NewCanaanite.com recently received the following letters. Send letters to editor@newcanaanite.com to have them published here.
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Last Sunday, the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society hosted its Ice Cream Social for the 37th year. The beautiful day brought nearly 1000 people to the campus to enjoy ice cream, cake, the Town Band, vintage cars, and games while exploring the campus and the historic house museums. The afternoon was filled with music, laughter, and community spirit.
National Charity League members and moms serving cake at the 2026 Ice Cream Social. Photo courtesy of NCM&HS
You can’t have an Ice Cream Social without ice cream. Huge thanks to Phil Luongo, owner of Gofer Ice Cream, for donating not only ice cream but all the delicious toppings, too. This year the big hit was Oreo mint chip. Phil could not be more generous, gracious, or committed to the Town of New Canaan.
We are grateful for the many volunteers who make this day possible: the members of the Exchange Club who scooped the ice cream; the National Charity League – Canaan Parish and New Canaan Chapters, whose members baked cakes, helped with set-up and clean-up, and ran the games; the Service League of Boys, who lugged everything heavy; the Town Band for its fabulous music; George Cody, Karen Ferguson, Maryalice Gelhaus, Mark Markiewicz, Robin Miner, Geri Rhoades, Cathy Townsend, and Monica Trevino, who educated visitors to the Rock School, the Rogers Studio, the Hanford-Silliman House, and the Jim Bach Special Collections Museum; Board Governors Meredith Bach, Betty Greene, Nick Williams, and Frances Wilson, along with her husband Chris, plus volunteer extraordinaire Barbara Dougherty who welcomed people to the campus.
Scott Ready once again brought his amazing classic fire truck. It would not be the Ice Cream Social without him.
Cheryl Malecki organized the cars and provided all of us with an incredible treat to see the variety of vintage vehicles. She also donated a painting of a Ferrari to contribute to the bundle of prizes. The People’s Choice winning cars were First Place – Mike DeAngelis and his 1911 Packard Model 30; second prize to a 1986 Citroen owned by Maarten ten Holder; and the third winner was Rudy Markl and his 1956 Austin Healy. I also want to thank the generous businesses that supported the People’s Choice awards: Walter Stewart’s Market and Stewart’s Spirits, Club Sandwich, Elm Street Books, Francos Wine Merchant, Gelatissimo, A Little Plucky, Press Burger, Northeast Building and Home, Pennyweights, Pinocchio’s Pizza, New Canaan Diner, Spice and Tea Exchange, Zumbach’s, and the Adirondack Store.
A big thank you to our Museum staff – Antonia ten Holder, Oliver Russell, and Claudia Stanley, plus our High School interns Abby Brown, Victoria Vaccaro, and Fabio Rathgeber. It was the busiest weekend of the year on this campus, and I am very grateful for their energy, commitment, and good humor.
Finally, we want to thank our fabulous media partners – Mike Dinan and the NewCanaanite and Eileen Murphy and Moffly Media – for helping to promote and publicize this free community event.
New Canaan is a warm, welcoming, and wonderful community. And the Ice Cream Social is our favorite event to showcase the good cheer and fabulous spirit of 06840.
Best,
Nancy Geary, Executive Director, and Whitney Williams, Events Manager at NCM&HS
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Having just driven by the Weed and Elm site that is the subject of the the 830-g application, it’s really hard to understand how this came to be.
Historically New Canaan had been lapse in its providing affordable housing for people such as teacher, cops, firemen etc. The town was vulnerable to those who would use the state regulation requirement as a stick to abuse this regulation.
But in the last 15 years New Canaan has made a tremendous effort to provide this needed housing option to allow people who work here to also live in town. In addition this housing gives others the opportunity to enjoy a town like New Canaan. What is taking place on Weed and Elm is not about affordable housing. It’s about one man’s beef with the town. Mr Karp has a grudge that he wants to take out on the town. Why? Not sure. His Vue project was approved and allowed him to build a project that needed many concessions from the town. Building this multi-family project on the Weed and Elm site that is located in a clearly single family residential neighborhood destroys the fabric of how a town is built. There are clearly more dense areas in town where business, multi family and other uses are grouped. As you move out of town properties become less dense.
This has been the fabric of town formation from the beginning of urban design/ development in this town and especially in the northeast. The other sad feature of what Mr. Karp is doing is pitting neighbor against neighbor relative to the number of units that he builds. And then of course his architecture is so out of context with the fabric of the surrounding area. It all adds up to a very unfortunate situation for a town that does not deserve this treatment and this clearly paints Mr. Karp as a vindictive greedy developer. An unfortunate description but in this case aptly earned. I’m sure I’ll hear his attacks but so be it.
Andy Glazer
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