Up to $50,000 Tagged for Testing at Town Hall Renovation Site

Stopping by the Town Hall offices located temporarily in the same building as Walter Stewart’s, NewCanaanite.com was fortunate to get a few minutes with Registrar of Voters George Cody (D), who was kind enough to talk some about the large painting outside his own office.

Cody had commented on a recent post in our “0684-Old” series about WPA murals hanging in New Canaan’s elementary schools. He mentioned that more paintings that had been on the walls at Town Hall (under renovation and scheduled for completion next spring—more on that below) likely will be re-installed when it reopens.

Here’s the painting that currently is hanging just outside the Registrar of Voters office in temporary quarters on the second floor at 237 Elm St. The painting is signed by TR Colletta. After consulting one local expert with a keen eye, it seems we’re looking south down Main Street from the middle of the road, say, in front of Garelick & Herbs, so that the man in the hat is coming up East Avenue. —Mike

The one hanging here, by artist T.R. Colletta, is an artistic representation of New Canaan’s Main Street, looking south from the bottom of Elm Street (in other words, toward the present-day New Canaan Library), Cody said.

“You can see the man walking up the hill from Burtis Avenue and you can see where the restaurant [Barolo] is,” he said. “This is totally an artistic representation. Nothing looked exactly like this. Very often what they do is take an old photograph and then do an artistic representation of it.”

The plaque beside the painting says it’s early-1900s New Canaan, donated by First County Bank in 2011.

Here’s a look at the bottom of Elm Street—not exactly sure when—but you can see the original location of Water Stewart’s market on Main. This photo is the screen saver on the TV monitors at public meetings held in the Visitors Center at the New Canaan Nature Center, and that’s where I snapped a pic of it. Who took the original I don’t know. —Michael Dinan

“This is where Stewarts Market used to be, it was the middle of this block,” Cody said, noting the former home of the family-owned business that still serves the town today (see photo at left).

The New Canaan Board of Selectmen on Tuesday approved a total of $50,000 for different types of inspections at the downtown site of Town Hall, which is undergoing a renovation—funds already earmarked for the purpose.

Joseph Zagarenski of the Bridgeport-based firm The McLoud Group, which is overseeing the project as construction manager, told the selectmen that no unforeseen costs have been incurred as a result of digging deeper into the ground, even as workers cut to the perimeter of the structure’s footprint.

Joseph Zagarenski (L) of The McLoud Group, a firm that’s managing construction work at the Town Hall renovation, and Michael Pastore, director of the New Canaan Department of Public Works, at the March 25 Board of Selectmen meeting, held at the police department. Credit: Michael Dinan

“The good news is we’re cut down to the elevation of the under-slab drainage, so we ran into a little bit of ledge but it broke up quite easily, there will be no additional cost for that,” Zagarenski said during the meeting, held in the training room at the New Canaan Police Department.

First Selectman Rob Mallozzi—who this week also noted that New Canaan this year spent $125,000 more than expected on snow removal—commended the building site crew for working through a difficult winter.

“It is important that we are on budget and on time, so it’s amazing that the winter did not harm us any more than it did,” he said.

Specifically, the funds will go to:

1. Heller and Johnsen, Geotechnical Engineering Consultants (up to $20,000) to provide testing and special inspection services for soils and foundations.
2. Special Testing Laboratories (up to $30,000) to provide materials testing and special inspection services for the concrete, steel, masonry, and fireproofing.