olympic silver medalist Marino, it reads:

Lots of notable folks can boast about throwing out the ceremonial first pitch for a Red Sox game at fabled Fenway Park, including slopestyle and Big Air snowboarder and Westport native Marino. But she also has bragging rights none of those others can touch. In 2016, Marino, then an 18-year-old World Cup newcomer, replaced an injured teammate to compete in the Polartec Big Air event held at Fenway Park … and won.

A hit at Fenway, she returned to throw out the ceremonial first pitch in 2017, and again for a Red Sox-Yankees game in August 2022. Eighteen was a good age for Marino, who that year also became the first woman to land a double in slopestyle competition, according to her U.S. Ski & Snowboard team bio, landing two in the same run, a cab double underflip and a double backflip. Marino is most famous, of course, for winning a silver medal in women’s slopestyle at the 2022 Beijing Olympics (slopestyle is snowboarding down a course filled with terrain-park features and obstacles like rails and jumps.)

Also a 2018 Olympian and a seven-time X Games medalist, Marino loves photography, making videos, and spending time outdoors with her family and dog.

Julia Marino, on the Olympic podium.

Click here for the full Connecticut Magazine “40 Under 40.”

==================================================

The Westport Farmers’ Market: It’s not just for fresh produce anymore.

Well, everyone knows that. But here’s more proof, if anyone needs it:

Through January, the Market will host a 4-part lecture series, Thursdays at 1 p.m. at Gilbertie’s Herbs & Garden Center on Sylvan Lane.

Each presentation is 20 minutes, followed by a Q-and-A.

  • January 5: “Yoga is (Not) a 4-Letter Word: Demystifying the Practice” (Abbey Chase, owner, Abbey Chase Yoga)
  • January 12: “Muscle Activation, Neurological Inhibition, and Chronic Pain” (Dr. Andrew Crape)
  • January 19: “The Lymph” (Rev. Dr. Mark L. Heilshorn owner, Dharma Massage Therapy)
  • January 26: “Gut Healing and Anti-inflammatory Bonebroth Detox Soup” (Christine Beal Dunst, CEO and co-founder, Embody Wellness Company).

=======================================================

This photo is a bit of a mystery.

Matt Murray noticed all these shoes lined up at Old Mill Beach.

(Photo/Matt Murray)

There was no one nearby. No one swimming.

Who owns them? Why are they there?

Maybe it’s part of SyFy’s annual “Twilight Zone” marathon. The annual event — an homage to the show and its creator, former Westporter Rod Serling — began at 5 a.m. today. It runs through 4 a.m. on Tuesday.

Click here for the full schedule.  (In case you’re wondering: “A Stop at Willoughby” — the classic Westport-themed episode — airs Monday, at 5 p.m.)

=======================================================

Congratulations to Dr. Cindy Dunbar. The 1976 Staples High School graduate  was recently inducted into the National Academy of Medicine.

A Harvard graduate who specializes in hematology, she’s had an amazing career. Click here for an in-depth interview. (She begins with her youth in Westport — and her interest in music and theater. It continues to this day.)

Click here for a more scientifically oriented piece. (Hat tip: Ed Stalling)

Dr. Cindy Dunbar

=====================================================

It wouldn’t be a holiday without a photo of Jolantha.

Weston’s favorite pig welcomes the new year in (as always) style:

(Photo/Hans Wilhelm)

=====================================================

Today’s “Westport … Naturally” image combines a favorite subject (the beach) with a manmade-but-natural offering.

As the holidays wind down … enjoy!

(Photo/Patricia McMahon)

======================================================

And finally … who needs Guy Lombardo (or Dan Fogelberg), when we’ve got Mariah Carey?!

 (The year is not yet over! You’ve still got a few hours to support “06880” — and, because we’re a non-profit, take a tax write-off. Please click here. Thank you!)

 

1 Comment

Posted in Entertainment, Environment, Restaurants

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Roundup: Twilight Zone, Parks & Rec Registration, Cell Tower …

Posted on March 2, 2022 | 2 comments

======================================================

Submitted for your approval: “Westport in the Twilight Zone.”

Rod Serling used that “submitted” phrase only 3 times, as writer and host of one of television’s most acclaimed series ever. But it’s come to be associated with him.

Did you know that? And did you know that — beyond the famed ““Willoughby” episode, featuring a train ride to Saugatuck, Westport influenced other “Twilight Zone”s?

And why not? He lived here in the 1950s.

Find out more about Rod Serling and Westport tonight (Wednesday, March 2, 6 p.m., Zoom) at a free webinar: “Westport in the Twilight Zone.” The host and guide is Westport author/artist Arlen Schumer.

You can journey into that other world by clicking here. The meeting ID is: 884 7739 9778. The passcode is 653762. No advance sign-up is necessary.

======================================================

Registration for many Westport Parks & Recreation’s spring and summer programs began online at 9 a.m. this morning. Registration for Camp Compo, RECing and pickleball begins later: 9 a.m. on Monday, March 28.

Spots go quickly. Click here to see all the choices.

Problems? Email recreation@westportct.gov or call 203-341-5152.

=======================================================

Kitt Shapiro hosted an overflow crowd last night at WEST, the great downtown women’s store she owns.

But the focus was not on shopping. She was there as an author. Her book “Eartha & Me: A Daughter’s Love Story in Black and White” — published in November — is already in its second printing.

It’s a memoir of growing up with her mother, Eartha Kitt. Nearly everyone there had already read it. They asked pointed, poignant and provocative questions. Kitt described her mother’s influence and legacy — on her, and on the world.

The event was sponsored by AWARE (Assisting Women with Actions, Resources and Education), the non-profit that — like Eartha Kitt and Kitt Shapiro — empowers women every day.

Kitt Shapiro, and the WEST crowd. (Photo/John Videler Photography)

===================================================

A “balloon test” scheduled for Presidents Day — to show exactly how high a proposed 124-foot cell tower would rise, on private property at 92 Greens Farms Road — was canceled the night before. It was hastily rescheduled for 7 a.m. today.

Westporter Don Bergmann wrote several local officials, expressing anger at the late notice provided to the town and its residents.

At 8 a.m., Jaime Bairaktaris — publisher of Westport Local Press — drove by. He reports not seeing any balloon.

Neither did RTM member Andrew Colabella.

Westporter Steve Goldstein headed to the site an hour later, and saw nothing — except, that is, 2 police officers who had been there since 7.

A cell tower been proposed for the property on the left: 92 Greens Farms Road. (Photo courtesy of Google Maps)

======================================================

Jesse and Sefra Levin grew up in the comfort of Westport. Life here is almost always safe.

But for nearly 20 years, the Staples High School Class of 2003 twins have been on a mission: helping prepare people around the globe to survive any kind of disaster, natural or manmade. They’ve taught “readiness skills” to veterans, disaster response teams and entrepreneurs. The Levins call themselves “bespoke readiness outfitters.”

A couple of years ago, they had a pop-up shop in Bedford Square. They outfitted customers with gear, and offered advice and training, for every conceivable emergency.

Now they’re in Poland, at the Ukrainian border. In less than 2 days they gathered medical supplies, and made their first delivery.

Their goal is to ramp up a medical supply chain, and help coordinate between international military veteran first response efforts and in-country operational elements.

A growing network of Polish and Ukrainian contacts helps identify and relay real-time needs from conflict areas, and ensure effective distribution of supplies and equipment to where they are needed most.

(Hat tip: Lynn Untermeyer Miller)

Jesse and Sefra Levin

====================================================

There’s less than a month to go before dogs are banned from Compo Beach. Which means we won’t be able to run “Westport … Naturally” photos like this, from April 1 through the end of September.

Tessie on the Compo jetty (Photo/Gwen Tutun)

=======================================================

And finally … on this day in 1498, Vasco da Gama’s fleet visited the island of Mozambique.

2 Comments

Posted in Local business, Looking back, Media, Politics, Staples HS, technology

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Roundup: Senior Center, Toquet Hall, Twilight Zone …

Posted on December 30, 2021 | 8 comments

=======================================================

The latest casualties of COVID: the Senior Center and Toquet Hall.

Both places — gathering spots for older Westporters and teenagers, respectively — have suspended all indoor and in-person programming.

The town Department of Human Services says that some Senior Center classes and programs will be offered on Zoom.

The Senior Center lunch program will operate as a drive-thru at noon, Monays through Fridays. To participate, call 203-341-5099 at least 24 hours in advance.

Back in action soon — hopefully.

======================================================

Rod Serling moved from Westport to California in the late 1950s. He died — at just 50 years old — in 1975.

But the screenwriter extraordinaire still lives. Continuing a long tradition, the SyFy network airs a “Twilight Zone” New Year’s marathon. It starts at 2 a.m. tomorrow (Friday, December 31) and runs through 5 a.m. Sunday, January 2.

There’s a new episode every half hour or so. Click here for the schedule.

Looking for “A Stop at Willoughby” — the famous show in which the conductor of a train calls out “Next stop: Westport Saugatuck!” (and which Serling called his favorite of the entire first year)?

It’s 8:20 p.m. on Saturday — New Year’s Day.

=======================================================

Local to Market — Main Street’s great new spot for food, crafts and much more — is hiring.

If you’re fond of fine local stuff, have a passion for small business, and are interested in joining a fun team for 10-20 hours a week, email jon@localtomarket.com.

Local to Market is hiring.

=====================================================

Our “Westport … Naturally” feature focuses on natural features (naturally).

Sometimes though, the natural world needs a slight man-made touch. David Lowrie created this scene, using (naturally) all natural tree stumps, at his property off North Bulkley.

(Photo/Tom Lowrie)

======================================================

And finally … today is the birthday of a ton of important musicians: Bo Diddley, Skeeter Davis, Del Shannon, John Hartford, Paul Stookey, Felix Pappalardi, two Monkees (Michael Nesmith and Davy Jones), Patti Smith and Jeff Lynne.

It’s hard to pick just one to showcase. But in the spirit of optimism — at the end of a tough year, and the dawn of a new one — I’ll go with this:

8 Comments

Posted in Downtown, Entertainment, Local business, Looking back, Media, Teenagers

Tagged , , , , ,

Remembering 34 High Point Road

Posted on October 20, 2021 | 40 comments

Over the years, I’ve written dozens of stories about teardowns. I’ve warned of the impending demolition of historic homes. I’ve lamented the loss of our classic streetscapes. Just this past Monday, I remembered a visit to a special house on Compo Cove.

But as much as I loved those houses, and mourned their passing, it was always about someone else’s property.

Today I’m writing about mine.

At least, it was mine from the time I was 3 years old, through college. It stayed “mine,” in the sense that my parents continued to own it, for decades after that. My sisters and I continued to visit, for holidays and special occasions (Sue’s wedding! My 50th birthday party!). And of course, to use the pool.

My mother died there — in the bedroom she’d lived in since 1956 — in 2016.

It was not a special house: 2,400 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a basement and patio. It was the 5th house built on High Point Road during the post-war baby boom. Although each home on Westport’s longest cul-de-sac was different, it was just another suburban home.

34 High Point Road

Except, of course, every house is special to those who grew up there.

Like any home, this one has stories. My parents told us their move in. A St. Patrick’s Day blizzard buried the driveway. So my mother and father spent their first night in Westport sleeping not in the bedroom of the first home they owned, but in the back of the moving van.

A neighbor down the street was Rod Serling. He’d been a friend of my father’s at Antioch College (and helped persuade my parents to move not just to Westport, but High Point specifically).

Whenever his in-laws showed up, Rod “escaped” to my parents’ house. Who knows which “Twilight Zone” or “Playhouse 90” shows were written downstairs?

When my youngest sister Laurie was born, my parents turned the attic into my room. It was big, and on its own floor. Years later my mother asked, “Did you feel bad you weren’t near the rest of us?”

“Are you kidding?” I said. “It was right by the front door. I could sneak out at night!”

“You snuck out once?” she wondered, surprised.

“Um — more than once,” I said.

High Point Road was a great place to grow up. Nearly all 70 houses were filled with kids around my age. We rode bikes, wandered into each other’s houses at will, and played soccer, touch football and baseball at Staples High School, which was in the backyards of the homes across the street.

Our house sat on an acre of hilly land. My mother had a hand in much of the gorgeous landscaping. (I never forgave her for taking down my favorite apple tree.)

Beautiful back yard landscaping.

Perhaps the most unique feature of the house was a large window. I’ve never seen a larger window in any home. It faced east, framing beautiful sunrises, spectacular autumn leaves in the dozens of trees filling the yard, and animal tracks in newly fallen snow.

The view from the large window in fall …

… and winter.

Several months after my mother’s death, my sisters and I sold the house. We thought it would be a teardown then. But the new owner decided to renovate it himself.

It was a good idea. The kitchen needed updating; removing a few walls would create the open floor plan craved by owners today.

For whatever reason, it didn’t work. For 4 years, the house was in a constant state of disrepair. He took down dozens of trees; the lumber sat on the ground.

I drove by every so often, just to look. One day, a former neighbor flagged me down.

“What’s your mother doing to her house?” she asked.

“Well, she died,” I said. “It’s not hers anymore.”

“Oh, thank god,” the woman said. “It looks awful.”

It did.

Last spring, the house was sold again. The new owner — only the 3rd in its history — is a builder.

He had no intention of finishing the renovation. He would build a new house on the property.

Demolition permit

After watching our old home “ruined,” I was ready for the decision.

I knew that teardowns are part of the Westport real estate lifecycle. I’ve heard about so many, and written about plenty.

But I wasn’t quite ready for my house to be demolished.

I hadn’t realized how many machines would be involved.

I hadn’t thought about how quickly they would reduce wood, concrete and plaster — or, more personally, a roof, walls, floors, rooms, and (more romantically) memories — to (literally) dust.

I hadn’t imagined seeing only the foundation remaining. Then the next day, it too was gone.

After the first day, only the foundation remained.

I did not know that the swimming pool would be filled with detritus. Or that even more trees would be pulverized, exposing the home behind that had been shielded for so long. Or that the topography would be altered so much, so quickly, that I could barely recognize the land.

The front yard.

I did not think that things would change so dramatically — in less than a week — that the only thing left was the mailbox, and an outside light fixture.

(All photos/Dan Woog)

Yet that’s what happened. It’s the same thing that’s happened to countless Westporters. This time though, it happened to me.

34 High Point Road has joined the long list of local teardowns. Soon — within weeks, maybe — a new home will rise somewhere on the newly leveled land.

It will be bigger than “my” house. In many ways, it may be “nicer.”

I’ll try to refrain from making a value judgment. I probably won’t succeed.

I am sure of this: I hope the new residents will love it, like my family did. I hope they live there — like my mother did — for 60 wonderful years.

But I won’t hold my breath.

40 Comments

Posted in Real estate

Tagged ,

Friday Flashback #259

Posted on August 27, 2021 | 23 comments

Newcomers may have heard that Westport was once an “artists’ colony.”

Oldtimers remember the Famous Artists School on Wilton Road (just north of Bartaco — click here).

For a while, magazine ads and matchbook covers all over the world invited aspiring artists to learn from Famous Artists School masters.

They did not exactly “teach.” They lent their names to the enterprise. But they were quite an accomplished (and very male) bunch.

Anthony Dohanos sent along a great photo. His father — Stevan Dohanos, the famed Saturday Evening Post and US postage stamp illustrator — sits prominently on a rock at the front left, wearing plaid pants.

Norman Rockwell puffs his trademark pipe in the row behind, near the right.

Sitting in the front row on the right is Rod Serling. He was, I guess, part of the auxiliary Famous Writers’ School. (There was also a Famous Photographers’ School).

How many of these men (and 2 women) can you identify? Click “Comments” below — and add any memories you have of the years when the Famous Schools made Westport famous.

23 Comments

Posted in Arts, Friday Flashback

Tagged , , , ,

Roundup: Twilight Zone, Top Restaurants, More

Posted on December 30, 2020 | 8 comments

One of my favorite New Year’s traditions is the SyFy channel’s “Twilight Zone” marathon.

It airs December 31 and January 1 — one great, thought-provoking, stand-the-test-of-time episode after another.

Rod Serling began writing and introducing his stories while he lived in Westport — right down the street from my family, in fact, on High Point Road.

Some were influenced by this suburban, post-war town. And “A Stop at Willoughby” — with a train conductor calling out to a time traveler, “Next stop: Westport!” — is on tomorrow (Thursday, December 31) at 9:20 p.m. Click here for the full schedule.

Congratulations to The Cottage and Kawa Ni — and their owners, Brian Lewis and Bill Taibe respectively. Both are included in Connecticut Magazine’s list of the Top 15 restaurants in the state.

That means our town includes more than 13% of all the best restaurants!

Did you miss last night’s full Full Cold Moon?

Wendy Crowther sure didn’t.

(Photo/Wendy Crowther)

And finally … influential bluegrass and new acoustic singer/guitarist Tony Rice died Saturday in North Carolina. He was 69.

 

8 Comments

Posted in Entertainment, Media, People, Restaurants

Tagged , , , , , ,

Friday Flashback #144

Posted on May 31, 2019 | 21 comments

Alert “06880” reader/amateur historian Fred Cantor has a knack for finding obscure but fascinating Westport vignettes in newspaper and magazine archives.

This week’s gem is a New York Times story from September 9, 1956. Headlined “Westport Reviews New Home Numbers,” it says that — “prodded by irate residents who are loathe [sic] to adopt an urban street numbering system” — the Representative Town Meeting voted to “reconsider the $4,500 building address program recently adopted by town officials.”

Seems like Westporters “vociferously” objected to a plan to number (or re-number — it’s not clear from the story) houses on streets. Residents clearly did not want “any change in their rural flavor to something resembling urban impersonality.”

Postal officials had contended that “the lack of proper street numbers and mix-ups resulting from similar names and inaccurate numbering were making efficient deliveries increasingly difficult.”

That’s all we know from the Times story. Whatever street numbers we had — and have now — apparently work fine.

I had no way to illustrate that story. Fred helpfully sent along a Saturday Evening Post cover from May 1944. Westport artist Stevan Dohanos used a local model — and local scenes — for his illustration.

But Fred was not done. He went hunting in the Westport Library for old town directories.

The Price & Lee 1957 edition showed that homes and businesses on at least some major streets had assigned numbers. Streets like High Point — just being developed at that point — did not.*

What was more remarkable to Fred was the personal information included in the directories. They included professions of the income earners, spouses’ names, and those of older children. Presidents of companies, domestic employees — they were all there.

In 2019, the notion of privacy is all over the news (including the New York Times). We call this the “Information Age.” But more than 60 years ago, there was plenty of personal information available to all.

Just very few street numbers.

*My parents moved there in 1956. Their mailing address at that point was “Lot 12 East, High Point Road.”

21 Comments

Posted in Friday Flashback

Tagged , ,