Around Town

New Canaan Library To Launch ‘Changemakers’ Installation at 1913 Building

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As New Canaan Library prepares to take on the final phase of its remade campus—identifying a function for the 1913 building—it is also using the historic structure for a new art installation. 

And it’s partnering with one of the town’s most important local nonprofit organizations to do it: The New Canaan Museum & Historical Society. 

NCM&HS this month is launching the new Jim and Dede Bartlett Center for New Canaan History. It’s built around a theme of “Making a Difference”—the people, businesses, and events that have shaped  the community. As part of the permanent exhibition, the Museum has an interactive console of 50 New Canaan residents who had a significant impact on the town. Officials from the library looked at the images and biographies and selected six to feature in the windows of the legacy building. “The New Canaan Museum was happy to be the library’s partner in celebrating the lives of transformative New Canaan residents,” said Nancy Geary, executive director of NCM&HS.

Around Town

Podcast: Vin Farrell’s Architectural Photography at Gores Pavilion

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This week on 0684-Radi0, our free podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to Vin Farrell, whose architectural photography goes on display this week at Gores Pavilion in Irwin Park. The New Canaan Museum & Historical Society is hosting an opening reception 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 2 at the Gores Pavilion. The show will run through October, and after the reception visitors can book an appointment with NCM&HS to view the exhibition. Here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0:

Around Town

‘A Better Chance for Me’: ABC Marks 50 Years in New Canaan

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Terry Trusty came to New Canaan late in the summer of 1974, a 15-year-old from Freeman, Va.—a small town in the segregated South dotted with tobacco farms.

He’d grown up proud that his father and grandfather purchased the family home using the G.I. Bill. “That was a wonderful thing,” he told NewCanaanite.com on a recent morning. “They had a 26-acre farm there. We had a nice house. Didn’t have any running water.

Around Town

Work Starts at NCM&HS for ‘Bartlett Center for New Canaan History’; May 31 Grand Opening Planned

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After moving to an historic Oenoke Ridge property many years ago, Dede Bartlett discovered that she and her husband were just its thirteenth owners since 1749. Soon after, Bartlett said, she began to find “incredible artifacts all over the property—pottery shards, horseshoes, old tools.”

“It’s marvelous,” she said Monday morning from the large room that used to house the research library on the main floor of the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society. 

“We’ve got two antique barns that are well over 200 years old. And I thought, we really should be doing something more with that. So [NCM&HS Executive Director] Nancy [Geary] and I have worked on a number of projects over the years. Probably three or four projects.

Government

‘We’re Very Excited’: NCM&HS Presents on $2 Million ‘Campus Reimagined Campaign’

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The New Canaan Museum & Historical Society—the oldest organization of its kind in Fairfield County, established in 1889—is working toward a $2 million fundraising goal that will see its spacious Oenoke Ridge campus reimagined, officials say. Launched in June, the fundraising campaign supports a four-pronged plan that will see new buildings erected and existing spaces reused, according to NCM&HS Executive Director Nancy Geary. Where the organization’s library now is located—inside the Town House on the main floor—will be “The Bartlett Center for New Canaan History” with a “permanent exhibition on the history of New Canaan,” Geary told members of the Board of Selectmen at their Dec. 19 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “And we’re finalizing what they call the ‘assets’ for that, and there are going to be media consoles that are interactive, especially because we can’t possibly tell the history of this town in 1,0000 square feet,” Geary said.