There & Then

Mead Park Mystery: The Colonnade

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It looks to be something out of ancient Greece or Rome or even the Old South rather than New Canaan. The colonnade that sits amid the Mead Park tennis courts on a perch overlooking Mead Pond serves no other function these days than as a picturesque background for pre-prom or family photos. A relic of some bygone era, many patrons of the park pass it by every day, oblivious to its significance. So what exactly was it for? The history of the colonnade dates back to the Great Depression, which according to the New Canaan Historical Society’s publication Landmarks of New Canaan, was actually a period of substantial growth for Mead Park.

Around Town

Eye Openers: New Canaan’s Best Breakfast Sandwiches

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It’s often a morning-after “cure-all” and other times simply a meal. Whatever the purpose, the breakfast sandwich has a firmly established niche in the culinary world. In New Canaan, the Deli-Bake is long-gone and we recently lost the Forest Street Deli’s legendary “Big O”. That said, we still have more than a half-dozen eateries featuring some form of breakfast sandwich on their menu. Here is a look at our five favorites:

Apple Cart Food Co. – The Mead Park Breakfast Wrap

With a menu featuring fresh salads, sandwiches and wraps, Emad Aziz’s Mead Park mainstay is a dining destination that transcends the average public park snack bar.

News

Town on Soggy, Unplayable Sports Fields: ‘We’re Doing Our Best’

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With a lingering, frosty winter that quickly turned into a very wet spring, New Canaan’s playing fields are unusually soggy and about three weeks behind where they usually are, causing some frustration among youth sports parents and coaches, officials say. Parks Department crews are working diligently to get soccer, baseball and other fields into shape, despite a late clay delivery and hold-ups getting sand that New Canaan had ordered back in February/March, according to First Selectman Rob Mallozzi. “The weather has been tough on my yard, tough on your yard, tough on our fields,” Mallozzi said. “We’re doing our best. We have people getting frustrated with conditions on our fields and our department guys are frustrated, too.

News

PHOTOS: New Canaan High School Junior Pre-Prom 2014 at Mead Park

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About 50 Junior Prom-bound New Canaan teens gathered for photos, a bite to eat and a pre-prom mixer at the Mead Park colonnade Friday evening. Parents armed with cameras had the high school students, ranging from freshmen to seniors, pose for group, couple and individual photos on a clear, cool evening just hours after town officials had planted a new sycamore by Mead Pond about 25 yards away to mark Arbor Day in New Canaan. For this photo gallery, hover over a photo for caption information or to pause the slideshow (article continues below):

[acx_slideshow name=”Pre NCHS Junior Prom 2014 at Mead Park”]

 

For junior Julia Diaz, the prom itself is old hat—she’d been to Junior Prom as a freshman and Senior Prom as a sophomore—though this was her first pre-prom gathering. “There are so many people I don’t know. It’s kind of awkward,” she said with a laugh.

Around Town

VIDEO: New Canaan Honors Dick Reifers with Arbor Day Sycamore at Mead Park

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In the last year of his life, New Canaan’s Dick Reifers is remembered by one close friend as planting an endangered tree on his own property, the Metasequoia glyptostroboides or “dawn Redwood”—which interested Reifers after its rediscovery in China about 70 years ago. On Friday, New Canaan friends, relatives and town officials remembered Reifers as an civic-minded, avid gardener and generous member of the community, in honoring him with the Arbor Day planting of a sycamore tree on the banks of Mead Pond. New Canaan Marks Arbor Day 2014
 

Trees that in recent decades is known for carrying a disease that makes them lose their leaves midsummer instead of in the fall, George Valchar said, sycamores yet often live 140 years or more, and are among the tallest in this area, sometimes reaching 160 feet. “Let’s hope that our young American sycamore will survive the early years and then will grow into a giant 150-feet-tall tree with branches turning white with a little green and a little gray, and that the citizens of 2200 as they walk by will admire the great Dick Reifers American Sycamore,” Valchar said at the pond moments before he and others spread soil over the base of the sycamore to mark the day. The event included a proclamation by First Selectman Rob Mallozzi that was delivered by Selectman Beth Jones.