NewCanaanite.com (https://newcanaanite.com/tag/abc-house-of-new-canaan)
This week on 0684-Radi0, our free podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to ABC House of New Canaan Executive Director Jamie Boris. The nonprofit organization’s Spring Luncheon is scheduled for April 5 at the Country Club of New Canaan (more information and tickets here). Here are recent episodes:
Just a short walk down the hill from the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society is 64 Locust Ave or ABC House. This home was built in 1906 by Luther Scofield Knapp, referred to as L.S. Knapp in the photograph. Knapp was a native of Stamford and was born there in 1870. He spent most of his life living in New Canaan as a mason and contractor. He helped to build the First National Bank, which stands next to town hall, along with the Silliman building which stands on the north corner of Main and East Ave. He also helped to construct the last iteration of Center School in 1909. He was perhaps given this contract because he was elected to the School Committee in 1902, 1905, 1908, and 1915. He was also a member of the Board of Burgesses back when downtown New Canaan was a borough. Knapp’s wife Mary Provost, born in 1873, was a lifelong New Canaan resident, and was educated in the Little Red Schoolhouse on Carter Street (now one of the Museum’s historic properties.) The couple and their daughter Rose lived in the house for seventeen years until they moved to 28 Greene Ave. 64 Locust Avenue was then owned by Jennie Ferrera and her husband, Felice. Originally from New York City, Jennie moved to New Canaan in 1910. Jennie and Felice ran a food market that was located in the H.B. Rogers building on Main Street, which is now home to New Canaan Music and Stretch Lab. The couple also owned the building and it seems that Jennie was in charge of renting out the rooms. Various rent ads for the building can be seen in the Advertiser over a number of years all with Jennie’s name as the contact. Jennie also ran an ad in June of 1942 for fireworks she was selling from the market, claiming to be “carrying every type that the government allows.” With Jennie’s death in 1953, the house was then sold to Luigi Colarossi, who remodeled the building as a two family home. Eventually in 1971, he sold the house to Genesis Inc, which was a youth drug prevention program that used the building as its headquarters.
This week on 0684-Radi0, our free podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to Alicia Meyer, president of A Better Chance of New Canaan, known locally as ABC House. Meyer tells us about the organization’s mission, how its scholars come to the New Canaan program, how ABC House navigated this past year of pandemic-related restrictions, and what she learned from a webinar series that ABC scholars and alumni put on last year in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis. Here’s a link to “A Chance To Unpack,” a webinar series presented by ABC students and alumni last year that we talk about during the interview. Here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0:
Two mosquitoes trapped in in New Canaan—in Hoyts Swamp, located off of Route 123 near the Norwalk line—tested positive for West Nile Virus on Aug. 12 and 20, according to tests by the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. ***
A Better Chance of New Canaan recently added four new members to its Board of Directors:
Devaun Bovell is a 2013 graduate of New Canaan High School and a 2017 graduate of Boston College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Business Management and was a four-year student-athlete. Bovell worked as a college athletics administrator for two years before enrolling in the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. During graduate school, he studied Education Policy and was a Graduate Assistant for the Wharton MBA Academic Affairs Office, earning a master’s degree in 2020.
Dina Connelly for the past 18 years has served as president of The John Pepe Salerno Foundation, an organization that she co-founded with her family to honor her brother.
Jelani Alladin reflected in a new way on how his experience as an ABC House of New Canaan scholar could benefit others in the wake of George Floyd’s May 25 killing. The 27-year-old, a 2010 New Canaan High School graduate who works as a Broadway, TV and film actor—he starred in Disney’s “Frozen” and will be in the upcoming “The Walking Dead: The World Beyond”—said he found people around him wanting “to increase their awareness of the issues, increase their knowledge of history.”
“I have started a long journey communicating with very different types of people,” Alladin told NewCanaanite.com. “For me, the Broadway community is having big reckoning with race, as are other institutions, and I saw that New Canaan began to have that.”
Alladin last month joined fellow NCHS alumni in calling for the Board of Education to hire more people of color, further expand curriculum to address systemic racism and inequity, and hold twice-yearly events to educate students and faculty on racial justice. (The Board is debating now whether to adopt new district-wide goals on equity, diversity and inclusion.)
“Many of us are searching for answers of how to be anti-racist, how to be an ally, how to dismantle systemic racism and how to check their own privilege,” Alladin said. “And I want people to be able to answer that beyond reading a book and beyond watching a movie.”
Together with fellow ABC scholars Daryl Cummings and Devaun Bovell, Alladin starting Thursday will host a free multi-part Webinar designed to improve inclusivity by unpacking the experience of the students in New Canaan.