Dede Bartlett

Mobile App Self-Guided Tour of Lakeview Cemetery To Launch Thursday

By |

The NewCanaanite.com Summer Internship Program is sponsored by Carriage Barn Arts Center. Visitors to New Canaan’s main cemetery soon will be able to tour the hallowed grounds with a mobile app detailing the lives of some of the town’s most noteworthy residents interred there. Using cellular location technology, visitors to Lakeview Cemetery will be able to use the Otocast app for a self-guided tour narrated by a prominent local woman. The app will launch at 4 p.m. Thursday with a special tour, according to Nancy Geary, executive director of the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society. “We hope that people will come out,” Geary said.

Around Town

Lakeview Cemetery Launches E-Commerce Channel for Services Honoring Lost Loved Ones

By |

One of New Canaan’s most venerable and important organizations has launched a new online channel in order to make it easier for people to pay respects to lost loved ones. Lakeview Cemetery’s revamped website now allows visitors to purchase floral arrangements, holiday wreaths and power-washing services for tombstones and mausoleums, and its staff will send photos to users after services have been rendered. Kelly Robb, office manager at the cemetery, said board members of the New Canaan Cemetery Association, a nonprofit organization that owns the 41-acre property together with individual plot owners, along with staff, identified a need among survivors and friends of those interred in Lakeview who have moved away or are otherwise unable to visit the property. “We are just trying to make it convenient and easier for people to order for their loved ones and even friends of the family, as a gift for them,” Robb said. “And to bring them peace of mind.”

New Canaan’s Peter Passaro, who took over as superintendent of the cemetery from Bo Hickey five years ago, said that although the new e-commerce channel only launched recently, it’s already seeing strong interest. 

“It’s really an extra service that a lot of cemeteries don’t provide,” Passaro said.

Business

Memorial Day Weekend Guide; What’s Open & Closed

By |

The Memorial Day Parade will start at 9:30 a.m. on Monday followed by the annual public ceremony in Lakeview Cemetery. Lifelong New Canaan resident Brian Vander Heyden—U.S. marine and Vietnam War veteran—will be a guest speaker. The Rev. Robert Kinnally from Saint Aloysius Catholic Church will officiate as clergy. Town Hall is closed Monday. If you’re a business owner and want us to add your information to our list here, please email your hours for Saturday, Sunday and Monday to editor@newcanaanite.com. Quick reminder: The VFW Post 653 at 8 a.m. on Saturday at Lakeview Cemetery will lead an effort to place new flags beside the grave stones of fallen servicemen and women buried in New Canaan.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

By |

The state Superior Court on April 27 authorized the eviction of a Millport Avenue woman and two men from a New Canaan Housing Authority unit. ***

Buckle up: From May 21 to June 3, New Canaan Police will join a statewide a “Click It or Ticket” seatbelt enforcement campaign. ***

A locally owned company called Sports Media Properties LLC purchased the 2,000-square-foot, red barn-looking office building at 191 Elm St. downtown, behind the DEANE showroom, for $1.3 million, according to a property transfer recorded May 1 in the Town Clerk’s office. ***

The town on April 25 issued an after-the-fact permit to demolish a pool at 53 Alan Lane.

Around Town

‘The Whole Process Was Very Smooth’: Dredge for Pond at Lakeview Cemetery

By |

A dredge of one of the ponds at Lakeview Cemetery is wrapping up, a project designed to improve aesthetics and to clear out muck that could lead to green algal blooms.

Launched in response to findings of excessive sedimentation and invasive species in the pond, the dredge represents an eco-friendly investment by the Cemetery Association itself in a property that is deeply important to residents. “Overall, the whole process was very smooth,” Lakeview Cemetery Superintendent Peter Passaro said. “It was a good experience.”

Approved by the town’s Inland Wetlands officials, the project saw in its first stage “suction dredging,” which involves pumping out sediment from the pond and now involves “geotextile tubes,” which replaces water that had been removed. According to the project proposal from Ridgefield-based Pristine Waters LLC: “We believe that [the Lakeview Cemetery] pond is a very good candidate for suction draining … to prevent the buildup of decomposed organic sediment (muck), which would overload the pond with phosphates that lead to greater algae growth. The pond that underwent dredging is in the southeast part of the property—past the veterans’ gravesite area.