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The following property transfers were recorded recently in the Town Clerk’s office. For more information about each property from the assessor, click on the street address and click on the ‘Sales’ tab. To get the history of a New Canaan street name, click here. ***
Aug. 26
1025 Weed St.
NewCanaanite.com recently received the following letter(s) to the editor. Please send letters to editor@newcanaanite.com for publication here. ***
As a lifelong Republican who grew up in New Canaan, the daughter of a former long-serving RTC member, and a resident who returned to my wonderful hometown to raise my own children, I am appalled and disgusted by this weekend’s RTC email urging all Republicans to support “GOP BOE members as they stand strong” to block DEI goals in our school district. Please, get partisan politics out of our school system. Enough already. Stand down now. The RTC has no role in our students’ education. Furthermore, no sitting BOE member should be actively involved with either political party. This is a huge conflict of interest and serves only to further divide our town and turn what should be purely educational policy decisions – designed in the best interest of supporting ALL New Canaan students – into political fodder. To the current BOE members who are current members of the RTC, recuse yourselves from the RTC or resign from the BOE.
DEI will teach our students to see past color and differences of all kinds and value classmates equally. DEI is about human empathy, understanding and respect. It is about making all students feel safe and valued in our school system and about preparing our students for the incredibly diverse world awaiting them the minute they step outside of New Canaan. It is not political. DEI enriches education, it does not take away from it. For those trying to block DEI, you will shortchange all students and prevent them from being fully prepared to thrive and excel in the diverse world they will need to navigate soon.
A. L. Benedict first proposed what would become the Wayside Cross in a letter to the editor of the Advertiser in 1915 He proposed that the 18 acres donated to the town be made into the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Park. His idea was rejected, and the land later became Mead Memorial Park. However, the Town recognized the need for some sort of war memorial, and residents proceeded to fight over the specifics for the next eight years. By 1919, it seems that sufficient funds had been raised, but there was no clear direction to the project. The idea for the memorial to take the shape of a cross and to be at the base of God’s Acre seems to have come from local artist Daniel Putnam Brinley, a prominent member of the Silvermine Guild of Artists. The cross itself was designed by both Francis Adams Kent and W. Frank Purdy, who was the director of the American School of Sculpture and a local resident. Francis Adams Kent was a student of Gutzman Borglum, the artist who carved Mount Rushmore, and the brother of Solon Borglum, who started the artist colony in Silvermine in 1908. The Wayside Cross was dedicated at 3 pm September 9, 1923. 1,500 people attended to honor the fallen soldiers from New Canaan. Major General John F. O’Ryan and Admiral Robert P. Forshew were both invited to address the crowd. Lieutenant Commander F. L. Humpreys, pictured above, read “the Roll of Honor of New Canaan who made the Great Sacrifice.” The ceremony was recorded in meticulous detail by the Advertiser and featured seven photographs, which was very unusual for the time, as well as a transcription of the opening remarks and the general’s. Even fifteen years later, the ceremony was described as one of the greatest things to happen here in New Canaan. The Celtic cross is carved from travertine limestone imported from Rome. The cross alone weighs 10 tons and stands sixteen feet five inches tall. There are five carved panels on the front of the cross representing the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, and finally World War I. Columbia, the personification of the United States, is depicted in each of the panels – freeing an enslaved person, holding a ship, and rushing off to Europe armed with a sword and shield. The pedestal on which it sits is inscribed with “Dedicated to the glory of Almighty God in memory of the New Canaan men and women who, by their unselfish patriotism, have advanced the American ideals of liberty and the brotherhood of man.” The other three sides are inscribed with “service,” “sacrifice,” and “loyalty.” These inscriptions were finished three weeks after the cross was installed so that they could be adjusted for the natural light.
New Canaan Police identified the person whose body was found on the night of Aug. 10, in a supine position and engulfed in flames in the mulch pile area of Waveny, as a 71-year-old Norwalk man. The Office of the Connecticut Medical Examiner has not yet ruled on a cause of death, police said.
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Put it in the calendar: First Presbtyterian Church of New Canaan will hold its Rally Day at 10 a.m. on Sept. 11. Details here.
The New Canaan Building Department on Aug. 17 received an application to build a 5,660-square-foot home on Windrow Lane. The five-bedroom house at 69 Windrow Lane will include six full bathrooms, two half-baths and a finished 2,489-square-foot basement, according to the application. It will cost about $3.5 million to build, the application said. The contractor on the job is Contadino Architects of Cos Cob, the architect Alinea Group LLC of New Fairfield.
The 1.67-acre property had a 1955-built 2,846-square-foot contemporary home for which a demolition permit was obtained last October, building records show.