‘So Many Ways To Stay Connected’: New Canaan Memorial Day Parade and Ceremony [PHOTOS]

New Canaan’s Jim Talbot arrived in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive, a major campaign of the war that launched in early 1968 and involved a series surprise attacks. A Maine native who had gone on to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, U.S. Army Capt. Talbot by that time had undergone airborne and Ranger training, and spent one year stationed in West Germany. In six months as battery commander, Talbot saw four killed and 40 wounded in his towed artillery unit. “When you ask a veteran about Memorial Day, faces flash in front of us,” Talbot said from a podium outside the north entrance of Town Hall following a re-routed Memorial Day parade. “Memories of relatives in more distant wars arise from the fog of time.

Historic District Officials File Blight Complaint in Connection with Dilapidated 1780-Built Main Street Home

The volunteers that oversee New Canaan’s historic district—roughly the area around God’s Acre—are calling on town officials to consider a blight citation for a neglected antique home on Main Street. Tied up in lawsuits and foreclosure proceedings that recently became even more complicated due to a procedural error in court, the 1780-built Greek Revival-style house at 4 Main St. has been vacant for at least three years, officials say. At their most recent meeting, members of the Historic District Commission voted to contact New Canaan’s building official, invoking the town’s Blight Abatement and Prevention Ordinance. According to a letter that the commission’s secretary, Terry Spring, filed at Town Hall, the property “has been of concern to the Commission for some time and we note that there has been no improvement in the deteriorating condition of the historic house and grounds.”

“We note the property appears abandoned, the exterior building condition shows general damage and dilapidation of the structure.

Town Officials: Local Builder Close To Making Offer on Vacant Historic Home on God’s Acre

Though recent talks with one prospective buyer appear to have fallen through, a local builder now is putting in an offer on a deteriorating antique home on God’s Acre, officials said Thursday. Long vacant and tied up for years in foreclosure proceedings that have stalled its transfer, the 1780-built Greek Revival-style home at 4 Main St., if sold to an active owner, could be restored to prominence and in New Canaan’s designated historic district, according to the volunteer commission that oversees it. The Historic District Commission’s job now is to encourage the upkeep of the property there, and should consider requesting that the town get involved, Janet Lindstrom, the group’s acting chairman, said at a regular meeting. “I would like to to go the town and say, ‘Is there something we can do?’ Because to have that in the center of our district is really, really terrible,” Lindstrom said at the meeting, held at the New Canaan Historical Society’s Town House, just two doors up the hill from the .43-acre property in question. A member of the commission, Tom Nissley, last year had contacted homeowner Dr. James Talbot and received permission to have someone mow the lawn there, Lindstrom said.