Stamford - November/December 2022

Osteria

IT’S A DATE Date night is here. Where do you go for a bite to eat? Check our updated guide for fun and romantic places.

by joey macari

THE WALL Meet the artists behind some of the city’s bestknown wall murals. by diane sembrot

LIGHT A FIRE

Honoring inspiring people who make life better for others in Fairfield County. It’s time to celebrate giving back.

by jill johnson mann

THE GREAT

DIVIDE

A look at one of the biggest issues in this country— reproductive rights—and what that means for us.

by timothy dumas

STAMFORD MAGAZINE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2022, VOL. 13, NO. 6 // STAMFORD MAGAZINE (ISSN 2153-2680) is published bimonthly by Moffly Media, Inc., 205 Main St., Westport, CT 06880. POSTMASTER: Send address changes (Form 3579) to STAMFORD MAGAZINE, P.O. BOX 9309, Big Sandy, TX 75755-9607

LAUREN

Norwalk Hospital

Show the girls some love

Breast cancer screening is in your hands. It’s easy to schedule your screening mammogram, no referral needed. We’re here for you every step of the way – from booking your appointment to getting your results back quickly.

vol. 13 | no. 6 | november/december 2022

editorial editorial director

Cristin Marandino–cristin.marandino@moffly.com

editor, stamford; fairfield living; westport

Diane Sembrot–diane.sembrot@moffly.com style & community editor

Janel Alexander—janel.alexander@moffly.com

contributing editors

Megan Gagnon–editor, athome

Elizabeth Hole–editor, custom publishing

Julee Kaplan editor, new canaan • darien Veronica Schoor—assistant editor, athome Amy Vischio–creative director-at-large, athome books correspondent Emily Liebert

copy editors

Terry Christofferson, Lynne Piersall, David Podgurski

contributing writers

Liz Barron, Carol Leonetti Dannhauser, Timothy Dumas, Kim-Marie Galloway, Beth Levine, Malia McKinnon Frame, Joey Macari, Jill Johnson Mann

editorial advisory board

Harry Day, PJ Kennedy, Jamie Krug, Michael Marchetti, Arthur Selkowitz, Jami Sherwood, Lou Ursone art senior art director

Venera Alexandrova venera.alexandrova@moffly.com senior art director

Garvin Burke garvin.burke@moffly.com production director

Tim Carr–tim.carr@moffly.com assistant art director

Lisa Marie Servidio–Lisa.Servidio@moffly.com senior photographer Bob Capazzo

digital media of digital content strategy

Diane Sembrot–diane.sembrot@moffly.com digital marketing manager

Rachel MacDonald–rachel.macdonald@moffly.com digital assistant

Lloyd Gabi loyd.gabi@moffly.com

Calendar@Moffly.com Editor@StamfordMag.com Weddings@StamfordMag.com

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vol. 13 | no. 6 | november/december 2022 publisher

Karen Kelly-Micka karen.kelly@moffly.com

sales & marketing

Andrew Amill publisher, greenwich andrew.amill@moffly.com

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director of digital content strategy Diane Sembrot business manager Elena Moffly elena@moffly.com cofounders John W. Moffly IV & Donna C. Moffly donna@moffly.com

president’s letter

WHERE WE STAND

We live in tumultuous times. A feeling of unabated change swirls around us with continuing Covid, inflation, a looming recession, the war in Ukraine and accelerating technologies we must adapt to every year. Toss in midterm elections shifting power between our two major parties, and we have unease.

Living in Russia, Japan, Australia, China, New Zealand and Thailand deepened my pride in our country—its resiliency and adaptability. I married a Russian whom I met while living in Tokyo on an exchange program from the University of Sydney. Our firstborn entered the world in Moscow. The political systems ranged across the spectrum from authoritarian with one-man or one-party rule to robustly democratic. Regardless of who governed, I learned that people are people. We value love and community. I made friends in all those countries.

Our responsibility as regional magazine media is to help the community thrive—to help people live better lives. At the top we celebrate what is good here—our neighbors, the culture, the history, things to do and places to go. And we tackle tough issues like domestic violence, bullying, addiction and women’s rights, in which we balance the hard realities with opportunities to make a difference. We highlight the people who truly want to make a positive difference in our lives, as in the Light a Fire awards for

volunteers extraordinaire and unsung heroes. Moffly Media supports over 150 nonprofits by sharing their message or helping them raise money to address important needs not supported by government services. As the media world evolves with ever more streaming services, social channels and websites, there is one thing we at Moffly want to do—help us understand each other and improve quality of life.

Enter politics in this crazy-feeling, divisive time and take a more middle road on the hot button issues between the extreme left and extreme right. I’m proud of how our editors handle different opinions. In the early 2000s for a congressional race, one of our magazines in its Editor’s Letter leaned a bit toward one candidate, another for the other candidate, and the third right down the middle. Connecticut is regarded overall as a moderately liberal state. Yet today’s politics are more polarizing than I can remember in my lifetime, with the seeming disappearance of a middle majority— the moderate voices that bring us together. Radical conservative voices, according to studies sited by Politico, out-shout liberal voices in social messaging that goes viral. Radical liberal voices, while less effective, tout extremes of position equally divisive. It all keeps us from coming together.

The top midterm races all feature our local natives. For Congress, Jayme Stevenson

(Darien) is facing off against Jim Himes (Greenwich). For the Senate, Leora Levy (Greenwich) is facing off with Dick Blumenthal (Greenwich). And for Governor, Bob Stefanowski (Madison) is facing off against Ned Lamont (Greenwich). All were successful prior to politics, and I respect all of them for their dedication. None I agree with entirely. For middle-of-the-roaders, it’s a tough place to be—whether politician or voter. So, this year, vote your conscience on who can bring people together for sensible moderation. But make sure to get out and vote to uphold freedom and safety, and to improve life for all who call this great country home.

Last year MRI Simmons conducted a thirdparty audience survey. You readers are ten times more engaged in making a difference in your community than the national average. Far beyond extraordinary, that’s unheard of for a region. You pack a punch—both locally and nationally. As your town magazine, we want to do best by you. We want to know your thoughts—your concerns, your passions, what’s important to you. We are here for you. Send us your ideas: editor@stamfordmag.com.

We are your town magazine.

THOSE LEFT BEHIND.

ABOUT TIME

Growing up, I was an angel. That’s right, at least for one December evening. I held a flashlight under my chin and kicked the white garment wrapped over my body as I walked with my fellow elementary-school classmates and sang holiday songs to the adoring parents in the field. This was back in the day when the students held a holiday pageant outside. We walked a path across the top a hill, and the parents gazed up as us. We practiced and anticipated this moment each year—and I was completely into it. I also fully embraced the tree lighting, making Valentine’s Day cards, dancing around the Maypole, cheering roadside during the Fourth of July Parade, dressing up for the Halloween parade—and nearly every holiday and town tradition (art shows, Girl Scouts, book sales) our town had. Count little me in for every single one.

Of course, I didn’t just do these events and moments on my own. I didn’t just pop into place all set to sing or dressed for the sun or a pocket full of dollars for new books. I had help—and that was my mom, of course. Now as a mother myself, I can more appreciate what she did to get me ready for each event, month by month, year after year. As a single parent of three children, she couldn’t have had an easy time of it. She had to make costumes, fill out forms and do a lot of driving. I thank her with all of my heart.

I’m not sure I succeeded at it as well as she did. Correction: I’m sure I didn’t. My kids and I missed a few parades, fireworks and parties.

And the one thing I would have loved to give them was that moment of walking over the hill while singing. I suppose times have changed. Traditions change. Or maybe it was just me. But now that my children are grown, I think it’s natural to look back and wonder if they have those similar cherished memories. I hope so. I know town traditions must evolve—and I’m glad for that. My wish is that they bring the community together and make children happy, which, of course, makes us all feel good. We participate in town traditions together and that helps us feel like we are part of something bigger and lasting, which little me probably loved most of all. Maybe this is so for you, too.

As we head into the holiday season, I hope you’ll enjoy not only your own personal family traditions—making a certain foods, singing a favorite classic song, watching the same holiday movie each year, decorating your home with family treasures—but also Stamford’s traditions. Watching Santa rappel a building, or heading out for the first ice-skating session of the season, may seem like something you could skip if you had to—but the way we hold onto our childhood memories says that they are more important than they seem at the time. Check out our story on Stamford traditions; try one. Whatever you do, I hope you enjoy the best Stamford has to offer at this time of year. Enjoy every moment and make good memories!

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A New Deal

FORMER FOOD NETWORK EXEC launches inspirational

Let’s start with your background. How did you get into television?

I attended NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in the film and TV department with a plan to work in film, but when TV internships introduced me to the fast pace of the TV business—tight deadlines, collaboration among bright, ambitious creatives under budget and airdate pressures—I got hooked. Working in TV became my mission as soon as I graduated, and I’ve been in the business ever since.

What was it like running the Food Network?

Thrilling! The Food Network team is the best in the business, and every day I worked with the most gifted and successful chef talent in the industry whose passion, energy and creativity fueled my own. Running one of the most well-known lifestyle brands was a privilege and honed my leadership abilities, enabling me to start my own lifestylecentric business.

What show launch was your favorite?

female-owned production companies dedicated to lifestyle content, with an emphasis on the food and home genres, so I decided to build the company that I, as a buyer, wished existed in the marketplace.

Tell us more about Butternut. What will it look like and what sort of content will you create?

Butternut is a lifestyle and entertainment media company creating premium, unscripted content for all screens. Our mission is to connect viewers to personalities and places that inspire, inform and delight. We tell the stories of lives lived to the fullest, unlikely paths forged, creativity unleashed and talent unlocked. We are committed to authenticity, dedicated to inclusion and driven by innovation. Our content is smart, fun, beautiful, delicious, compelling, welcoming and broadly appealing to all!

How will you be utilizing The Village in Stamford?

Explain how your family decided to break into flower farming in Southport, and do you sell to the public?

We were customers of Butternut Farm, the fresh cut flower farm in Southport. When founder Evelyn Lee decided to move on from the business, my husband, Keric Kenny, and I sent her a proposal to become owners and keep this very special neighborhood business alive. She approved, and now Butternut Farm is open to the public via The Cottage (our farm shop), at 1120 Hulls Highway in Southport. We’re open Thursday through Sunday while supplies last.

What’s your connection to Stamford, and tell us what you love most about it?

Meet Courtney White, former president of the Food Network, who is launching Butternut, a lifestyle-andentertainment media company and joint venture with Wheelhouse. White gave us the scoop on her new company and how she’ll run the business from her family’s farm in Southport as well as at The Village, Wheelhouse’s large-scale campus in Stamford. White spent some time telling us about her new company and why she loves keeping things close to home.

Partnering with Guy Fieri to bring to life his bigentertainment vision for the bracket competition series Tournament of Champions. Watching it catapult to become Food Network’s highest rated show—attracting food and sports fans, men, women, everyone in the household—made it the most fun show launch of my career.

Why did you decide to start Butternut?

From my network seat, I wanted to see more

Wheelhouse is my partner company, led by CEO Brent Montgomery, and they have built an impressive deep bench of creative TV talent based at The Village. The teams there span across all facets of production. In TV, the most critical work we do is gathering creative people together to form new ideas, and The Village is where that idea magic will happen. Though Butternut will operate from my family farm in Southport, the Stamford location will serve as our true creative hub.

I love the creative reimagination of industrial spaces in this town. The Village developer Courtney Montgomery’s incredible vision that she brought to life in building this space is—to me—the most exciting example of that. Artists and creatives who flock here for work and play inspire me and spread innovation and new ideas throughout this area, and it’s a thrill to experience those dynamics right in the very building in which I work.

Will there be any interactive opportunities with Butternut where local people can get involved?

I certainly hope so! As we expand and grow we’re planning to get even more involved locally.

above: Courtney White, founder of the new brand, Butternut

EXPRESS IT

Imagine being in middle school or high school and heading to Carnegie Hall. That dream came true this year for Local INTEMPO youth musicians who were selected to perform as a string quartet and guitar/charango ensemble with Grammy-award winning PubliQuartet at the legendary performance center.

The opportunity is part of the Carnegie Hall Weill Music Institute’s PlayUSA Reflections on Resilience program. “Music lets us express and communicate all kinds of emotions, feelings and ideas. It’s been called the universal language, because of its power to reach across societies and cultures and to be something we all understand

instruments,” says Angélica. Entitled “Where I Belong,” it speaks to migrant children’s ability to adapt. “The music evokes their journey—how young newcomers find a sense of belonging in their community, how they handle challenging experiences and how they envision their future.”

After meeting MacArthur Fellow Aaron Dworkin in 2009, Angélica, a violinist from Ecuador, was encouraged to find a way to foster diversity in music. Two years later, she founded INTAKE Music (now INTEMPO) with two teachers and forty students. Over a decade later, it remains true to its purpose: “To provide high-

JULISKA at 20

For nearly twenty years, Juliska—the brand focused on beautiful home items, especially for the table, such as plates and bowls to glasses and vases—called Stamford home. Then, Covid hit. The founders, husbandand-wife David Gooding and Capucine De Wulf Gooding decided to move south to Charleston, South Carolina—though our city lingers in their thoughts. “Stamford has a great deal of meaning for us. We were very happy to have grown our business there for over fifteen years,” says Gooding, CEO.

The company is now celebrating its twentieth anniversary—and, as we roll into the season of home entertaining, the couple is releasing its first book: Together at the Table ($50). It includes ideas from discovering your signature style, decorating with flowers, choosing a vase and tips for hosting family parties over the holiday, among other themes and ideas. Find it, and the holiday collection, at juliska.com.

regardless of our background,” says Angélica Durrell, founder and CEO. “At the heart of what we do—bringing people together through the shared language of music—is this recognition that what we all have in common is this ability to relate to the expressive nature of music.”

INTEMPO commissioned a piece by Chilean composer Javier Farias. “He was the perfect fit for our project, since we wanted a piece that would include parts for guitar, charango and classical string

quality intercultural music education to low-income children predominantly from immigrant or first-generation backgrounds and from communities underrepresented in the arts, helping them build critical emotional, cognitive and behavioral skills,” says Angélica. “Our accessible, relevant and inclusive bilingual programs break down barriers.”

This year, INTEMPO hopes to find a long-term home for its after-school music school.

TEA FOR TWO

Juliska is also pairing up with Veronica Beard—known for ready-to-wear wardrobe essentials—to introduce a fourteen-piece, limited-edition, tableware collection. It will include dinner and dessert service, bowls, tea service and two napkins. It’s called Bohemian Vine and calls to mind the Iberian coast.

above: Juliska celebrates its anniversary by publishing a new book

THROUGH THE NONPROFIT INTEMPO, YOUNG MUSICIANS USE MUSIC TO EXPRESS THEIR IMMIGRATION JOURNEY by diane sembrot

above: INTEMPO’s Carnegie Hall Reflections on Resilience program

Q & A

SPOTLIGHT ON LOCALS

Stamford-loving residents share their local favorites

MARIA NICOLE BARKAS

Years in Stamford

“Twenty-five years! Born and raised.“

Town Tradition

“There is nothing like starting the summer/ending the school year with the Ethos Greek Festival, and ending summer/ starting the school year with the St. Leo’s Fair. Those are both Stamford traditions I look forward to every year. More recently, I am loving the Hey Stamford! events as well, especially the That’s Amore Italian Street Festival.”

Best View in Town

“Trump Parc apartments have the most incredible view of downtown Stamford, but there’s nothing like playing beach volleyball for Stamford Rec and watching the sunset with your team.”

Place for Coffee

“Hands down Donut Delight and Humbled Coffeehouse. Stamford is lucky to have them both.”

New Business

“F45 in Harbor Point has become one of my favorite places to be. It’s such a great community of individuals all

seeking similar goals, which makes the workout so much fun. The energy is always high, the staff is always hype, and the workouts are always pushing you to your limits. To keep my body functioning optimally, I swear by Elevate Physical Therapy. They have the most knowledgeable and fun physical therapists around.”

Longtime Business

“I have been eating at Elm Street Diner since I was a baby. They have blown up in the past few years, as they’re all over social media now for their famous shakes and fun pancake tacos. They truly do not disappoint, and their food always hits the spot!”

Restaurant

“Olio and Cafe Silvium have to be tied for first place. Olio makes a phenomenal paella on Wednesdays, and Cafe Silvium’s Linguine Nere con Capesante is to die for.”

What Makes Stamford Great “Stamford has evolved so much over the last ten years. It’s a mini NYC with great jobs, restaurants, diversity, night life, events, small businesses…the list goes on and on.”

“I am a corrective skincare specialist, treating all skin types and conditions. My goal is to enhance an individual’s natural beauty. I have the most incredible clients, and I am able to change the lives of individuals through products and noninvasive treatments. I absolutely love what I do!”

Years in Stamford

“Our whole lives.”

Town Tradition

“The St. Leo’s Fair.”

Best View in Town

“The top of the Stamford Marriott Hotel & Spa.“

Place for Coffee “Donut Delight.”

Longtime Business “Colony Pizza.”

New Business “Quartiere.”

What Makes Stamford Great “Stamford has big-city vibes even though it has been able to maintain its community atmosphere over the years. It is a great place because it truly offers something for everyone!”

back to the community that raised us—and through our restaurant, we are able to put smiles on people’s faces.”

“We enjoy giving

Owner of Maria Nicole Aesthetics, Esthetician

MIKE PALMER & STEVE SABIA Co-Owners of The Wienery

above: Can’t lose at Colony Grill

above: A neighborhood favorite, Pellici’s

above: Pepperoni pizza

by joey macari

BY ANDREA CARSON

Restaurant

“Pellicci’s (Veal Parm).”

above: Grab-n-go at Donut Delight

Moffly Media is one of the leading providers of professional event photography and marketing services in Fairfield County.

by janel alexander

KERRI ROSENTHAL

London Super Long Cardigan, $728; Cashmere Imperfect Heart Mittens, $128; and Cashmere Love Beanie, $198; kerrirosenthal.com

1

BROCHU WALKER

Luxe Slipper Sock, $178. Westport; brochuwalker.com

JENNI KAYNE

Aspen Boucle Chair, $3,995, Westport; jennikayne.com

3

BROCHU WALKER

Arla Brushed Fairisle Pullover, $598, Westport; brochuwalker.com

SISTER KATIE

The Julia Cableknit Sweater, $388; shopsisterkatie.com

POLOGEORGIS

Dawn Apricot fox jacket $4,000, Greenwich; pologeorgis.com

MOTHER

The Buttoned Up Puffer Luster Coat, $475, Greenwich/ Westport; shop. mitchellstores.com

GOLDEN GOOSE

Superstar Shearling Lined slip on sneaker, $680; modaoperandi.com

PHOTOGRAPHS: IVORY SWEATER BY JUSTIN MARQUIS. OTHERS COURTESY OF DESIGNERS/BRANDS

1

VINCE

Turtleneck Belted Shell in Ecru, $425, and Ribbed Skirt in Ecru, $425, Greenwich/Westport; vince.com

2

MATEO Eve Baroque Pearl Earrings, $6,250, Mirta De Gisbert, Jewelry Consultant & Gemologist; mirtadegisbert.com

3

CADDIS

Porgy Backstage Reading Glasses, $99,. Old Greenwich; athenabooksog.com

ANANYA Pearl Onyx Chakra Bracelet, Green Onyx, $3,920, Mirta De Gisbert, Jewelry Consultant & Gemologist; mirtadegisbert.com

One Stud Top Handle Bag, $3,650, Greenwich;

Open Multi-Diamond and Baroque White Pearl Ring, $3,290, Mirta De Gisbert, Jewelry Consultant & Gemologist; mirtadegisbert.com

TODD SNYDER

Canadian Cardigan Sweater, $698, Greenwich; toddsnyder.com

JENNI KAYNE

Mens Fisherman Sweater, $295, Greenwich; jennikayne.com

ELEVENTY

Leather Travel Bag, $1,795, Greenwich; eleventymilano.com

BRUNELLO CUCINELLI

Stripe Silk Necktie, $295, Westport, Greenwich; shop.mitchellstores.com

MANFREDI

Omega Speedmaster; $14,800, Greenwich, New Canaan; manfredijewels.com

TODD SNYDER + NEW ERA

NY Yankees Low Profile Chalkstripe Cap, $120, Greenwich; toddsnyder.com

FRAME

Modern Flannel Long Sleeve zip Shirt, $398; frame-store.com

VINCE

Lorimer Suede Chukka Boot, $275, Greenwich, Westport; vince.com

Bartlet Forest Green and Creme Checkered Cap, $85; loefflerrandall.com

LOEFFLER RANDALL

Marcel Forest Green and Creme Checkered Mittens, $60; loefflerrandall.com

LOEFFLER RANDALL

Jimi Green Cashmere Baclava, $150; loefflerrandall.com

FRAME

Cropped Check Crew Off White Multi, $578; frame-store.com

LA LIGNE

Red Bonne Nuit Pajamas, $250, Greenwich; lalignenyc.com

1

MONICA RICH KOSANN

The Catherine Staggered Diamond Locket, $5,170; monicarichkosann.com

2

HENRY C. REID

18K Yellow Gold Pendant with 21 sprinkled diamonds, $4,075; hcreidjewelers.com 3

AKOYA CUFF

Flex Bangle, $9,800, Greenwich; betteridge.com

4

LUX BOND & GREEN

Yellow Gold Diamond Topaz and Mixed Gemstone Drop Earrings, $920, Westport; lbgreen.com

5

JL ROCKS

Half Mood Bracelet, $1,370, Greenwich, Westport; jlrocks.com 6

MATTIA CIELO

Diamond Twist Ring, $6,500, Westport, Greenwich; shopmitchellstores.com

Hi, Philly! Nice to Meet You

Philadelphia is a lot like an overlooked middle child. Not as cosmopolitan as New York and not the center of government like D.C., the birthplace of democracy is more closely associated with cheesesteaks and Rocky Balboa.

But Philadelphians know that it’s more than that. And with a new five-star Four Seasons and the Michelin Guide sniffing around, so will everyone else.

by kim-marie galloway

THE CITY OF BROTHERLY LOVE IS MORE THAN JUST A CRACKED BELL

LOTS TO THINK ABOUT

Philadelphia has the most extensive collection of sculpture work outside of Paris. Around the corner from the Rocky statue (where the huddled masses queue for snapshots) sits the stately Rodin Museum and Gardens. The first bronze cast of Auguste Rodin’s The Gates of Hell stands at the entrance. Admission is only $12, but you could see this and a cast of The Thinker without even walking through the doors. Philly’s Thinker is a cast of the 1902–1904 version. It was installed for the opening of the Rodin Museum in 1929 in front of a façade replicating his tomb at the Musée Rodin in Paris. Interesting fact: When his wife died, Rodin put a copy of The Thinker on her grave.

above: No trip to Philly is complete without a visit to the Rodin Museum and Gardens. below and bottom right: The Barnes offers a unique way to view masterpieces.

above: The Common Threads mural by Meg Saligman features contemporary people imitating postures of historical figurines.

ALSO KNOWN AS

Philadelphia has a lot of nicknames: City of Brotherly Love, The Birthplace of America and now the City of Murals. There are more than 4,000 murals spread across the city. It's the largest public art program of its kind.

AT THE ART OF IT ALL

The Barnes Foundation is a boring name for one of the most exciting museums in the city, perhaps in the country. The Barnes, as it’s known, has the world’s largest collections of paintings by Renoir (179) and Cézanne (69), as well as significant works by Matisse, Picasso, Modigliani, Van Gogh, and other renowned artists. Unlike most museums, no placards explain the art or identify the artist. The art is hung precisely as it was in Dr. Barnes’ home before the city moved the collection to its current location ten years ago. Get a guide who will teach you the Barnes method of looking at art in a unique and approachable way. No need to be an art history major to enjoy this stunning collection. Entrance is $25 for adults.

© THE BARNES FOUNDATION, PHILADELPHIA. PHOTO BY MICHAEL PEREZ; RODIN MUSEUM AND GARDENS BY VALERIYAPSTOCK.ADOBE.COM COMMON THREADS MURAL PHOTO BY STEVE WEINIK; © THE BARNES FOUNDATION, PHILADELPHIA. PHOTO BY SEAN MURRAY

WHERE TO STAY— THERE’S ONE CHOICE

The hotel scene in Philly has been decidedly average until recently. The Ritz is in a lovely building, but it’s tired. Kimpton markets itself as luxury. It’s not. And although AKA University City Hotel is a surprise sleeper, offering apartment-sized guest rooms in the heart of town, until the new Four Seasons opened, nothing was true luxury.

The hotel didn’t just blow away the competition, it decimated it. The doors opened in August of 2019, but thanks to Covid we still consider it new. The hotel occupies the top dozen floors of what is now the tallest building in the city. From the ground floor, a glass elevator ascends more than one floor per second to deliver you to the sixtieth-floor lobby. There’s nothing to obstruct your view except the occasional cloud. It’s the only Forbes Travel Guide five-star hotel and spa in Philadelphia and the flagship property for all Four Seasons urban hotels in the U.S. That’s right, it’s so good it beat other Four Seasons.

The JG SkyHigh bar and restaurant are open to the public. The bar offers views you’d normally have to board a helicopter to take in. Descend

the stairs between the flanking waterfall walls to the Jean-Georges restaurant, which is currently only serving a prixe-fixe dinner three nights a week. Though Michelin has historically overlooked Philly, we hear from a good source they are sniffing around the restaurant perched on the fifty-ninth floor.

The spa on the fifty-seventh floor offers seven treatment rooms (each with their own crystals) and a spa menu with crystal-infused massages and amazing facials. If you feel calm just exiting the elevator, chalk it up to the 700 pounds of crystals embedded in the walls. Not sure if it was the QMS products, the crystals or aesthetician Jenny, but I looked fifteen years old when I left.

caption

by nothing but glass and sky. You don't need to be a spa guest, but you do need to be a hotel guest to take a float. Hot tip: Order a boxed lunch delivered to your chaise lounge and use the hotel’s lightning-fast Wi-Fi to “work.”

The real showstopper is the fever dream of a pool attached to the spa. The pool’s infinity edge spills seamlessly into the atmosphere and is surrounded

No guest room is lower than the forty-eighth floor, which is just shy of a mile in the air. A select number of rooms offer deepsoaking tubs, complete with neck rests. If unwinding in the tub and taking in the view through the floor-to-ceiling windows is on your wish list (which we think it should be), be sure to request one of these coveted accommodations.

above left: The Four Seasons' lobby on the sixtieth floor features floral designs by in-house celebrity florist Jeff Leatham. above right: Few spas boast these views. bottom left: JG SkyHigh restaurant

do HOLIDAY TRADITIONS

10 FUN, FESTIVE AND FAN-FAVORITE ACTIVITIES AND EVENTS

No need to take Metro-North into the city to get into the holiday spirit. Stamford has become its very own North Pole in recent years. It has its own miniRockefeller Christmas Tree Lighting, a holiday parade, Santa sightings, holiday boutiques and even Yankees GM rappelling down one of the most iconic buildings in the city. It wouldn’t be a complete holiday season without all of them. Read on for a few tried-and-true holiday traditions to enjoy with your loved ones this season.

by joey macari

above: Each year, Santa rappels down the Stamford Landmark building in Stamford Downtown's Heights & Lights event

No. 1

The Holiday Stroll

Nov. 18–Dec. 26

Stamford’s newest holiday happening, the Holiday Stroll (theholidaystroll.com), is back for a second year. Located at Mill River Park, the Holiday Stroll is a lights spectacle and holiday-themed walk-through near downtown. With larger-than-life displays, an eye-catching thirty-foot Christmas tree, a Christmas Village with Santa and Mrs. Claus, carolers, Half Full Winter Beer Garden (for ages twenty-one and older) and vendors with delectable snacks, hot cocoa and more, it is like walking through a Hallmark movie. Tickets for select dates can be purchased online and at the gate.

No.

2

Stamford Downtown Parade Spectacular

Nov. 20

Like our friends at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the holiday season really kicks off with the appearance of the big man himself, Santa Claus, at the Stamford Downtown Parade Spectacular (stamford-downtown .com). Celebrating its twentyninth year, the parade brings in approximately 100,000 spectators downtown to enjoy a showcase of giant-helium balloons, including Bob the Builder and Mr. Potato Head, as well as marching bands, eye-catching floats, dance troupes and more. Don’t miss the Balloon

Inflation party on the eve of the event, November 19, 3–6 p.m.

No. 3 Designs by Lee Holiday Market, Kids

Craft and Photos with Santa

Nov. 27–Dec.. 18

for its Holiday Market. Families browsing for Christmas trees can enjoy free photos with Santa, crafts for kids each week and local vendors. They also encourage visitors to pay-it-forward through donations to food banks and unwrapped toys for Toys for Tots.

No.

4

Heights & Lights

Dec. 4

We all know Santa is comfortable with heights, but once a year he makes a grand and very public entrance. The Stamford Downtown’s annual Heights & Lights (stamford-downtown.com) event is a crowd-pleasing night that features Santa and friends descending down twenty-two stories of the Landmark building, ziplining across to the Ferguson Library and ending with a bang—literally, with a fireworks display. Following the stunt show, spectators are invited to join Santa down at Lantham Park for an evening of holiday music and the lighting of the holiday tree. Cheers, too, because it’s free!

No. 5

Tucked away in North Stamford, Designs By Lee (designsbylee.com), a family-owned garden center, becomes an outpost of Santa’s workshop every season. Boasting gorgeous, premium Christmas trees and festive greenery, a charming general store and other landscaping needs, the nursery also gets the community together every Sunday, starting in November

Holiday Fair at the Stamford Museum & Nature Center

Dec. 8

Looking for unique gifts? Head to the Stamford Museum & Nature Center (stamfordmuseum .org) for its annual Holiday Fair, which runs concurrently with the opening reception of its holiday

above: Bob the Builder cheers up the day at the annual Stamford Downtown Parade Spectacular

exhibition: “Sophy Regensburg: A Retrospective.” This is an opportunity to purchase gifts from artisan vendors— shop candles, skin and bath products, jewelry, ceramics, fine art photography, decorative woodworks and more to complete your gift list in a snap.

No. 6

The Nutcracker at The Palace

Dec. 17–18

No. 7 Chabad of Stamford’s Chanukah Menorah Lighting

Dec. 18

For those with visions of sugarplums dancing in their head during the holidays, we have just the time-honored and beloved annual event—a visit to the ballet. The Palace Theatre’s (palacestamford.org) annual performance of The Nutcracker returns to the stage this month. Watch as professional dancers from the Connecticut Ballet and guest stars from the American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet dance to this classic and magical Tchaikovsky piece. Visit website for tickets to select dates and times.

Celebrate the festival of lights in a big way at Chabad of Stamford’s Giant Menorah Lighting event at Lantham Park. The largest menorah of its kind in Fairfield County, this tradition brings together members of the Jewish community, dignitaries, community leaders and Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons for an evening of celebration. The event includes cups of hot apple cider, fresh latkes and gelt, as well as traditional chocolate coins for the young ones. Don’t forget to check out Chabad’s Menorah Car Parade on December 24, which culminates with the lighting of the menorah.

All Season Long

No. 8

Holiday Lights

There are plenty of opportunities all season long to get your holiday lighting fix around the city—from Stamford Downtown’s Holiday Lights program, with more than eighty trees glowing with lights, to residential drive-bys down Newfield Avenue, Sanford Lane, Turner Road, Interlaken Road and more. Be dazzled by all sorts of displays, including those that synchronize lights with music.

No. 9 Santa Sightings

Santa is booked and busy this season, but Stamford makes it easy to catch him off-hours. Take a break from shopping and head to Stamford Town Center’s massive holiday display to take a picture with Santa and Mrs. Claus. Visit the Italian Center Stamford for brunch, which includes a hot breakfast buffet, photo-ops with Santa and Mrs. Claus, cookie decorating and games and prizes for the little ones. Keep your eyes out for other opportunities throughout the month.

No. 10

Ice-skating

The Steven & Alexandra Cohen Skating Center (millriverpark.org) down at Mill River Park makes for the wonderful winter way to spend the day with the whole family. The outdoor rink is large and welcomes all abilities, including beginners. Tickets for recreational skating are available online; $10 for adults, $8 for children under twelve, and if you need to rent skates, the cost is $4 per pair. The rink officially opens after Thanksgiving and runs through the winter months.

PHOTOGRAPHS: CONNECTICUT BALLET BY THOMAS GIROIR; SKATING, CONTRIBUTED; SANTA © LJUPCO SMOKOVSKISTOCK.ADOBE.COM; SKATERS © FRANZ12STOCK.ADOBE.COM

above: The Nutcracker transforms the stage at The Palace

Let’s Talk Money

Hoffman Goes All In (She Writes Press), published this past August.

In it, a recent college grad drifts into the financial world where she is both seduced and repulsed. “Her way to deal with the sexism, anti-Semitism, racism, is to become one of the boys. Young women today will probably find that actually appalling. Yes, things have changed, but I just don’t think that a memo from HR is going to change 5,000 years of human behavior. It’s still out there. Hopefully, this book starts a dialogue,” says Schneider.

Schneider also hopes to educate women about money, their money. “The reality is that women really need to take as good care of their financial health as they do their physical health. I think one of the reasons why they don't do that is that it’s a whole language that they are not familiar with. I thought if I could expose women more to the language in a fun way, that maybe they would feel a little bit more interested in, a little bit more comfortable with, taking care of their own financial well-being,” she says. She continues the discussion through an Instagram account called @moneylikeuhmother.

They always tell you to write what you know, and what DIANE COHEN SCHNEIDER knows is the ins and outs of finance. With a B.A. in economics and an M.B.A. in finance, she spent the 1980s in Chicago in the middle of the then wild, wild world of the stock market where anything went, and it usually did. How did this nice girl end up in the lion’s den? She answered a job ad on a whim and was sucked into

the world of Institutional Equity Sales as a salesperson. “I honestly think that how people make and spend money is the lens through which I view the world. It tells me everything I need to know to understand them,” says Schneider, who lived in Stamford from 1990 through 2021. She and her husband, Rich, have recently “repotted” themselves in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

She brings readers into this morally dubious world in her new novel, Andrea

Now that the book is out there, the most surprising thing that’s happen is Schneider is hearing from various women named Andrea Hoffman. Who knew it was such a popular name? “It really tickles me, so I send them each a present when they contact me,” she says.

In September, Schneider gave a reading of the novel at the Harry Bennett branch of the Ferguson Library, site of her intensive research on the art of the novel. If you missed that, you can Zoom another reading on November 1, 8 p.m., at collectedworksbookstore.com. It will also be archived for later viewing.

FORMER STAMFORD RESIDENT TAKES ON THE WILD 1980S FINANCIAL WORLD IN HER NEW NOVEL by beth levine

above: Diane Cohen Schneider uses her background in finance to fuel her fiction writing.

HEART OF THE MATTER

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT CARDIAC HEALTH AND YOUR KIDS

by liz barron

Constant exposure to media and the internet these days allows us access to a wealth of medical information that exceeds far beyond what was once available to the average person. However, more isn’t always better, particularly when we’re faced with an influx of scary information that we don’t truly understand. Between stories of long Covid–related heart problems in children, hearing about teenagers collapsing on sports fields and conflicting information regarding vaccine safety, it’s no wonder many of us feel confused.

We turned to expert doctors and assistant professor in pediatric cardiology at Columbia, Allison Levey, M.D. and Michael Monaco, M.D., of Pediatric Cardiology in Darien to help clear up some fallacies and provide advice we can trust.

WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST TRENDING ISSUES WITH PEDIATRIC HEART HEALTH

THESE

DAYS?

“The long-term cardiac manifestations of Covid and vaccine-related concerns—specifically myocarditis—are definitely at the top of people’s lists. With that said, vaccine-related myocarditis is extremely rare; and the risk of having a cardiac issue from the virus itself, while also uncommon with the current strains, is significantly higher. We have also seen an increasing number of young patients post-Covid with complaints about endurance issues, slow returns to play for sports and faster than normal heart rates,” says Dr. Levey.

“Reassuring parents that myocarditis is extremely rare continues to be a frequent conversation. In doing so, we are trying to emphasize that part of the reason that myocarditis from Covid seemed so daunting was because so many people got sick at once, not because it was actually becoming more prevalent. In fact, myocarditis from the flu is far more common. But with the flu we have never seen as many people sick all at the same time the way we did with Covid. The rare evidence of myocarditis that was found related to the vaccine was mostly documented in young adult males. In our area, we do not know of a single case documented in children under twelve. And while still a very uncommon issue, the good news is that studies have shown that even those who did develop myocarditis from the vaccine have all recovered,” says Dr. Monaco.

HOW COMMON

ARE PEDIATRIC HEART

ISSUES? “Real congenital cardiac issues, where the heart forms abnormally, occur in roughly one percent of the population,” says Dr. Levey. “The vast majority of things that are found in utero that we end up monitoring will correct on their own,” says Dr. Monaco. “Other issues that bring patients in, like chest pain, are incredibly common, but chest pain from actual heart problems are incredibly uncommon,” says Dr. Levey.

HOW ARE THESE ISSUES GENERALLY

DIAGNOSED? “The most severe issues are usually diagnosed during routine prenatal care and by prenatal ultrasound. The vast majority of congenital heart disease is picked up in utero, and some cases will require treatment or surgical intervention. Issues like heart murmurs and low oxygen levels are generally found during routine care in the well-baby nursery and routine pediatric visits after a baby is born,” says Dr. Monaco.

“One of the most important tools when assessing our pediatric patients is taking a family history, as well as getting an understanding of specific symptoms. Physical exams help us to check for any abnormal sounds or rhythms. In-office diagnostics like electrocardiograms—

EKGs and echocardiograms—allow us to monitor heart rhythms and look at the structure of the heart,” says Dr. Levey.

AS A PARENT, OTHER THAN KEEPING UP WITH WELL-CHILD APPOINTMENTS, WHAT CAN WE DO TO KEEP OUR KIDS’ HEARTS HEALTHY? Both doctors agree that focusing on exercise and modeling a balanced diet and healthy nutritional habits early on are the core components of setting our children up for optimal heart health.

ARE THERE ANY RED FLAGS FOR PARENTS THAT COULD INDICATE THAT THEIR CHILD’S HEART MIGHT NEED TO BE CHECKED OUT BY A DOCTOR? “Your child’s pediatrician for a general evaluation is always a good place to start. Exertional symptoms are always a concern to us. Chest pain, fainting, palpitations—especially with exertion, shortness of breath and a change in endurance are all things that we would want to see a patient for,” says Dr. Levey.

“In babies, trouble feeding can sometimes signal an issue. Because eating is the only exercise that they get, it’s something to pay

attention to, especially if they are sweating or having trouble breathing while feeding,” says Dr. Monaco.

WHAT’S A NORMAL

HEART RATE FOR

CHILDREN, AND HOW DOES IT CHANGE WITH AGE? Heart rate varies by age, and as children get older, it decreases. A typical school-aged child will have a heart rate of around sixty to 100, with peak exertion being 220 minus the child’s age.

ARE THERE CHILDREN WHO COULD BENEFIT FROM A CARDIOLOGY SCREENING BASED ON HEALTH HISTORY?

“The first line of defense is to be sure to tell your child’s pediatrician about any family history of cardiac events or heart disease,” says Dr. Levey. “Additionally, any new or worsening symptoms that come on with exercise and exertion shouldn’t be ignored. When we hear about these situations where young athletes have died suddenly during sports and look back at the cases, quite often the children had made complaints about symptoms long before the actual event occurred,” says Dr. Monaco.

Bite Sized

A NEW VIRTUAL PLATFORM elevates dining experiences for visitors and restaurants alike

If picking a place to dine or fear of order envy gives you anxiety, help is at hand.

GrubTok is a new platform for foodies and restaurants that plans to make its mark with both sides of the dining equation working in tandem. The company was created by Nitesh Pundra, a self-proclaimed food lover who ran two restaurants in Stamford over the past several years and enjoys going out to eat almost as much as running dining establishments.

“As someone who has seen it all as a restaurant owner and diner, I wanted to develop an interactive experience that benefits both consumer and business owner,” Pundra says. GrubTok will be the means by which restaurants can showcase their favorite dishes, daily specials and anything else they want customers to know about, while diners can scan or search their favorite restaurants, browse

video menus, discover details about a dish’s preparation or post their own photos and videos about meals, offering great feedback and advertising for the places that feed them

Pundra has been working in the tech industry since 2005, so a combo of food and an online experience was an obvious next step for him after selling his last restaurant. “Restaurant owners are so busy with daily logistics that they’re often overwhelmed with the online aspect of marketing, or they simply may not have time to deal,” he explains. Influencer marketing is a popular way to promote dining destinations, and GrubTok also helps diners make informed decisions about not only where to go, but also what to eat when they arrive, so it’s win-win. Gone are the days where someone relies on a suggestion from a waiter or ogles the next table’s order; now GrubTok’s treasure trove of info

by malia mckinnon frame

left and center: Scenes from an influencer event at Kumo restaurant right: GrubTok video menu launch event at Hinoki Greenwich

above: Fun and spirited content creation at a local restaurant

kunjancollective.com kunjancollective.com

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Interesting Facts About Westy…

All 14 Westy Self Storage Centers are located in the suburbs of New York City. However, Westy has customers living in 46 states and 16 foreign countries. is is testimony of the peace of mind Westy gives to their customers.

comes from videos and recommendations from the chefs themselves (“This shrimp bisque is my favorite soup to make”) as well as unbiased content creators (“This cocktail is served in a sneaker—such a vibe!”).

Excited by the versatility and dual purpose of GrubTok, Pundra explains that he designed this virtual space “for foodies and restaurants first and foremost,” adding that basic use of the app is free for both parties, though businesses have an option to pay a fee if GrubTok creates exclusive content for them. Registered diners will also have access to a rewards system, where they can accrue points, a.k.a. “donuts,” as well as perks like a free cocktail if they post about their favorite meal. Local food influencers will be invited to exclusive dining events and get to sample many of the meals they’ll be dishing about. For those who want to take it one step further, GrubTok is launching the world’s first NFT (non-fungible token) Restaurant Experience Club by region, where membership is purchased as an NFT to gain access to exclusive events, chef-curated tastings and unique VIP experiences.

Perhaps the best feature is a vibrant community area where users can ask questions such as, “What’s the best Japanese restaurant in Westport?” or “Where can I find the best penne a la vodka?” Responders will be incentivized to answer in real time by receiving points, recognizing that hungry visitors may be basing their next meal on virtual answers. Still in its infancy, GrubTok plans to include more than 1,000 restaurants in Fairfield County, followed by Westchester County, then N.Y.C. Pundra reflects, “Living in Fairfield County gives us access to so many incredible restaurants, and the proximity to New York City provides us with the best landscape to launch this app and build awareness for our platform. We are so excited to see how this new tool positively impacts both the restaurant industry and foodie community.”

top: Bloggers meet up to cover a local food event below: GrubTok creator curating chef favorites from the menu

top and below: New menu videoshoot at Billy & Pete's above: New ice cream spot launch event held in Stamford

“As someone who has seen it all as a restaurant owner and diner, I wanted to develop an interactive experience that benefits both consumer and business owner.”

NITESH PUNDRA

people&PLACES

Big Bite

Set the stage, and they will come—and get the crowd going. The Hey Stamford! Food Festival featured music, food, star power and fun. Celebrity Chef Todd English (who’s opening an 80,000-square-foot food hall in the Stamford Town Center Mall in 2024) hosted a culinary demonstration.

Chef Aaron May recreated his famous Hermosillo Hot Dog: bacon, pico, refried beans, onions, jalapeño sauce, mustard, mayo, cilantro. Jersey Shore Family Vacation castmates Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino and Vinny Guadagnino were also on hand. With more than 80 million records sold worldwide, rapper Flo Rida owned the stage, and the “I Love the 90’s” tour, which includes Vanilla Ice, All4One, Rob Base & Young MC, performed hits of the decade. WWE Smackdown Women’s Champion Liv Morgan and Happy Corbin were on hand to support The V Foundation and raise funds for Connor’s Cure (in honor of Connor Michalek, who lost his battle with medulloblastoma). See more at heystamford.com. »

Pau’s Pizza Cones 7 Happy Corbin, Todd English, Liv Morgan 8 Kaitlyn and Sal Borea

HEY STAMFORD! / Food Festival at Mill River Park

Education Foundation

hildren’s Learning Centers of Fairfield County (CLC) recently celebrated 120 years of service to the community by hosting its annual gala. Singer and actress Vanessa Williams hosted a lovely evening and raised more than $500,000 at Serafina at the Italian Center of Stamford. Ms. Williams wowed the crowd with a medley of her classic hits and Broadway standards in an intimate setting, recalling the days of New York City nightclubs. U.S. Congresswoman Jahana Hayes introduced her colleague, U.S. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, who received the 2022 CLC Champion of Children Award for her unwavering and longtime dedication to children. See more at clcfc.org. –Ali Gray

CHILDREN’S LEARNING CENTERS / An Intimate Evening with Vanessa Williams

1 (seated) Alan and Carol Krim, Veronica and Jerry Silber (standing) Harry Day, Carly and Peter Poser, Marsha Shendell, Stephen and Kerrin Behrend 2 Vanessa Williams takes the stage 3 Evelyn Cueva, Michael Varnos 4 Ceci Maher, Stephanie Thomas, Martha Sud, Rachel Khanna 5 Jahana Hayes, Vanessa Williams, U.S. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro

6 DJ April Larkin 7 Marc Jaffe, Vanessa Williams, Corey Paris 8 Trevor Crow, Janet Stone McGuigan, Versha Munshi-South 9 Tracy Friedman, Caroline Graves, Marilyn Roos

10 Miriam Matos, Antonia Better-Wirz, Mark and Jennifer Lapina, Sharon Jerry-Collins, Dennis Collins

1

6

1 Harry Day, president of the Board of Directors; Melissa Mulrooney, CEO; Kirsten Newkirk and Michael DeWalt 2 Liz Sabia, Capital Campaign and executive office administrator; Brian O’Toole, visitor services manager; Karen Meizels, director of external affairs; Gigi Lombardi, community relations; Cheryl Wehmhoff; Maria Errico, visitor services coordinator 3 Julie Fraser, Jessica Handley, Susan Ylitalo, Julie Dentel, Lisa Dianis, Lisa Strizver 4 Ellen Krinick-Porto; board member, Lynne Colatrella, board member; Felicia Putter; Jason Putter, board member; Matthew Crawford; Yulijia Crawford 5 Lisa and Paul Welch 6 Harry Day, Melissa Mulrooney and Marsha Shendell 7 Music by Mark Z and Steve Bowfinger 8 Matt and Yvonne Delvaux; Maeve Lawler, SM&NC curator; Katharina and Bryan Gardner 9 The SM&NC plaza

andlubbers prove, once and for all, that they, too, love the sea. At the recent annual fundraising supper, the Knobloch Family Farmhouse Lobster & Clam Bake, guests dined on a traditional New England seafood bake. The event was held under the stars at the Stamford Museum & Nature Center, with firepits to keep guest toasty warm and live music to entertain them. By attending the event, the nearly 100 attendees supported the educational programming and operations of the organization. That the delicious food, friendly crowd and fun festivities were all so enjoyable were perks. See more at stamfordmuseum.org.

STAMFORD MUSEUM & NATURE CENTER / Knobloch Family Farmhouse Lobster & Clam Bake

DATE! IT’S A

When you think date night, you might visualize the quiet finesse of a white tablecloth, a flickering candle beside a shared plate and glancing looks in between the get-to-know-you’s. Whether you’re on the first of many or a celebratory occasion, you will find that Stamford is full of restaurants that capture the perfect romantic vibe

To take the stress out of choosing the dinner spot, we’re highlighting a few romantic places that inspire that table-for-two feeling as well as a sample of low-key spots if you want to take things a little slower.

top:

Çka ka Qëllu Ç

ka ka Qëllu (ckakaqelluct .com)—pronounced “SHA ka chell-OO”—is bringing a taste of Albania and Kosovo to the Stamford food scene. It quietly opened in late 2021. Stamford’s locals have resounded in favor of its addition to the city’s eclectic culinary roster. Its meaning, though incomparable to original sentiment spoken in founder Ramiz Kukaj’s native country of Albania, generally translates to an old proverb meaning, “Come in for heart, for salt and bread and whatever we have.” Sounds like an ideal low-key date-night setting.

“Cka Ka Qellu’s dim lighting and unique and beautiful decor offer a perfect combination for date night,” Kukaj shares with us. “While the dim lighting is perfect for a romantic dinner date, the unique cultural and historical artifacts found throughout are great conversation starters. Although the restaurant is a large size, the ambiance provides a cozy feel.”

Kukaj opened the first Çka ka Qëllu in the Bronx after hearing his son’s dismay that there were no authentic Albanian restaurants to show off to his friends. He then opened a second location is the Murray Hill area of New York City— giving taste- and heritage-seekers a oneof-a-kind dining experience in one of the world’s major food cities. The recent leap to Stamford, according to Kukaj, was a no-brainer. Stamford happens to have a thriving Albanian community.

In order to be authentically yourself on a first date, the setting has to be equally authentic—and Çka ka Qëllu is. The restaurant is set back among the mid-century buildings on Clark Street. The neutral stone, hanging ivy and flora and white-painted exterior give off a

just-returned-from-a-Euro-getaway vibe, which sets the scene for carefree romance. The interior is designed with hanging candelabras, exposed beams and homestead seating, and stunning eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Albanian artifacts fill the space. The thoughtful details, from the clay dishes (tava) to its waitstaff dressed in traditional Albanian attire, provide a two-for-one experience—part dinner abroad, part immersive museum.

History also lives on in the recipes, which are passed down from generation to generation. Most of the ingredients used in the dishes are imported from Albania and/or made the same way they have been for centuries. Whether or not you’re familiar with the cuisine doesn’t matter—each dish is recognizably made with fresh meat, fish, cheese and spices— the star of each plate.

If you can’t decide between the Sarma or the Qebapa, Kukaj outlines the perfect course selection for a special occasion: “To start, we recommend traditional options like mantia [veal- or cheesefilled, Albanian-style dumplings] and pepper and sausage dips that go great with our fresh made samuna [bread].

“For your entree, one of our baked clay dishes, tave kosi [lamb and rice baked in a clay dish with yogurt] and a mixed-grill platter. To round-out this delicious feast, you can’t skip on the trilece [Albanian version of tres leches] or traditional baklava—the perfect sweet date night desserts.” As for what to toast with, Kukaj says, “You can never go wrong with a glass of wine on date night.”

When visiting Çka ka Qëllu, you are embracing Albanian tradition and it sets the right tone for a get-together, whether just friends or something more. Kukaj says, “Stamford has so much to offer in terms of culture and dining. It has all that a couple looking to explore new cuisines would enjoy diving into.”

above: Delicious zucchini salad with rich Parmesan cheese right: Dine alongside the wall of fame, filled with photos of wellknown chefs and personalities

PHOTOGRAPHY: LULI BURKE PHOTOGRAPHY

far left: The dramatic lighting sets the mood left: Perfect scallops in a spoon-worthy reduction below: Husband and wife co-owners John and Morgan Nealon, established restaurateurs in Stamford

Cugine’s Italian M

aybe you’re a classic, cool and confident romantic? Maybe even a taste for a touch of dramatic moments?

If you enjoy old-school gestures, such as a single red rose, pulling out her chair, Sinatra serenading in the background, then do we have the place for you. Inspired by classic New York City Italian restaurants, Stamford restaurateurs John and Morgan Nealon, of Taco Daddy and the former Lila Rose, have created a nostalgic yet timeless dining experience wellsuited for date night: Cugine’s Italian (Instagram @cuginesitalian).

Cugine's Italian

above: Setting the mood with a regal chandelier

“As a fairly new restaurant, we’re constantly tweaking our offerings to provide new ways to celebrate you,” John Nealon shares with us. “Our warm, dimly lit space provides the perfect setting for date night, anniversaries or just celebrating the end of a week with your partner. The music selection and friendly hospitality provides for an unmatched vibe to enjoy with those closest to you.”

Their newest food enterprise on Towne Street is styled after an earlytwentieth-century speakeasy, with personal touches and trendsetting food and drink creations that the Nealons have been known for throughout Stamford. The dark-greenand-gold tablescapes and antique crystal chandeliers create a soft silhouette against the black-and-white iconography of culinary and classic Hollywood stars. The sentimental charm feels like high society, without sacrificing friendly comfort.

The food and drink menu features signature Italian pastas, as well as meat and fish entrees, craft pizzas,

A NEW ITALIAN RESTAURANT THAT CHARMS WITH THAT OLD HOLLYWOOD "IN CROWD" CLUB VIBE

shared dishes and delectable desserts. Executive chef and co-owner Rick O’Connor, brings his knowledge of familiar Italian favorites and elevates each dish according to what’s fresh in season. The menu is complemented further by Morgan Nealon’s inspired beverage program, which pays homage to the classics, while also nodding to iconic people and places of old: The Savoy, Page Six, Jimmy Weston’s, etc. Wine is served by the glass or the bottle, and each selection is uniquely suited to fit the theme.

“To us, curating your perfect date night would look something like this,” offers up John Nealon. “Meatballs, mussels and the zucchini salad to start, paired with a couple of martinis—our favorite is the Jimmy Weston’s, our play on a dirty martini—followed by our Spaghetti Boia and Capellini al Limone as your primi, to a third course of our Chicken Tagliatia to share with a glass or two of our Murietta Bordeaux blend. Finish it off with our housemade tiramisu and a couple glasses of Limoncello or Amaro and you’ve nailed date night!”

Good news for the many residents who remember Stamford as a town versus a city as well as for the new professionals bursting onto the scene—Cugine’s is a place where everyone can indulge in the dining experience. “Our restaurant offers a unique setting that harkens to a time an older community will appreciate while keeping our takes on food and drink exciting for a younger demographic to enjoy,” says John. “Whether it be younger people still in the dating scene, individuals treating themselves to a night out or older couples celebrating thirty-plus years together, our goal is for anyone of any age to feel incredibly comfortable in our space and we look forward to accommodating every single person we’re lucky enough to have walk through our doors.”

The Wheel

In 2020, when The Village broke ground, its restaurant was envisioned to be the beating heart of the hub’s many and diverse commercial enterprises. The result, The Wheel (thevillagewheel .com), became emblematic of the project’s vision for a cutting-edge, culinary scene—one pioneering the way toward an imaginative and collaborative experience in the reimagined South End of Stamford.

If you’re ready to win over your date, spend time at The Village and be sure to settle in for a bite at The Wheel. The restaurant has a topdown approach when crafting its experience—from its scene-setting high-industrial decor that captures your attention the moment you walk in, to its creative and expertly made drinks, to its beautiful and delicious desserts. Each moment is sure to make a good impression.

“The Wheel’s waterfront location provides the perfect setting for a romantic night together during the holiday season,” says Chef Grant Kells. “Warm up over specialty cocktails and our seasonal food menu on a cold winter’s night.”

At the helm, The Village founder Brent Montgomery and restaurateur Tom Dillion of APICII, delivered on their promise of a community dining experience—complete with a rooftop garden to source its seasonal cuisine, waterfront patio, celebritychef programs and high-end event space for its own programs and private celebrations.

The Wheel’s menu features fresh ingredients from more than forty local farmers, fishermen and purveyors in the area. Further, its elevated beverage program, developed by Kyle Tran, corporate beverage director, APICII, delivers masterfully created

right: Lioni burrata, hearthroasted asparagus, mushroom sauté and seasonal chopped salad below: Bourbon cider is a must-try cocktail for the season

PHOTOGRAPHY: JESSICA SORENTINO

The Wheel

above: Triple chocolate cake is as rich and satisfying as it is beautiful left: A section of the large dining room with a fresh, urban-chic style

cocktails made with fresh-squeezed juice, housemade syrup and infused liquors mixed to perfection—as well as craft beers from Cisco Brewery and a world-inspired wine list.

The variety and thoughtful nuances and impeccable quality of each menu option at The Wheel are doing its part to make sure that your date night will go smoothly.

“We think it’s fun to order a bunch of plates to share with your sweetheart on a date night,” says Chef Kells. “We suggest our whipped eggplant dip, margherita pizza, rigatoni bolognese and Mediterranean branzino.”

The centerpiece of The Wheel’s open-kitchen design scheme is its immense hearth oven that fires up an array of dishes, including impressive Neapolitan pizzas. Plus, the industrialchic design elements, from pendant lightbulb chandeliers dangling from the ceiling to the conversation-starting art hanging on the walls, spice things up. “Our lighting sets the mood for a romantic evening,” says Chef Kells, “but the space also has a fun vibe to it with a great bar and live music many nights, which makes it feel like a datenight spot you want to return to time and time again.”

You might want to return for brunch. The Wheel has one of the best brunch spots in the city. Build-yourown mimosas and bellinis with mixer options like white peach and blood orange juice, to the more elevated Barrow’s Intense Ginger liquor, are a fun and boozy addition to a date. Then settle into something baked in the hearth, like the Baked Eggs Fra Diavolo—a shakshuka-style dish with spicy tomato, Swiss chard and goat cheese paired with perfectly grilled sourdough that makes for the best scooped bite. For a taste of something sweet to share, the baked French toast with a berry compote and Chantilly cream is just the thing.

WATERFRONT DINING WITH HEART TO MAKE A GREAT IMPRESSION

AND HEARTH THAT NEVER FAILS

left: Glazed tuna left: A charcuterie and cheese board make a wonderful shared appetizer below: No matter what you choose for dinner and dessert, there's a bottle of wine to enhance the dining experience.

Table 104 Osteria-Bar

THE TASTES OF ITALY WITH

above: Chitarra pasta with plum tomato and mozzarell di Büfala paired with chickpea bruschetta and topped with white bean purée and shaved brocolli rabe right: The 104 Burger is a local favorite far right: Table 104's cozy interior

far

PHOTOGRAPHS BY KYLE NORTON

Table 104 Osteria-Bar

Stamford has long since had a reputation for its sweeping, Italian cuisine. Its cookedfrom-the-heart cuisine and relaxed-yet-sophisticated ambiance serves as the perfect backdrop for amoré make Table 104 (table104stamford.com) a must-have on this list. Opened in 2014, a labor of love by restaurateurs Walter Cappelli and Divina partner Domenico Iovieno, it has been a staple in the Stamford community for those looking to sample authentic Tuscan cuisine without the exchange of airfare. This spot attracts couples looking for a social atmosphere, sleek interior complete with dark-wood furnishings, low-strung lighting and brick facade, wood-fired oven in full view of the entryway and Italian comfort food that is simple yet inspired.

“Stamford’s availability with many great different spots makes it a go-to visit to dine, drink or just hang out,” Cappelli says. “The holiday season just brings a better vibe and sense of relaxation to everyone. We make sure that your date night will be one to remember—for the food as well as for the ambiance, featuring soft lighting with Edison light bulbs and warm reclaimed wood throughout and the impeccable service.”

As for what to order, Cappelli suggests an ideal meal: “For the perfect date night, you have to start with the tuna tartare. Next, fettuccine with mixed seafood. Then end the night with a chocolate souffle to share and our signature espresso martini.”

Bonus advice: Don’t skip the wine. Table 104’s extensive, carefully curated wine list and seasonal cocktails make a good impression. The rotating wine list boasts more than fifty selections, ranging from Italian varietals, French favorites and even homegrown options.

KEEP IT CASUAL

We understand some folks might be intimidated by the idea of a romantic dinner—or they’re simply trying to shake things up with low-stake eats close to home. Here are four spots that balance being casual with being cool. They work as a place to go if you’re not sure you’ll stay until closing or end up calling it an early evening and catch House of Dragon at 9 p.m. (valid reason).

bartaco

The holidays can be a magical time for romance, but it can also be chilly. When you’re in the mood for a little escapism to a beachy, light-filled taqueria, book it over to bartaco (bartaco.com). The surf’s up (on the art decor at least) and the selection of tacos and coastal cuisine never misses. The relaxed vibe at bartaco on energetic Summer Street comes with a stress-free menu of, say, a simple margarita toast, tasty shared tacos, street-style Mexican corn and a lively, social atmosphere to escape the everyday. 222 Summer St.

Colony

If your date is an out-oftowner, why not show him/ her one of the quintessential Stamford eats, Colony Grill (colonygrill.com)? Colony’s iconic bar pie pizza is a must for anyone passing through this amazing food city. Order a signature “hot oil,” grab a pitcher or a couple of glasses of cold beer and cozy up in the old-school bar seats and benches surrounded by vintage photos of Stamford. 172 Myrtle Ave.

Mecha Noodle Bar

Asian-American cuisine in Stamford has taken off since Mecha Noodle Bar

(mechanoodlebar.com) arrived on Bedford Street in 2019. Translating to “mom and pop” in Vietnamese, the restaurant offers a laidback, kick-back and get-cozy ambiance. Serving Asian street-style comfort foods like Pho, ramen and bao buns, Mecha is a spot for a fun-dining experience. It also boasts a stellar beverage program, offering spiked boba tea, signature cocktails and even a bringyour-own-bottle option for a corkage fee of $15/750ml bottle. 151 Bedford St.

Quartiere

Opened in just 2021 and Quarterie (thequartiere.com) has already cemented itself as a “neighborhood” (Italian translation) haunt, offering affordable and “elevated casual” cuisine for its loyal customer base. Its setting touches on a relaxed, Manhattan-style eatery, with time-tested Italian favorites like meatballs and whipped ricotta, artisanstyle pizzas and meat and fish entrées—any of which should win over your partner. They even make fresh pasta on-site daily; they sell it by the pound to take home (in case you prefer to plan to have a date-night in). 51 Bank St.

Next time you’re out and about, look up. You just might see one of the exceptional murals when picking up your Fridaynight pizza or parking the car before heading into an event. Some have been around for years, others are brand new. In our jaded era, it can be hard to believe that these impressive, well-done pieces are not only hand painted, but also created by accomplished artists. Read on to appreciate what’s right before our eyes: a world of beauty and meaning with Stamford’s cityscape as the canvas.

by diane sembrot PHOTOGRAPHS SPRAY BY STOCK.ADOBE.COM; PAINT ROLLER © R. GINO SANTA MARIASTOCK.ADOBE.COM; OPPOSITE

CONTRIBUTED BY THE ARTIST

left and right: The artist's colorful mural runs along the entire side of the Stamford Town Center, a city-block long.

Stamford Town Center Sen2 Figueroa

This year, at Stamford Town Center, artist Sen2 Figueroa (sen2figueroa .com) created one of the largest mural projects in the state.

He has completed murals around the world and participated in numerous mural festivals. For example, in 2018, as part of the fiftieth anniversary of the U.S. Open, he was commissioned to work on eight tennis courts. While known for his graffiti work in New York, he was part of Tats Cru, a well-known graffiti crew. With them, he created art for music videos by such artists as Jennifer Lopez, Nas and Missy Elliot. He’s a big deal, and so was his Stamford project.

He was asked to envision a way to infuse new life into the 761,000-square-foot Stamford Town Center, which opened in 1982. His vision was to make the project uplifting and to use the power of color structure and cohesion.

“Our world lately is filled with ongoing battles of emotions and turmoil,” he noted at the outset of the project. “With this work I will

try to give the audience a moment of sheer joy and pause in their daily busy lives. This massive structure will be filled with juxtaposed blocks of color, and the continuity of lines and symmetry will become a reminder that better days are always ahead, and that we must continue to move forward.”

Sen2, who grew up in Puerto Rico, has

below: Behind-thescenes look of at his mural in process.

described his style by noting that it, “creates an entertaining dialogue between color and motion. Graphic elements, bold use of colors, sharp lines and subtle blends that collide intensely amongst a variation of textures and gestural splashes of color.” He adds that all of his work has graffiti elements, which are part of his signature style.

“When you’re dealing with globally recognized talent, it really changes the game,” notes Dan Stolzenbach, general manager of the Stamford Town Center. He added that the mural would be valued for its beautiful design, and that it would send a message that the Town Center is “dramatically enhancing the way we do things here.” For example, the mall announced plans for the new Todd English Food Hall and community events.

“The mural project symbolizes a new beginning for the mall.

Stamford Town Center is deliberately repositioning its place in the community,” notes Alexander Yaraghi, business development manager for Stamford Town Center. “The mall is becoming a regional destination for worldrenowned art, unique culinary experiences and dynamic cultural events.”

Sen2 Figueroa’s mural at Stamford Town Center was finished this past summer and will elevate the everyday for years to come.

PHOTOGRAPHS: PAINT ROLLER © R. GINO SANTA MARIASTOCK.ADOBE.COM; EXTERIORS CONTRIBUTED BY THE ARTIST OPPOSITE PAGE: PAINT CAN © SALITA2010STOCK.ADOBE.COM; PAINT MARKS © BENJAMINLIONSTOCK.ADOBE.COM; PORTRAIT OF SEN2 FIGUEROA CONTRIBUTED BY THE ARTIST

right: The artist, Sen2 Figueroa, who completed the mural at shopping center —it is one of the largest murals in the state.

"Our world lately is filled with ongoing battles of emotions and turmoil...with this work I will try to give the audience a moment of sheer joy and pause in their daily busy lives."

Sen2 Figueroa

Kiwanis Park Lauren Clayton

Need pep in your step?

Check out the vibrantly colored mural at Kiwanis Park, just steps from the Palace Theatre. It boasts an energetic candy-colored marquis that reads: “Now Playing: Stamford Downtown.” It's a combination of electric pinks, blues, purples and pops of yellow that capture the rush of anticipation one feels moments before a show begins.

Applause to artist Lauren Clayton. The founder of Studio 162 (studio162.com), a Stamfordlocated boutique art and graphic design company, did the work (commissioned by Stamford Downtown Special Services District) this past June. “I was inspired to create an iconic, bold, colorful mural that would shine a spotlight on my city,” she says. “Stamford is fortunate to have so many movie and performance theaters in just a few square blocks of Kiwanis Park, including The Majestic, Landmark, Rich Forum and Palace Theatre. Together with Stamford’s DSSD, I was encouraged to explore this idea. Creating a mural that spoke to these elements of the neighborhood felt right. I wanted the mural to contrast beautifully against the brick and concrete and invite people in and through the park. As I was drawing and conceptualizing ideas, I kept thinking of the words, ‘The City

That Works Is Now Playing.’ I wanted to help shift the paradigm from ‘the city that works’ to ‘the city that plays!’ ”

That imagination is in demand. Clayton—who studied at the Cooper Union School of Art in NYC and interned for graphic designer Milton Glaser and studied under Philippe Apeloig— and her studio have done work for Greenwich Hospital, Greenwich International Film Festival, Abilis and Pediatric Cancer Foundation and largescale murals in Norwalk. In 2020 she painted Lady Liberty and Justice in the Black Lives Matter street mural (she planned it over four weeks and painted it in eight hours with fifteen other artists). The following year she did The Promised Land, a vibrant and bold mural honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. (it was painted over ten days on a building on MLK Drive). This year, she competed in Stamford Mural’s first Off-Main Experience, a mural contest and festival (her work, with five other artists, won). Clayton is earning recognition for her signature use of bold colors and cultural symbolism that speak to the community.

She says the Kiwanis project is especially meaningful because she worked on it with family and a couple of old school mates from Stamford High and Rippowan Magnet Middle School. Although given six weeks to complete the project—with Stamford-based Eastern Land Management handling the landscaping—the

above: Lauren Clayton's mural at Kiwanis Park picks up the energy of nearby arts venues. below: The artist and family: Byron, Bry and Romell

team had to work around the weather and primed, painted and sealed the work in a remarkable twenty days. “Creating public art really gives me an opportunity to connect with the community in real time,” she says. “My favorite part is working while talking with people who live and work in the neighborhood. I ran into several friends who I haven’t seen in some time. I also met new people who told me about their vision and personal history in Stamford. It was eye-opening and inspiring. Many people offered to help and brought us water. Juice Kings, Jerky’s Restaurant, and Verde Galerie brought us lunch and drinks on a few occasions. The kind words and gestures rejuvenated me on days I felt too tired to paint.” Stamford is a growing city, yet it remains neighborly.

She has run her business in Stamford for nearly twenty years and loves being an artist and muralist. “I am able to explore my creative visions and dreams on a grand scale,” she says. “I love that it gives people an opportunity to experience art outside the confines of a gallery space. I love that it can enhance and beautify uninspiring spaces. Immediately after painting a mural, the spaces become activated and newly valued! Murals open up incredible opportunities for placemaking.”

As for Now Playing, her place is Stamford: This mural is one of the first projects in DSSD’s larger Public Realm Enhancement Plan to elevate spaces throughout downtown Stamford. “I grew up in Stamford, and I am raising a family in Stamford. It feels good to be a part of these initiatives,

The Village Patrick Ganino

When the message is Dream Big, your mural, of course, must be sky high— and so it is with Patrick Ganino’s work at The Village— the indoor/outdoor premium waterfront campus ambitiously designed to serve the needs of entrepreneurs and creators in art, entertainment, tech, music, health, fitness, food, finance, digital and more. Touting 133,000 square feet with nearly 1,000 feet of walkable marina, it was founded by Brent Montgomery and his wife, and The Village developer, Courtney.

Ganino owns Creative Evolution (patrickganino.com) and has done mural work around the state. Most Stamford people will know his multistoried work here, which was revealed in July 2021. “This design was very different than what I usually create,” he says. “I reached out to Rosie O’Donnell and asked her to design a background that I could use as a starting point. From there I altered it, adding in different items representing art, music, science, literature, film, sports and photography.”

He placed Paula Zanol front and center. “Using a student from the Waterside School as the model, I added a sign that reads, ‘Dream Big.’ ” When The Village opened that same year, it welcomed a partnership with the preK-to-fifth school that provides a pathway to top independent schools regardless of family income. Philanthropic, Brent and Courtney

"Creating public art really gives me an opportunity to connect with the community in real time...

The kind words and gestures rejuvenated me on days I felt too tired to paint."

Lauren Clayton

focused on art, culture, business and more with invited speakers; have a chance to see their art on display around The Village; and pursue internships as graduates.

“Growing up around education my entire life as the son, brother and nephew of teachers, I thought I had seen it all until I met the incredible children, parents and administrators of Waterside,” Brent Montgomery notes. “It was a no-brainer to have them be in the fabric of this project as The Village is about dreaming big and then creating the platform and opportunity to turn those ideas into reality. And for this artistic idea we were fortunate to find an incredible artist in Patrick, who also dreams and draws big—really big!”

Waterside School former Executive Director Duncan Edwards concurred, saying at the

unveiling that the mural “speaks to the goodness within us all.”

Ganino, who has been painting murals for twenty-three years, concludes, “I still get as excited when I start one as I did in the beginning of my career. I love that I get to create something that evokes emotion—and if I can inspire a handful of artists to follow their dream from seeing one of my public pieces, then that’s the cherry on top. People don't realize that painting public murals on buildings is more than just the art itself. It is also an experience where you ingrain yourself into a community. I travel the country doing this work and have been in so many amazing towns and met so many amazing people. I look forward to continuing my travels and relationships through art for as long as I can.”

ROYAL PROCLAMATION

When you go to see Dream Big at The Village, head inside The Wheel Restaurant to see Queen Cow. The cow with royal attitude was created by Yedi Fresh (yedifresh.com), a self-taught illustrator, painter and digital artist who created the mural in collaboration with JAHMANE (artofjahmane.com), who combines social awareness, spirituality, mythology and abstract language in his work. They were inspired by the restaurant’s “wheel of life” motifs and commitment to sustainable, locally sourced and foraged ingredients. Fresh’s work can be found on walls nearby, and he is known for always working on something new. JAHMANE began in graffiti and works on murals, canvas, photography and screen printing and fashion, graphic and interior design. His work appears in galleries, museums, publications and urban environments.

PHOTOGRAPHS: PAINTBRUSH © GRESEISTOCK.ADOBE.COM; DREAM BIG BY DIANE SEMBROT; OTHERS, CONTRIBUTED; INTERIOR OF THE WHEEL BY INTERIOR BY MARY BLANK ; GREY PAINT BY BENJAMINLIONSTOCK.ADOBE.COM

Bronx House and Amore Sharon Leichsenring

Painting on bricks outside is a challenge. Just ask muralist Sharon Leichsenring, the founder of Leichsenring Studios (leichsenringstudios.com).

Thinking of the eye-catching work of the Bronx House Pizza business name painted on the wall outside in Glenville, and The Bertolli Girl painted on the inside, she reflects on how the project started. “In most cases, the most challenging part of a mural is getting into the head of my client and trying to figure out what they are looking for. Some clients are easier than others. In this case, the concept came very easily for both murals,” she says.

“The first thing that starts bringing a mural to life, particularly in a commercial setting, is a space that calls for artwork that will make a statement. At Bronx House, the brick wall was definitely calling for something more impactful than hanging some pictures. A mural goes beyond that and creates something that evokes emotion and adds personality. The particular inspiration for the mural we call The Bertolli Girl was

inspired by some vintage ads that co-owner Bruno DiFabio shared with me.”

Destressing is a challenge the owners and artist shared, but in different ways. Leichsenring says it comes down to “the matter of trust that occurs when you know your client really believes your

When the mural was finished, Steve Cioffi and Bruno DiFabio said how much they loved it.

“ ‘Wait,’ I said, ‘she’s not finished,’ ” the artist recalls. “Plugging in my belt sander, I explained she looks too new, too obvious. I want her to look like she’s always been a part of these wall. Trust me. And they did. I gently sanded off parts of the surface, careful to avoid any bricks with chips that might take more than I planned if they broke away. After the belt sander, I cleaned off the brick and mixed essentially dirty paint water. Thinned mixtures of very watered-down paint, which I sprayed and blotted. Next, I took an old toothbrush with more dirtied color and spattered on the surface. Lastly, a wire brush to get that perfect look, and voila! There she was, The Bertolli Girl, more beautiful than ever with the patina of age to make her more

graceful. Both Bruno and Steve agreed.”

What the artist saw as a technique, the restaurant owners Bruno DiFabio, Steve Cioffi and Germano Minin, initially took as an emotionally charged challenge—that is, it hurt to see Leichsenring “age” the work.

“Sharon is absolutely amazing,” Cioffi says. “The inside mural is a Bertolli olive oil photo that we really liked. The only problem was it was a clean, nice picture and did not fit with the old vintage decor we wanted. Sharon said she would distress the mural after it was painted to make it appear old. Not totally understanding what would be done, we trusted her to go ahead. When the mural was finished, it was absolutely breathtaking. My partner and I came into the pizzeria and decided we were going to tell Sharon to leave it as is. We went to lunch without speaking to her, and when we returned, she was already hard at work ‘distressing’ it. She took a heavy-duty belt sander to this beautiful mural that she had just spent countless hours making absolutely perfect. We were speechless and a little upset with ourselves for not speaking to her sooner. We left without saying anything. When we returned

Sharon Leichsenring

"In most cases, the most challenging part of a mural is getting into the head of my client and trying to figure out what they are looking for."

right: Sharon Leichsenring added a vintage feel to her wall mural at Bronx House in Glenbrook.

later that evening, the mural was totally finished, and we could not believe our eyes—it was perfect. It is unexplainable how she took a belt sander to such perfection and made it ten times better. She had the vision the entire time and knew exactly what she was doing. She is a true artist and that mural is still my absolute favorite that she has ever done for us.”

Leichsenring says the biggest challenge had to do with execution.

“At Bronx House, working on a brick surface is much more challenging than a nice smooth wall,” she says.

“The painting itself is also a little trickier. Brush strokes get constantly interrupted from the smooth flow that happens normally on a smooth wall.” Plus, working outside is just next-level dicey because of heat, sun glare and heat, flying and crawling bugs and working on a scaffold. The results, however, are “imperfectly” ideal. Consider, for example, the eye-catching logo at Bronx House in Stamford.

The owners also had her do work at their Amore Cucina and Bar,

PHOTOGRAPHS: BLUE PAINT © R. GINO SANTA MARIASTOCK.ADOBE.COM; BRONX HOUSE BY NINA BARNA; AMORE, DIANE SEMBROT

clockwise: The artist uses tools to age her murals to perfection. Here, the mural inside Amore (above), outside Amore (right), and the inside of Bronx House (right, below)—all in Stamford.

just around the corner. “The outside mural at Amore Cucina was access,” says Leichsenring about the challenges. “There were hedges that could not be moved, making it difficult to fit ladders into the space between the wall and hedge. It took a bit of balancing—using a baker’s scaffold to fit over the edges and ladders onto those to reach. Did I mention the weather took a turn that day and it was well into ninety-degrees with a double serving of humidity?”

But it wasn’t all irksome, she

the song from Dean Martin… and we were off and running with the idea,” she says. “The outside wall offered an opportunity to

core of the successful design is being able to take your wish and translate it into that emotional response which you are seeking,”

throughout Fairfield County and beyond. You can see her work the next time you pick up a pizza order.

THERE'S MORE

NICK’S PIZZA

Only the iconic Italian actress Sophia Loren could stop traffic at a busy corner in Glenbrook. Her face is painted at the center of a mural at Nick’s Pizza, a family-friendly restaurant that celebrated fifty years in 2019.

Artist and muralist Alissa Siegal has work around Stamford. In August 2020 her 110-foot mural was installed at the Bennett Cancer Center. Also, she partnered with Matt Conway, founder of the statewide nonprofit RiseUp for Arts (theriseupgroup.org), which creates public art with hundreds of communities and organizations. In January 2021 it worked, with Siegal, to launch Stamford Murals (IG @stamfordmurals), a public art and education program supporting emerging artists. She met with students from J.M. Wright Technical School to discuss mural making. Together, they completed the Great Futures mural at Stamford Boys & Girls Club.

THIRD PLACE

The dramatic mural at the entrance of Half Full’s Third Place, at 575 Pacific Street. bonus: You can stop in for a drink after.

We probably missed a few favorite murals. Here are more examples to continue your exploration…

above: Mural at Boys & Girls Club and (below) at the Bennett Cancer Center

We probably missed a few favorite murals. Here are more examples to continue your exploration…

by jill johnson mann photographs by andrea carson

Nina Lindia Saskia

Robert Doran

It’s our favorite time of year at Moffly Media—

the time when a warm glow emanates from the pages of our Light a Fire issue. It comes from the Fairfield County residents who spend all year working tirelessly to help their neighbors, improve our towns and make the world a better place. They rarely have a chance to sit still and bask in the glow they have created. We, with the help of your passionate nomination letters, can give them this one moment to shine before they return to protecting children’s mental health, delivering food to the hungry, offering homework clubs and music lessons to immigrant children, making our towns easier to navigate for those with disabilities, buoying the spirits of breast cancer survivors, resettling refugees, preventing abuse, preserving the glorious land around us, championing the arts, building synagogues, bringing together our communities and saving lives. Take a moment and give them your full attention. They just may spark something in you that will land you in our Light a Fire issue one day.

Nina Lindia

WORDS OF PRAISE

ORGANIZATIONS

Pitch Your Peers, Breast Cancer Alliance, B-Search.org

INSPIRATION

“I started volunteering at twenty-two, when I moved to New York,” says Old Greenwich resident Nina Lindia. “For the first time in my life something broke my heart enough that I wanted to see what I could do about it.” All the vision-impaired residents astounded her. “I couldn’t imagine navigating the city without the power of sight,” she says. Nina began volunteering with a youth program, and then something magical happened. “Volunteering literally solved my own problem.

I witnessed how powerful it can be,” recounts Nina, who joined every committee she could when she moved to Greenwich. “Each was another opportunity to learn something,” she says. “The first thing I ask people I meet is: ‘What breaks your heart about the world?’ I always have a recommendation for a great nonprofit that will unbreak their hearts. I’m not

necessarily someone people come to for advice, but in this category I am. It’s a wonderful feeling.”

COURAGE INTO ACTION

Nina is cofounder of the organization Pitch Your Peers, which grew out of a simple observation. “Donation requests usually start with: ‘sorry to ask’ and ‘no amount is too small,’” she says. “That’s a terrible pitch! I thought what if we create a forum in which we can pool resources, without a lot of red tape, one meeting a year, with the notion of giving where you live. Members each give $1,000 annually and in addition pitch their networks: ‘I’m going to ask you for $2,000 and give you really good reasons why.’” If she gets a no, Nina asks what the potential donor is passionate about, so she knows for the future. “I wanted to diversify the portfolio of how we ask for donations,” she explains. Pitch Your Peers raised $10,000 in one day for Ukraine. New chapters are sprouting up across America.

“Nina is a force to be reckoned with. When she sees a need, she looks to fill it. As a lifetime resident of Greenwich, Pitch Your Peers supporter and close friend of Nina’s, it’s so inspiring to see how she harnessed the power of women to make a very real and hands-on impact. Starting a movement is never easy, but Nina has done it with intention, humor and grace. With the help of some good friends who believe in the vision of collaborative giving, informed philanthropy and volunteerism, Pitch Your Peers quickly went from an idea to reality. Since its inception, PYP has expanded from Greenwich to Chicago and Seattle Nina is heavily involved with both to ensure their success. She also passionately supports many other nonprofits. Her gratitude for life shines through in everything she does!”

POTTER, FRIEND AND PITCH YOUR PEERS SUPPORTER

As a breast cancer survivor, Nina is also a champion of the Breast Cancer Alliance. She cochaired its 2019 luncheon, which shattered all records with a sold-out event of 1,100 people and $1.6 million raised.

HOPES AND DREAMS

“One way we can all give back is an intangible way. If you care about an organization and the community it supports, set a great example. I genuinely care about the population of global breast cancer survivors, and I try to set a great example for people who are newly diagnosed,” says Nina, who had a double mastectomy and numerous rounds of chemo and radiation. “I want to help them to not be terrified, to not give up on themselves. I’ve been through it all, and I’m full of joy.” She adds, “Friends are so important to me. I want to keep helping them unbreak their hearts.” »

LINDSAY

Steven & Sandy Soule

Impactful Duo

INSPIRATION

“Steven and I grew up in families with a tradition of helping others,” says Sandy Soule. “My parents were refugees of the Holocaust and were founding members of Larchmont Temple. We’d been in Greenwich over forty-five years when the opportunity came up for me to help build a new synagogue. We dedicated the arch in the synagogue in memory of my parents, so I would say we were

WORDS OF PRAISE

“

continuing a family tradition.” Sandy is also involved in Jewish Family Services. “There is a saying: To those who much is given, much is expected,” she says. “Steven is still very busy running his business, but when I retired, it was our time to start giving back. It’s really important to us.” Steven concurs: “Watching what Sandy’s family went through and what they did, you have no choice but to do this.”

COURAGE INTO ACTION

Sandy serves on the board of Greenwich Reform Synagogue and is copresident. “We built a new synagogue on Orchard Street in Cos Cob. It’s amazing,” says Sandy, who also serves on the board of JFS of Greenwich. “Jewish Family Services has really stepped it up since the Afghan resettlement program started,” she says, “and now they’re working with Ukrainian refugees as well. Everyone is entitled to a safe place to live.”

During the pandemic, when indoor fundraisers weren’t feasible, the Soules graciously offered to host an outdoor event for JFS. “Since we live in paradise, we are very happy to share,” says Sandy. The first event was a success and attendance tripled at the next. First Presbyterian Church was one of JFS’s community partners in its resettlement efforts. “When Christians and Jews get together to help Muslims, that’s a very special moment,” says Sandy.

Steven became involved with the Mill River Collaborative through his company SB&W (a custom components manufacturer) and First County Bank’s philanthropic foundation. “They have made a commitment to the community that is wonderful to be a part of,” comments Steven. “Mill River is just becoming what it has potential to be.” Sandy adds, “It used to be full of rusting shopping carts and now it’s magnificent.”

At the Soule’s annual Fourth of July party, they request food donations for Neighbor to Neighbor, rather than hostess gifts. For bar mitzvahs, they give one check to the child and one for a charity of the child’s choice. “The kids feel empowered and engaged,” says Steven.

HOPES AND DREAMS

Steven quips: “To be alive and to be retired!” Sandy adds, “I would hope for a fact-based reality, recognizing women as human beings with minds of their own. Needless to say, I’m a very strong supporter of Planned Parenthood. I signed my first pro-choice petition when I was pregnant with our daughter, who is now forty-six.”

For the past fifteen years Sandy has served on the JFS of Greenwich board of directors, including ten years on the executive committee as secretary. In both 2021 and 2022, Sandy and Steve graciously hosted our annual fundraisers at their Riverside home, with close to 200 people in attendance. Their dedication to our growing social services agency is unmatched.”

RACHEL KORNFELD, CEO, JEWISH FAMILY SERVICES OF GREENWICH

ORGANIZATIONS

First Reform Synagogue, Jewish Family Services, Mill River Collaborative

INSPIRATION

“I was very lucky to go to a high school with so many resources,” says Darien resident Saskia Zimmerman, a firstgeneration American. “I know that when my parents immigrated [from El Salvador] to the United States, they worked very hard to provide me with the best possible education within their reach. I had the opportunity to take challenging classes [at Darien High School], to learn to play the violin, to fence, to participate in many extracurricular clubs and activities. Not everyone has that good fortune. That’s why I worked with immigrant children at Building One Community (B1C), because they should also have those same opportunities.” The kids served by B1C, an organization focused on the successful integration of immigrants and their families, attend schools that often don’t have the resources Saskia benefitted from, and knowing that inspired her to make a difference.

COURAGE INTO ACTION

During high school, Saskia volunteered by offering academic tutoring and violin lessons, and she also lead a Homework Club. Last summer, she developed a summer STEAM Club for elementaryschool-age children at B1C. “I created lesson plans, led hands-on activities,

and fundraised for all the materials,” she explains. “I also enlisted one of my older students to help me run the club, so she could give back to the community as well. The children weren’t the only ones who learned. I discovered what it feels like to create and pitch a program, along with how hard it is to be on the other side of the classroom breaking down complicated STEAM topics in a way that even Junior, the youngest student fresh out of kindergarten, could understand. I had never seen a class more eager to learn. I was constantly impressed by their small hands furiously scribbling notes and their engagement. The success of the camp was very rewarding and reinforced my belief that equal access to education is something every kid deserves.”

HOPES AND DREAMS

“I hope that the kids I help grow up to help other kids, and I hope B1C is able to continue to provide the means through which the bond is formed,” says Saskia. “I hope volunteers at B1C continue to help community members learn the skills that will give them the best chance at success in this country, while volunteers deepen their understanding and appreciation of other cultures.” »

Saskia Zimmerman

Outstanding Teen Volunteer

“Saskia’s commitment to B1C, and what she has accomplished in her 215 hours of volunteering since 2019, have exceeded our expectations for a youth volunteer. Saskia has volunteered to teach immigrant adults English and tutor youth immigrant students in math. She is also one of our most diligent Homework Club Leaders. Saskia volunteered to run the STEAM summer camp at B1C. She raised the money for the camp through a GoFundMe campaign she created and also used her own birthday money to make supplies available to the kids in her class. Undoubtedly, Saskia’s volunteer work has not only impacted our immigrant children’s lives but also B1C’ s success. ” —LORELY

WORDS OF PRAISE

PECHE , FAMILY AND SCHOOL SERVICES DIRECTOR, B1C

ORGANIZATION B1C

Stephanie Cowie

Inspiring Leader

ORGANIZATIONS

Greenwich Public School PTAs, GPS Building Committees, Junior League of Greenwich, United Way of Greenwich, American Red Cross ( Metro NY North ) , League of Women Voters, First Selectman ' s Advisory Committee for People with Disabilities

INSPIRATION

“My parents instilled the importance of giving back,” says Steph Cowie. “Whether they were coaching teams, serving as volunteers for our town or various organizations, we grew up knowing volunteerism should be a part of our day-to-day.”

In January of 2018, Steph suffered a stroke to her spine, which caused paralysis from the waist down. “Faced with undoubtedly one of the most difficult personal challenges, my life and our family’s life changed dramatically,” says Steph. “Unable to continue my thirty-year professional career, I found that volunteer work became the outlet I needed and carried me through some of the difficult times. Through my volunteer commitments, I was able to adapt and continue to make a difference. Volunteering will always be a part of my life. I continue to volunteer, because I enjoy being with people and making even the slightest difference in a project or a person’s life.”

COURAGE INTO ACTION

“I have been so fortunate to work with so many wonderful organizations over the last twenty-one years,” says Steph, who was the recipient of the Greenwich PTA’s Lifetime Essence Award and served on the boards of the United Way and American Red Cross.

“My lens seems very different now than it was previous to my stroke. Like so many, I was unaware of the inadequate services, lack of accessibility and inclusivity in our community for those with disabilities,” she explains.

“Several years ago, I became the vice chair of the First Selectman’s Advisory Committee for People with Disabilities. I have learned so much and have put all that to good use.”

Steph now directs most of her volunteer time to infrastructure in Greenwich, advocating for the town to be Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant in all schools and public spaces. “We just celebrated the ADA’s thirty-second anniversary at the new— and now ADA-compliant—Greenwich High School Cardinal Stadium,” she says. “I couldn’t be more proud to have been a part of this improvement for all to use.”

HOPES AND DREAMS

“I hope that Greenwich continues to work together—all town departments and the public—to better the lives of those with disabilities by making public spaces and buildings inclusive and accessible. We are all only temporarily able.”

WORDS OF PRAISE

“Steph’s passion for philanthropy is infectious, and that has never been more apparent than it is today as she struggles with her own physical challenges and still finds ways to help others and offer them support and encouragement. Steph has a deep passion for life, which permeates all that she does, making her a great messenger of endless possibilities. While she has held many leadership positions, Steph pours as much energy into working behind the scenes as she does leading the way.”

SUE BODSON , FRIEND (2010 Light a Fire Honoree, Best Friend to Children)

Robert Doran

Community Advocate

ORGANIZATIONS

Domestic Violence Crisis Center, Westport Country Playhouse, New Canaan Chamber Music, New Canaan Abuse Prevention Partnership

INSPIRATION

“As a community relentlessly working together with our nonprofits, we can break cycles of abuse, addiction, hunger and poverty,” says New Canaan resident Bob Doran.

“We can provide education, skills and tools for people to be in control of their own lives. The work of our local nonprofit organizations in the trenches, at their best, transforms lives. The people who are reached by those services and are better for it transform our communities. That is inspiring.”

COURAGE INTO ACTION

Doran is active in numerous nonprofit organizations in Fairfield County— Domestic Violence Crisis Center (advisory board), Westport Country Playhouse (trustee) and New Canaan Chamber Music (founding board member)—and also is the volunteer head of New Canaan’s Channel 79 and a founding member of New Canaan Abuse Prevention Partnership.

As host of the Talking About It podcast, Doran is dedicated to preventing abuse, promoting healthy relationships and reducing the stigma around behavioral health issues.

“We need to talk openly about the issues our neighbors face,” says Doran. “Our communities are neither their healthiest nor their strongest if one of us is in need. I made a conscious decision many years ago to not be a bystander. Instead, I try to move the needle as an advocate for change— actively and respectfully speaking out loud about issues affecting our communities. By being a visible advocate—writing op-eds, producing podcasts, speaking publicly and working with nonprofit leadership—I look to raise awareness of important issues, remove the stigma of being in need and give people a voice and a language to ‘talk about it.’”

Doran adds, “I work with many nonprofits on strategic planning and

engagement to define ‘Purpose’ and share their compelling stories.”

HOPES AND DREAMS

“I hope organizations find their Purpose—with a capital P,” says Doran.

“I would like to see organizations do the unconventional and set aside their ‘Mission and Vision Statements.’

I find that most board members, staff, volunteers and clients don’t know them anyway. ‘Mission and Vision’ narrow our focus in ways that constrict peripheral vision; like putting blinders on a horse, you can only see what’s in front of you. Solutions are invariably found around corners. When we look through a Purpose-driven lens, our stories are more compelling, everyone is more engaged, difficult and divisive choices become constructive dialogue, the path to success is clearer, and we make a greater impact in the world.” »

WORDS OF PRAISE

“Bob Doran embodies the true essence of why one dedicates their time to volunteering. While many raise a hand from time to time in support of a cause that is near and dear to them, Bob raises both and jumps in, feet first. Bob has done so much to lift countless lives through his leadership and to provide a path forward for those who might not otherwise find one.”

TUCKER MURPHY, ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, TOWN OF NEW CANAAN

Best Friend to Children

ORGANIZATION Kids in Crisis

WORDS OF PRAISE

“

As an innovative educator and principal of Stamford High School and Brien McMahon High School, Suzanne demonstrated exceptional compassion, connection and leadership on behalf of students and families. She has been an impactful speaker advocating for Teen Talk programs throughout Fairfield County. Countless students have benefited from mental health services due to Suzanne’s commitment and prioritization of this service.

It’s impossible to quantify how many children’s lives were saved due to her tireless effort to assure funding and program availability year to year. Since retiring, she continues to share her expertise and passion as a Kids in Crisis board member.

As part of the Substance Misuse Prevention Task Force, Suzanne is helping to build a campaign to educate families and youth on the dangers of marijuana use. Her work has a direct impact on the health of today’s youth.”

DEBRA KATZ, KIDS IN CRISIS, DIRECTOR OF OUTREACH AND COMMUNITY INITIATIVES

INSPIRATION

“When I was the principal of Brien McMahon High School in Norwalk, my students were the recipients of a Kids in Crisis (KIC) donor-funded Teen Talk counselor,” recounts Suzanne Brown Koroshetz. “This masters’ level, compassionate counselor helped many students navigate difficult personal and school-related issues.” The Teen Talk counselor augmented the school staff by providing confidential individual, group and family counseling.

“She identified at-risk students and families flying under the radar and reached out to students experiencing depression, anxiety, substance-use struggles, and trauma- and conflictrelated stresses,” says Suzanne. “She was an angel who arrived to help my kids. I believe she saved lives.” Suzanne now has the time to support the wonderful organization that did so much for the students in her care. “While Teen Talk is a vital component of KIC, the organization does even more to support children and families,” she adds.

COURAGE INTO ACTION

Suzanne now serves on KIC’s board of directors. “What a gift to join a group of dedicated board members and remarkable staff. And to be able to ‘officially’ represent an organization that has meant so much to me for a long time,” she says. Suzanne is cochair of the program committee and works with staff, fellow board members and volunteers. “Our role is to support KIC programs and stay true to the vision and mission of KIC,” she explains. “The programs we directly support include Safe Haven, Light House, Helping Kids Thrive (KIC’s webinar), Outreach and Community Partners.”

HOPES AND DREAMS

“I wish for KIC’s incredible staff and amazing volunteers to continue to have the energy and compassion and all the funding needed to reach the KIC vision: a community where all children are happy and safe,” says Suzanne. “We are working to build healthy communities where children and families can thrive— with prevention, counseling and crisis services available twenty-four hours, every day.” Suzanne continues: “This work is so important. It’s hard to be a kid today, and many families are struggling. It is a privilege to support KIC values as the staff works to welcome all people with respect and kindness, by responding quickly and thoughtfully, while bringing strength and compassion for the benefit of children.”

Andrew Wilk Supporter of the Arts

INSPIRATION

Westport resident Andrew Wilk retired as executive producer of Live From Lincoln Center in 2019, but there is no valve to turn off the creative flow generated by this producer/director/ conductor/multi-Emmy-winning brain. “In a show biz career, you do it because you love it, and you want to keep doing it,” says Wilk. “It was my chance to do something with this artsy town that I’m really attached to. Westport has been a wonderful place for our sons to grow up. And part of it is selfish—I want to stay sharp, keep directing, keep conducting, and I don’t want to wake up and stare at the ceiling! Retiring with a unique skill set motivates me to keep at it regardless of any compensation.”

COURAGE INTO ACTION

In just a few (pandemic-riddled) years, Wilk has brought a slew of stars and Lincoln Center-quality concerts to Westport. He shared his talent conducting the Staples Pops Concert at the Levitt Pavilion, which led Bill Harmer to inquire if he’d do something for the library. “Something” in Wilkspeak translated to a Malloy Lecture with Broadway greats James Lapine, Stephanie Block and Bill Finn about their show Falsettos (which Wilk filmed for PBS); a riveting speaker series, Andrew Wilk Presents; another Malloy Lecture on Leonard Bernstein; and orchestrating the Booked for the Evening event with Itzhak Perlman. Harmer wisely asked Wilk to join the board. Andrew is now in his second term.

“Part of the reason I moved here was the Playhouse,” says Wilk, who suggested the venue for the Falsettos talk and subsequently brought the Playhouse into homes across America via PBS with his Stars in Concert Series in 2021, featuring Shoshana Bean, Gavin Creel and Brandon Victor Dixon. Wilk is currently brainstorming on a future large-scale production to galvanize support for the Playhouse and bring local performers and Broadway stars together on its stage.

HOPES AND DREAMS

“I would hope that the arts will continue to flourish here, and we revive the Playhouse with community support,” says Wilk. “Our library is beyond ground-breaking, and the community provided tremendous support and generosity for the renovation of the library and construction of its state-of-the-art recording studio, Verso Studios. I hope the Playhouse can benefit from the town’s generosity and enthusiasm like the Library has.” »

“Andrew has been on the Board of Trustees since 2017. During his tenure he has graciously shared his directorial and production talents, while freely opening up his Rolodex to bring in various personalities allowing for world-class programming at the Library, from Bob Ballard, discoverer of the Titanic, to Jay Schadler and Mick Davie, correspondents and journalists, to Itzhak Perlman, world-famous violinist and so many others. He is generous to a fault with his time and talent, and we at the Library are grateful and indebted to him for his immeasurable contributions.”

BILL HARMER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WESTPORT LIBRARY

WORDS OF PRAISE

ORGANIZATIONS

Westport Library, Westport Country Playhouse

Mike Miller

Community Good Neighbor

INSPIRATION

“Shortly after my family relocated to Riverside nearly three decades ago, we participated in what can accurately be described as a type of local barn raising,” explains Mike Miller. “Over six weeks during school break, several dozen neighbors—some with construction trade experience, many without—built from the ground up an entirely new playground for Riverside Elementary School. I enjoyed this experience immensely and knew that when other opportunities to serve our community presented themselves, I would again gladly volunteer and participate.”

COURAGE INTO ACTION

Miller began volunteering with neighborhood nonprofits after supporting public school programs for many years. He became very involved with Transportation Association of Greenwich (TAG), which offers specialized para-transit services for the Town of Greenwich, annually providing over 30,000 rides for seniors, the disabled, school-age youth and neighbors with limited resources.

“My career skills—team building, collaboration, organizational strategy, finance and management advisory— that were honed through supporting a variety of organizations experiencing periods of urgent transition, dovetailed well with TAG,” says Miller, who helped the organization recover from the Great Recession. He has served TAG as board member, treasurer and president, for over fourteen years.

During the pandemic, TAG pivoted to focus on its pre-pandemic food delivery program, Feed Greenwich, in conjunction with Neighbor to Neighbor and the Department of Human Services. “Throughout the pandemic to date, TAG has surpassed 72,000 home deliveries, delivering a cumulative total of over 800,000 pounds of food,” says Miller.

WORDS OF PRAISE

“Mike has been on the board of directors at TAG for fourteen years, starting as a financial advisor, and is currently the board president and CFO of TAG all volunteer positions. Mike is more than a board member. He is a true friend of TAG, doing everything he can to help it grow and become more successful in its mission. He works as many hours as a full-time employee! Mike has been there every step of the way as a mentor, advisor, teacher and friend. His commitment to this organization is one of belief believing that TAG is a truly valuable asset to the Greenwich community. He does anything and everything to make it happen on a daily basis.”

DEB VETROMILE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

“In June, following a competitive bid process, TAG was awarded a $3 million contract, which doubled its annual ridership to over 60,000 and expanded its operating footprint to seven additional communities. It has been a tremendously rewarding experience, working alongside the dedicated people here at TAG who help so many.”

HOPES AND DREAMS

“That our community-at-large maintains its commitment to the many organizations that make such a major difference day after day for our neighbors.”

ORGANIZATIONS

Transportation Association of Greenwich, Neighbor to Neighbor, Greenwich Department of Human Services, Art Society of Old Greenwich

TAG

Marianne Pollak

Dedicated Committee Member

Fairfield

Arboretum,

INSPIRATION

Originally from Buffalo, Marianne Pollak attended a League of Women Voters meeting when she and her husband moved to New Haven. “The League is nonpartisan and is concerned with the functions of government for community,” explains Marianne, whose enthusiastic engagement in the organization continued to Westchester and then Stamford, where she became president. “The League exposed me to many nonprofits,” she says.

“Because my husband spent so much time working in Asia, we travelled a lot, and I became aware of other people and communities,” she adds. “This broadens one’s perspective. No matter what color, what ethnic background—we are all people, and our needs are the same.”

And Marianne’s parents, avid gardeners, inspired her green thumb and concern for the environment.

COURAGE INTO ACTION

Marianne has served on numerous committees in the past thirty years. “I was a founding member of the Fairfield County Community Foundation (FCCF),” she says. She also served on the steering committee of its Fund for Women and Girls. She currently serves on the boards of Soundwaters, FCCF, The Bartlett Arboretum, League of Women Voters and Stamford Garden Club. Previously, Marianne served on the boards of Inspirica, the Connecticut Commission of Landscape Architects and the Bruce Museum and was board chair for the Stamford Museum and Nature Center. She also served on the

Connecticut committee of the Regional Plan Association.

“I think I bring an awareness of the importance of engaging the community and helping the community understand the needs of nonprofits,” she says. “I hope I’ve helped these nonprofits become stronger organizations. The relationship between the board and staff is crucial. I’ve also encouraged other community members to be more engaged with nonprofits and the government.” Marianne adds, “I hope I have been effective in helping nonprofits who did excellent jobs of meeting their mission to communicate with the public, so that there is a greater understanding of how all of our lives are impacted when needs of the community are not met.”

HOPES AND DREAMS

“Covid has obviously changed our lives in many ways and perhaps even placed more emphasis on the needs of communities,” says Marianne. “As we go forward, how can we be more positive about engaging all peoples and all needs and having a vibrant, exciting community? I encourage people to be engaged in politics in the broadest sense: get out there, serve on a board, try to make a change. People talk about giving back; for me, it’s more about what I’ve gained being on boards. I hope going forward our government roles will be looked at in a more positive, broader way and that people will want to be engaged in their community—whether local, state or broader than that.” »

WORDS OF PRAISE

“Marianne is consistently engaged and dedicated to every organization that she is involved with. She brings strategic insight, thoughtful ideas and questions, consistent attendance, and is an excellent ambassador and supporter for all of her causes.”

JUANITA JAMES , PRESIDENT & CEO, FAIRFIELD COUNTY COMMUNITY

FOUNDATION (2010 Light a Fire Honoree with her late husband, Dudley Williams, Most Involved Couple)

ORGANIZATIONS

County Community Foundation, Soundwaters, CT Committee of Regional Plan Association, Bartlett

Stamford Garden Club, League of Women Voters

Harry Day

Lifetime Achievement

INSPIRATION

“Giving back came to me naturally,” says Harry Day. “I felt I should do anything I can to help organizations that help kids and our citizens in Stamford. I just felt compelled to do that. It made me feel better. I have been very fortunate in many respects—to have great parents, to get into Yale University and Cornell Law School— so I felt responsible to do my best in helping others.”

COURAGE INTO ACTION

Day’s service in Stamford and Fairfield County as a whole could fill pages. He served on Stamford’s Board of Representatives for nearly two decades. He has served on the boards of Mill River Park Collaborative, Stamford Emergency Medical Services, Old Town Hall Redevelopment Agency and Smith House Health Care Center. He has been involved with Kids in Crisis for fifteen

years, served as board chair for six years, and continues to be a generous contributor and fundraising organizer. “I was very proud and inspired during my time at Kids in Crisis,” says Day. “I got involved by first being able to persuade the city of Stamford to contribute.”

Day is currently president of Stamford Museum and Nature Center. “We were able to complete the building of the new farmhouse, which has brought many hundreds of new people to the Center,” explains Day. “Now we are working on getting the planetarium rebuilt, which will set the Center apart from anything like it in the metropolitan area.”

WORDS OF PRAISE

“

Harry is a leader who is professional, effective, caring and generous. Ever self-effacing, Harry is not one to seek the spotlight. He is a listener. He is financially generous, but does so with the belief that quiet and anonymous giving is the best kind. I can think of no other individual who has contributed more to the city of Stamford and to Fairfield County just consider the sheer number of nonprofit and municipal organizations that he has been involved with over so many years. I have no doubt that he will continue his selfless quest to making the city of Stamford more livable, lively, interesting and beautiful with the enthusiasm, perseverance, dedication and graciousness that define Harry Day. ”

Day is also president of Stamford Land Conservation Trust, which owns and preserves over 450 acres of land across fifty-seven properties. (A tripling in the twenty years that Day has been involved.) “It’s a huge part of my life,” he says, “and of extreme importance to me. I love to save beautiful properties from development. I understand the need to build more homes, but it’s so important to have places people can escape to and enjoy the beauty of.”

HOPES AND DREAMS

“I hope for these organizations to bring people together and allow people to take advantage of their own abilities to learn things, enjoy life and make friends. That’s pretty much it!” says Day. “The Stamford Museum and Nature Center does all of those things and it’s an incredible organization. I’m very proud to be president.”

ORGANIZATIONS

Stamford Museum and Nature Center, Stamford Land Conservation Trust

LYNN VILLENCY COHEN , BOARD MEMBER, STAMFORD MUSEUM AND NATURE CENTER (2018 Light a Fire Honoree,

Dedicated Supporter of the Arts)

THE GREAT DIVIDE

Connecticut is arguably the cradle of reproductive rights in America. But we have a dark history that predates our progressiveness. History, it would seem, is repeating itself across the country

by

timothy dumas

Connecticut claims Anthony Comstock, if it must, as a native son. Born on a farm in New Canaan in 1844, Comstock was the Gilded Age’s archprude, its pig-eyed morality czar, its obsessive porn hunter with a badge and gun. He viewed himself as “a weeder in God’ s garden.” Others viewed him as “a five-foot ass.” Rather than let his Union Army comrades enjoy his ration of whiskey, Comstock would dump it on the ground. “Seems to be a feeling of hatred by some of the boys,” he noted in his journal. The same journal repeatedly hints at one temptation Comstock himself could not resist: masturbation. “I debased myself. I deplore my sinful weak nature.”

After the war Comstock placed himself rather too eagerly in “the mouth of the sewer”—Manhattan—as a solo anti-smut crusader. He sniffed out erotica’s shadowy marketplaces, purchased hot little items like nude photos and racy playing cards, and marched them over to the nearest precinct house, demanding an arrest. Com stock’s zeal impressed certain influential New Yorkers. In 1872 these wealthy men, J.P. Morgan among them, helped him found the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. From that perch Com stock swooped down not only upon bawdy novelties, but also upon belly dancing, nude paintings from Europe, classic literary works, contemporary plays (George Bernard Shaw was “an Irish smutdealer”), unclothed manikins, church bingo and “that which we call the love story.”

Comstock, a burly man with flowing muttonchop whiskers, rel ished bursting into book shops and private homes, a gaggle of re porters in tow. Near the end of his life (he died in 1915) he boasted of destroying 160 tons of obscene literature, collaring 3,697 “vile miscreants” and collecting $327,134.30 in fines. He also kept a morbid tally of the people he’d driven to suicide (at least sixteen). Had Comstock’s range extended no further than New York, history would have accounted him a mere footnote. Instead, in 1873, he went to Washington armed with dirty books and sex toys and, dis playing these wares, convinced Congress to pass an anti-obscenity bill of breathtaking scope. The so-called Comstock Law made it il legal to mail “obscene, lewd or lascivious” publications and personal letters “containing any filthy, vile, or indecent thing.” But what was obscene? Postal inspectors confiscated everything from medical texts to Valentine’s Day cards, the latter by the thousand. (Not long after, the Supreme Court said that opening sealed mail required a warrant.)

The Comstock Law also banned selling, distributing and mail ing all literature about contraception and abortion (not to mention mailing contraceptives and abortifacients themselves). These sub jects now fell under the banner of “obscene.” Overnight a boom ing condom trade tailed off dramatically. Discreet ads for abortion providers—“Ladies’ Friend and Doctor”—vanished from city news papers. Medical papers portraying the human body were plucked from the mails. Physicians ceased giving crucial advice about birth control to their patients. What yesterday was acceptable, today was criminal: violating the Comstock Law carried a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

The most fervid enforcer of the Comstock Law was Comstock himself. The U.S. Postal Service granted him sweeping powers as a “special agent,” and he used them with special ardor against women’s rights advocates. He arrested physician and birth control lecturer Sara B. Chase for procuring a syringe that women used to douche after sex (“I am preventing poor families from being bur dened with children they cannot support,” she protested to an un moved Comstock during his raid). He arrested the wealthy society abortionist Madame Restell by posing as an impoverished husband with too many mouths to feed. (Rather than face trial, she cut her throat in the bathtub of her Fifth Avenue mansion.) He tried to ar rest Margaret Sanger, the mother of Planned Parenthood, for selling the birth control pamphlet Family Limitation, but nabbed her hus band instead. (William Sanger spent thirty days in jail after a judge declared that he’d engaged in a “scheme to prevent motherhood.”) Comstock pursued Ida Craddock, a writer of marriage manuals, with a crazed, Captain Ahab-like vengeance. It had been Craddock who defended belly dancing against Comstock’s efforts to shut it down at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Years later, still smarting, Comstock arrested her in New York for circulating “The Wedding Night,” her 1900 pamphlet containing frank advice about sex.

THE CASE THAT GOT US

IN 2018

Mississippi passed a law that banned abortion at fifteen weeks of pregnancy. The state’s only abortion provider, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, sued, arguing the law violated constitutional rights established in the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. By a vote of 7-2, the Roe Court held that abortion was legal up to “viability,” the roughly twenty-four-week mark at which fetuses can theoretically survive outside the womb. (Thereafter states could prohibit abortion, except when the health of the mother was at risk.)

Jackson won its suit in district court. It won again in the extremely conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which wrote in 2019, “In an unbroken line dating to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s abortion cases have established (and affirmed, and re-affirmed) a woman’s right to choose an abortion before viability.”

Even so, last September Texas (which also falls under the Fifth Circuit’s purview) enacted an abortion law much stricter than Mississippi’s, banning the procedure at six weeks—before many women know they’re pregnant. To enforce the law, Texas devised a Wild West-style “bounty” system of citizen vigilantes, in which anyone learning of

your post six-week abortion can sue to collect at least $10,000 from your abettors: the sister who drove you, the friend who lent you money, the physician who attended you. If the Mississippi law was unconstitutional, the Texas law must have been doubly so. Why, then, did Texas enact it?

ANSWER

The U.S. Supreme Court’s rightward lurch. President Trump installed three social conservatives, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, making for six conservative justices in all, a supermajority that some viewed as yearning to restore the moral climate of 1960, if not 1860. Worse, that supermajority seemed ill-gotten. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had denied Obama nominee Merrick Garland a hearing a full eight months before the 2016 election—too close to Election Day, was McConnell’s fatuous claim—and then without blushing, hastened Coney Barrett onto the Court eight days before the 2020 election. Democrats regarded these events as nothing shy of “theft.”

The seating of this new Court converged with the arrival on its doorstep of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Mississippi abortion case that had lost in two federal courts already. Granted a review before the Supreme Court, Mississippi decided to challenge Roe in

boldest fashion. The state’s solicitor general, Scott Stewart, asked the Court not merely to chip away at Roe by permitting the fifteenweek ban, but to scrap Roe v. Wade altogether. No matter that Roe had been affirmed and reaffirmed; no matter that it was woven deeply into American life. Both Roe and Casey, Stewart argued, were simply wrong. “They have no basis in the Constitution.”

On the evening of May 2 Politico published a leaked draft of the Dobbs opinion. Written by Justice Samuel Alito, the draft signaled the majority’s whole hearted agreement with Mississippi: Roe and Casey must indeed be overturned. Pro-choice Americans reacted to the draft with shock and grief, but also with a touch of magical thinking: surely this was a worst-case scenario; surely Chief Justice John Roberts would step in to forge a compromise whereby Mississippi’s fifteen weeks became the most restrictive allowable standard. (Actually, Roberts tried until the last moment.)

It was not to be. On the morning of June 24, the Supreme Court released its 5-4 decision, little changed from the draft, overruling Roe. For the first time in American history, a firmly established constitutional right had been revoked from the people. Now, as Roberts had feared, a state of chaos reigns in which abortion is essentially murder in some states and perfectly legal in others, and in which the Supreme Court is widely distrusted, and will be for years to come. »

How the stringently conservative Supreme Court got the opportunity to overturn Roe v. Wade

HERE

When Craddock was found guilty and sentenced to three months in a disease-ridden workhouse, Comstock “exulted with savage glee,” according to a spectator quoted in Amy Sohn’s book The Man Who Hated Women. No sooner was Craddock released than Comstock arrested her again, on the fraudulent charge of mailing the pamphlet to a minor girl. This time Craddock escaped a prison sentence by committing suicide. Just before she turned on the gas jet in her flat, she wrote a letter expressing the hope that her death would shock people into rethinking the “dreadful state of affairs which per mits that unctuous sexual hypocrite, Anthony Comstock, to wax fat and arrogant, and to trample upon the liberties of the people.”

After Craddock’s suicide, people began to weary of Comstock. “Why don’t you suppress the Bible?” voices shouted, as he lectured in Brooklyn about obscene literature. Not long before Comstock’s own death, the socialist newspaper The Masses published a cartoon that neatly summed up the shifting attitude: A rotund Comstock has dragged a young woman by the collar of her nightgown into a courtroom. He tells the judge, “Your Honor, this woman gave birth to a naked child!”

Comstock may have been a relic, but the Comstock Law of 1873 lived ruthlessly on. Worse, twenty-four states, inspired by the federal law, passed “little Comstock laws” even stricter than the original. Connecticut’s was the strictest of all. Pushed through the state House in 1879 by P.T. Barnum, the showman and sometime politician, this “Act Concerning Offenses against Decency, Morality and Humanity” predictably forbade circulating information about contraceptives; but uniquely, it also forbade their use. Married cou ples could go to jail for employing condoms and diaphragms in the privacy of their bedrooms. And physicians could go to jail for coun seling their use, even when pregnancy would have posed a grave danger to his patient.

None of this is ancient history. Our puritanical law of 1879 per sisted until 1965, when the Supreme Court ruled, in Griswold v. Connecticut, the ban on contraceptives to be unconstitutional. “We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights,” wrote William O. Douglas in his majority opinion. In other words, a “right of privacy” is a natural right, a bedrock principle of any free society. But it took Griswold to articulate privacy as a constitutional right in matters of sex and family life. Though the word “privacy” is no where mentioned in the Constitution, the concept of privacy—in the sense of being let alone to live as we choose, without unwarranted government intrusion—is threaded throughout. “Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives?” Douglas asked. “The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship.”

Here is why Griswold matters so critically today: It laid the foun dation for all privacy cases to come—most notably Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion up to “viability,” the

Connecticut enacts the country’s first criminal abortion statute. Stemming from a sex scandal in the town of Griswold (see main story), the statute outlaws abortion by “poison” when a woman is “quick with child”—that is, after she has felt the first kick of the fetus in her womb. The abortionist can be punished by life in prison; the woman who undergoes the abortion is not culpable.

1860Connecticut revises its abortion law, in keeping with a national trend. Now abortion at any stage by any means (herbal concoctions or “tools”) is illegal, unless to save the life of the mother. And now, too, the woman is guilty of a felony.

roughly twenty-four-week mark at which fetuses can theoretically survive outside the womb. (Thereafter states could prohibit abor tion, except when the life or health of the mother was at risk.) All of that changed on June 24, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson (Mississippi) Women’s Health Organization. The Court could have simply upheld Mis sissippi’s ban on abortion after fifteen weeks, as Chief Justice John Roberts had wished, but the five conservative justices decided to go big: They overturned Roe v. Wade and the twenty-odd cases that flowed from it. For the first time in American history, a constitu tionally-established right had been snatched back from the people.

Samuel Alito’s majority opinion adopted a tone of barely sup pressed hostility. He offered zero respect for a precedent deeply woven into American society—one that women relied upon for a half century to escape poverty, abusive relationships, troubled preg nancies, and difficult lives, not to mention to preserve their freedom. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” he wrote. “Its reasoning was exceptionally weak.” (In fairness to Alito, legal scholars of all persuasions have picked at the Roe opinion; few of them, however, take issue with its bottom line.) Then Alito reached back to old, male-centric sources to buttress his opinion, including seventeenthcentury English jurist Matthew Hale, who described abortion as “a great crime” but also sent women to death for witchcraft and wrote that rape in marriage isn’t rape.

Supreme Court experts were aghast at Alito’s insensitivity. “The

1873

Anthony Comstock, New York’s chief vice cop, persuades Congress to pass a sweeping obscenity law. The Comstock Act makes it illegal to send “obscene” or “immoral” materials through the mail. The law makes no attempt to define “obscene,” but it explicitly includes anything to do with contraception and abortion. Violating the Comstock Act can land one in prison for five years. Comstock himself rents a post office box in Greenwich in order to entrap New Yorkers into sending material across the border, thus turning a state crime into a federal one, according to Amy Sohn in her book The Man Who Hated Women.

1879

States pass “little Comstock laws” that often go further than the federal one. Connecticut’s is the strictest of all. Not only does it regard information about abortion or birth control obscene, but it forbids outright the use of contraceptives. And it punishes an abettor (say, a physician) “as if he were the principal offender.”

1935The Connecticut Birth Control League quietly— and illegally—opens a clinic in Hartford. Clinics in Greenwich, Stamford and Norwalk follow. But when a birth control clinic opens in Waterbury in 1938, Catholic authorities pressure police to enforce the 1879 statute. The clinic’s founder and two physicians are arrested, though ultimately not prosecuted. The state’s birth control clinics shut down.

1961

Estelle Griswold, executive director of the Planned Parent League of Connecticut, and C. Lee Buxton, a Yale School of Medicine professor and gynecologist, open a birth control clinic in New Haven, hoping to draw legal action. Local detectives promptly raid the clinic and arrest Griswold and Buxton. They are convicted of abetting a crime, and the state Supreme Court upholds both the convictions and the archaic 1879 statute.

opinion feels like it was written by arsonists,” noted Dahlia Lithwick, a lawyer who writes about the Supreme Court. Reva Siegel, a Yale law professor specializing in the Constitution, sent us an article in which she wrote, “The decision so dramatically limits women’s con stitutional liberties that one can almost hear the chants of ‘lock her up!’ from Trump’s supporters.” (In Texas, performing an abortion is now punishable by up to life in prison.)

Then there was Clarence Thomas. In his concurring opinion he raised the specter of the Court “correct[ing] the error” of other cel ebrated privacy cases, including Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which legalized consensual gay sex, Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which legalized same-sex marriage, and even Griswold, which was sud denly back in the news not as a venerable precursor to Roe, but as a threatened right.

Thus does a straight line run from 1879 to the present moment. Somewhere, the ghost of Anthony Comstock is smiling.

PAVING THE WAY

Today Connecticut is regarded as a moderately liberal state. But it overwhelmingly supports abortion rights, with 68 percent in favor in all—or most—cases. (Only Massachusetts, Hawaii and Vermont poll higher.) Ours was the first state in the nation, in 1990, to codify Roe into its own laws, and remains one of only sixteen states to have done so. And in May, before the fall of Roe, Connecticut was first

1965

In the landmark Griswold v. Connecticut, the U.S. Supreme Court declares that Connecticut’s ban on contraception violates the Constitution’s implicit right to privacy, marking the first time the Court unequivocally asserts that right. The decision lays the groundwork for Roe v. Wade.

to pass a law protecting out-of-state women who receive abortions here, as well as those who provide or facilitate abortions.

State Rep. Matt Blumenthal of Stamford got the ball rolling late last year. Noting the bleak tenor of the oral arguments in Dobbs, Blumenthal understood that Roe was probably doomed. “And I wanted to make sure that we in Connecticut were protected,” he says. Working with Rep. Jillian Gilchrest of West Hartford, he con sulted an all-star team of law professors and formulated legislation now known as the Reproductive Freedom Defense Act. (In addi tion to its protections, the act expands abortion access by permitting qualified nurses and physician assistants to perform suction abor tions, the most common kind of clinical abortion.)

New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Delaware soon copied us—and then red states moved audaciously to counter these new protections. The conservative Thomas More Society drafted model legislation that would forbid people in abortion-ban states to get abortions in legal states such as ours, and it’s only a matter of time before legislatures enshrine the society’s handiwork into law. Blu menthal predicts a collision between the two sets of laws: It’s wholly conceivable that we’ll see a Texas prosecutor go after a Connecti cut physician. “But we’re not going to shrink from defending our doctors, our nurses, our residents, and people who come here for care,” Blumenthal says. “We’re going to stand up and say, ‘Texas, don’t mess with Connecticut.’” (Zari Watkins, COO of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, informs us that last year

1972

Connecticut legalizes abortion by order of the U.S. District Court in Hartford. This important but largely forgotten case, called Abele v. Markle, began with Yale law student Ann Hill’s anger at having to choose between an illegal abortion and bearing a child she didn’t want (she chose the abortion). The state reacts to the nullification of its 1860 abortion law by obtusely passing an even stricter law, requiring an Abele v. Markle II to strike it down. District Judge Jon O. Newman’s majority opinion establishes “viability” as the most reasonable line between the rights of the woman and the rights of the fetus, and his thinking will markedly influence the Supreme Court’s Roe opinion.

1975 1990

1992

The Supreme Court case Planned Parenthood v. Casey affirms Roe and clarifies its “viability” standard (dispensing with the somewhat muddy trimester scheme). But Casey also permits certain restrictions—waiting periods, parental consent—that make abortion access more difficult.

1990

1973Roe v. Wade establishes abortion as a constitutional right. After the first trimester, however, that right is not absolute: States may regulate abortion to protect women’s health in the second trimester, and prohibit it altogether after viability (which the Court locates at 24 to 28 weeks but is now 23 or 24 weeks) except when the life or health of the mother is at risk.

Texas women, in response to new restrictions, began traveling to Connecticut for abortion care.)

How did Connecticut become a beacon of reproductive rights, when we were once the most repressive state in the union? The story is instructive: Let it begin with Sarah Grosvenor. In 1742 the nineteen-year-old farmer’s daughter from Pomfret became preg nant by her lover, Amasa Sessions, twenty-seven, son of a local tav ern keeper. At Sessions’ insistence, Grosvenor took an abortifacient to do away with the fetus, but the powder merely made her ill. So Sessions hired a “practitioner of physick” named John Hallowell to perform a surgical procedure. Two days later Grosvenor miscarried, and soon after that she contracted a uterine infection, grew fever ish and sank away into death. After an unexplained gap of three years, authorities arrested Sessions and Hallowell—the first known abortion-related arrests in America. For unknown reasons Sessions was let off the hook, but Hallowell was found guilty and sentenced to twenty-nine lashes and two hours’ public humiliation at the gallows. Before he could be punished, he broke out of jail and fled to Rhode Island, never to return.

Abortion was not uncommon in Colonial America. It was toler ated so long as it occurred before “quickening,” the first kick of the fetus in the womb, at four to five months. In 1748 Ben Franklin pub lished an abortifacient recipe—a mixture of mildly toxic herbs—in a widely circulated book of practical knowledge. Numerous popular

Connecticut is the first state to codify the terms of Roe into its own laws, ensuring that abortion would remain legal, prior to viability of the fetus, even if Roe were overturned. Gov. William A. O’Neill, a Catholic who personally opposes abortion, signs the bill into law.

medical books of the era proffered similar advice. So when Samuel Alito argues in his Dobbs opinion that abortion can’t be a consti tutional right, because the practice is “not deeply rooted in the na tion’s history and tradition” (a dubious standard to begin with: was women’s suffrage deeply rooted?), he’s factually incorrect. Though there was ambivalence about abortion because it could be danger ous, the practice was accepted by custom and by common law.

The first criminal abortion statute was enacted in 1821—courtesy of Connecticut. Why us? The immediate reason concerned a reli gious sex scandal in the town of Griswold. In 1817 a middle-aged preacher named Ammi Rogers impregnated a twenty-one-year-old congregant, Asenath Smith, and pressured her to ingest an aborti facient concoction. The young woman fell violently ill but survived, delivering a stillborn baby. Authorities got wind of the minister’s outrageous behavior and took redemptive action: They convicted Rogers of assault and jailed him for two years. Then they passed the historic 1821 statute, which outlawed abortion by “poison” when a woman was quick with child. The law clearly aimed to protect women, not fetuses, since it left in place the understanding that abortion before quickening was legal. (Also, the law punished only the abortionist; the woman was viewed as a victim of schemers like Ammi Rogers.)

In 1860 Connecticut hardened its law to ban abortion at any stage of pregnancy and extended punishment to recipients. The moral

2022The Supreme Court, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturns Roe v. Wade by a 5-4 vote. No longer a constitutional right, abortion returns to each state to decide for itself. But as Connecticut’s history shows, the will of state officials does not always reflect the will of the people.

2022Anticipating the fall of Roe, Connecticut passes the Reproductive Freedom Defense Act, which protects patients who travel here for abortion care, as well as those who provide abortions or otherwise help patients. The act also expands access to abortion by permitting qualified advanced practice clinicians to perform aspiration, or suction, abortions.

climate around abortion in America had darkened considerably, but an evolving concern for the fetus was only part of the story. In 1857 physicians, led by Horatio Robinson Storer of Boston, embarked on a vigorous anti-abortion crusade that resulted in a virtual na tionwide ban. On one hand, physicians worried about the danger of abortion practiced by numberless “irregulars,” midwives and ho meopaths without formal training; newspapers were rife with stories of young women dying of abortions gone awry. On the other hand, the physicians, almost exclusively men, objected to the irregulars, who were mainly women, cutting into their business turf. (Women lacked the right to vote and so were powerless to counter the physi cians’ crusade.)

Storer believed abortion was murder. Many who held this view, though, did so through a fog of racism. They obsessed about white Anglo-Saxon Protestants committing “race suicide,” as suppos edly inferior stock—poor Blacks and immigrants—procreated with abandon (that is, without recourse to abortion and contraception).

Despite the new criminal statutes, abortion in America exploded between 1840 and 1880. An 1870 poll of Philadelphia physicians called it an “epidemic.” At the same time in New York, four hun dred “abortoria” were hiding in plain sight, according to the Times In 1905, as talk of race suicide peaked, Connecticut’s Waterbury Evening Democrat opined, “It would be interesting to know how many native-born American children there would be if native-born

American parents did not transgress the law of God and nature by abortion, infanticide and onanism.”

Though women of all classes, races and religions got abortions, the typical patient was Protestant, married and middle- to upperclass. Usually these women sought to escape an endless cycle of child-bearing and child-rearing, or they’d endured dangerous preg nancies and worried about losing their lives in a kind of pregnancy roulette. (The single young woman “in trouble” made the papers when she died of a botched abortion, but she was a less typical case.) Abortion among Catholics was comparatively rare, because they tended to be poor, and because the Church thunderously forbade both abortion and contraception. Curiously, when Roman Catholic leaders distinguished between the two modes of baby-prevention, contraception was often the greater evil: “To take a life after its in ception is a horrible crime,” New York Archbishop Patrick Hayes said in 1921. “But to prevent life that the Creator is about to bring into being is satanic.”

TURNING THE TIDE

By the twentieth century Connecticut had shaken off some of its Puritan mud. One notable progressive mud-shaker was Katharine Hepburn of Hartford, mother of the actress, who in 1923 cofounded the Connecticut Birth Control League, or CBCL. This was a coura

geous undertaking. Our 1879 Comstock law was very much alive, and the topic of birth control still possessed an aura of transgression and sin. Then there were the Roman Catholic multitudes. Immigra tion in the late nineteenth century—from Ireland, Italy and Eastern Europe—had flooded the state with Catholics and austere Catholic officialdom, which exerted immense power over its largely Demo cratic flock, including a burgeoning number of Catholic politicians.

Birth controllers like Hepburn brought out the ogre in the Church. Hartford Bishop John G. Murray called contraception a “perversion” and observed that the northern European races, “the finest type of people,” were “doomed to extinction, unless each fam ily produces at least four children.” Francis J. Sugrue, a priest from South Norwalk, assailed birth control’s “lecherous leaders.” Hart ford priest Andrew J. Kelly charged Hepburn with “naked pagan ism.” But the birth controllers remained steadfast, if a little awed by the ferocity of their foes. A CBCL executive informed his colleagues, “Catholic opposition in the state is rising like a tidal wave.”

Republicans, who monopolized the state legislature and tended to be Protestant, had little stomach for social change; they were of the old stock that had won for Connecticut its reputation as “the land of steady habits.” One exception was Epaphroditus Peck, a lawyer from Bristol. He argued before the state House in 1929 that the old Com stock-Barnum statute was “essentially religious legislation,” a claim that seems eerily current, as today conservative Christians lead the charge in banning abortion even in cases of rape and incest. Counter ing the enlightened Peck were myriad voices like that of Rep. Caroline T. Platt of Milford, who claimed that permitting contraception would “open the way for every girl to become a prostitute.”

Connecticut’s birth control advocates succeeded in putting the issue before a shyly amenable public, but that was all—they could not budge the legislative needle. A lively faction from Greenwich, led by Nancy Carnegie Rockefeller and Florence Borden Darrach, responded to that intransigence by opening a clinic in Port Chester in 1932. “At long last Connecticut—almost—had a clinic,” wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David J. Garrow in his magisterial Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade. As it happens, Garrow grew up in Old Greenwich and gradu ated from Greenwich High School in 1971. It is his book that first traced America’s battle for the right to privacy back to a succession of fierce Connecticut women.

In 1935 Hepburn’s friend Sallie Pease, president of the Connecticut Birth Control League, quietly opened the state’s actual first clinic, in Hartford. By 1936 Greenwich, Stamford and New Haven, too, had clinics. Then came Norwalk, Danbury, Bridgeport—and fatally, Wa terbury, the state’s most Catholic city. The Church smoked with in dignation. The clinic was raided. Police arrested its founder, Clara McTernan, along with two young doctors. “Then everything across the state shuts down,” Garrow tells us from his home in Pittsburgh. “Just like we saw in Texas with abortion twelve months ago.” (Garrow

is referring to the Texas law of last September that banned abortion at six weeks. After Dobbs, Texas established a near-total ban.)

As birth control clinics sprouted up around the country, Connecti cut remained dark. Decades passed; finally our state alone banned the possession and use of contraceptives (Massachusetts banned their sale and distribution, but not their use). In 1961 a Connecticut couple and their physician managed to get their appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court, in Poe v. Ullman, but the Court effectively punted: Since there had been no arrest, there was no injury—a decision that curiously discounted the injury of denying medical care to a woman (“Pauline Poe”) who had given birth to three children with fatal defects. On No vember 1 of that year, Estelle Griswold, head of the Planned Parent hood League of Connecticut (as the CBCL was now called) opened a birth control clinic at 79 Trumbull Street in New Haven. On Novem ber 2 she invited reporters to the clinic and cheerfully explained that, in frank defiance of the law, PPLC had begun providing advice and contraceptives to married women. The provocation worked. Upon reading the news on November 3, James G. Morris, a Catholic father of five, worked himself into such a lather that he complained officially to New Haven police, demanding they shutter the clinic and arrest the outlaws. In comments to the press, Morris went full Comstock, comparing 79 Trumbull Street to a house of prostitution. “Marital

relations,” he said, “are for procreation and not entertainment.”

That afternoon two police detectives “raided” the clinic. Estelle Griswold could not have been more delighted. She gave the de tectives a leisurely tour, supplied them with illicit literature, and even directed them to clients who would happily brandish their diaphragms and birth control pills. On November 10 Griswold and Dr. C. Lee Buxton, the clinic’s medical director, were congenially arrested and released on $100 bond each. Thus began the most im portant privacy case in American history.

If Connecticut’s legislature was bizarrely out-of-step with the times in regard to birth control, its courts did not care to recognize it. The Sixth Circuit convicted Griswold and Buxton and fined them $100 each, having rejected their free speech and marital privacy ar guments; the appellate court upheld the convictions, claiming, with unintentional humor, that the state could deter “practices that tend to negate its survival”; and the state Supreme Court blandly agreed with these rulings: the 1879 law had survived a lot of challenges, so why shouldn’t it survive this one?

Garrow notes a central irony in all of this: the Catholic control of the Democratic Party that had kept the antiquated law on the books also sealed our date with the U.S. Supreme Court. Connecticut’s re pressiveness had ignited the forces of rebellion.

RALLYING CRY

It is among the saddest photographs ever taken. The black-andwhite image, from June of 1964, shows a lifeless woman lying facedown on the floor of a tatty room at the Norwich Motel—naked, knees folded under her, hind quarters bloodied from a botched abortion. The woman was Gerri Santoro, a twenty-eight-year-old mother of two from the town of Coventry. She was married to Sam Santoro, who had moved the family to California, and who beat Gerri and the girls until they fled back to Connecticut.

Gerri took up with a coworker named Clyde Dixon, by whom she became pregnant. Sam then announced his intention to come East. The thought of him finding her pregnant struck such fear into Gerri that she submitted to Clyde’s clueless doctoring, there at the Norwich Motel. And when she began to hemorrhage, Clyde bolted, leaving Gerri to die alone. A maid found her in the morning.

Mysteriously, the photograph, taken by Norwich police, surfaced in Ms. magazine in 1973 under the headline “Never Again.” Then the photo began appearing on placards at marches. Thus did the appalling death of Gerri Santoro, a farm girl from Coventry, Connecticut, be come a galvanic symbol of the pro-choice movement, a

of

so it seemed.

symbol

the horrors that Roe v. Wade had vanquished forever. Or

»

Fairfield County residents hit the Women’s Marches in Washington, D.C. and New York City in 2021. (opposite)The First Amendment carved in stone in Washington D.C. (this page top row) Coline Jenkins with photo of her great-great-grandmother, suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton • Katharine Brydson and Sofia Giannuzzi (bottom row) Joshua Dorries, Ned Marks, John T. Creedon Jr., Jack Reynolds, Molly Checksfield • Riley Klotz • Mary and Congressman Jim Himes with daughters Linley and Emma

Nearly fifty years later Roe is gone. A few in Connecticut greeted the news warmly. Our Catholic bishops noted that “we have heard many voices cry out for the innocent lives of the unborn” and that America had reached “a most hopeful and encouraging moment.” Peter Wolfgang, who heads the Family Institute of Connecticut, said, “This is the liberation of the unborn child” and vowed to keep working toward a “Connecticut where every unborn child is pro tected in law and welcomed in life.”

Most, however, greeted Dobbs with intense dismay. “It stings—it stings,” says Zari Watkins of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England. “This is about the patients and their loss of access. Abor tion is healthcare. We are denying folks access to basic healthcare— and, yes, it’s devastating.” Danielle Eason of Greenwich, an abortion rights advocate who has served as a “hand holder” to women getting abortions at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Stamford, says, “It’s a slap in the face to women who, for fifty years, had the right to bodily autonomy and agency over their lives.” Now she fears for the mil lions of girls and women in states like Texas, Missouri and Louisiana who lack the wherewithal to travel to states like Connecticut. “It’s an uphill battle they just won’t be able to climb.”

Eason herself had an abortion several years ago at Greenwich Hospital. “My husband and I are both Tay-Sachs carriers,” she says. Tay-Sachs disease manifests itself soon after a child is born, and re sults in catastrophic problems, including paralysis, as the nerves in the brain and spinal column disintegrate. It chills Eason to imagine being poor and living in Texas under the tyranny of that state’s ban.

“If I lived in Texas right now, I’d potentially have to carry that preg nancy to term—which has its own risks—and then give birth to a child who has an inevitable fatal outcome by the time they’re a toddler. And it’s a painful death.” Genetic testing let the Eason family avoid that fate. But the test itself would pose a problem elsewhere. Since it can’t

be done until the eleventh week of pregnancy, states that ban abortion (thirteen and counting) or restrict it to six weeks (Ohio and Georgia) would force upon the Easons a protracted family tragedy.

New abortion laws have already ushered in a period of medical chaos. In Louisiana, a thirty-six-year-old woman was denied an abortion after an ultrasound showed her fetus to be missing part of its skull. In South Carolina, a nineteen-year-old carrying a nonvia ble fetus risked death by sepsis—or merely losing her uterus—when physicians sent her home, because the law precluded extraction be fore the fetus died. In Texas, a woman whose water broke at eighteen weeks—rendering delivery of a live baby hopeless—opted for an abortion, but the law was so vague that no physician would perform it. She was sent home to get sicker—which she did.

“We read about women walking around with dead fetuses for two weeks, because practitioners don’t know how to maneuver in this new landscape,” Eason observes. She does not judge women who have abortions for less urgent reasons than these. “Abortion happens for all sorts of reasons. You can’t pick and choose which ones are valid or not valid. It’s a very private matter, unique to each person.”

THE HUMAN TOLL

Birth control is no longer contested territory in America, though we shouldn’t speak too soon. Efforts are afoot to reclassify certain contraceptives as abortifacients, lending real weight to Clarence Thomas’s threat to undo Griswold. Abortion is another story. The country is hopelessly divided, though a solid majority of Americans, about 61 percent, are pro-choice in all or most cases, according to the Pew Research Center. Surprisingly, given Church teaching, 58 percent of Catholics think abortion should be legal, and 68 per cent were opposed to overturning Roe, believing abortion to be a matter of individual conscience, says the advocacy group Catho lics for Choice. (Protestants, various as their denominations are, diverge sharply on abortion: 60 percent of “mainline” Protestants favor choice, including 79 percent of Episcopalians, while only 33 of evangelicals do. Jews are notably pro-choice, polling at 83 percent, according to Pew.)

About 37 percent of Americans are anti-choice in all or most cases. While a fraction of these would leave Roe in place anyway— in deference to the conscience—the majority of them liken abortion at any stage to the murder of a living human. Indeed, anti-abortion politicians like Ted Cruz speak of Roe as permitting “the deaths of 63 million American children” as if they’d been cut down on the playgrounds of suburbia. No wonder the debate is so poisonous.

“Both sides are controlled by purists,” David Garrow, the his torian, contends. A self-described pro-choice moderate, Garrow thinks John Roberts offered a reasonable compromise in uphold ing Mississippi’s fifteen-week ban yet also wanting to preserve Roe. “It was crystal clear during oral arguments that the chief justice

“EVEN THOUGH WE’VE BEEN VERY PROGRESSIVE AND TRAILBLAZING, THAT COULD SWITCH ON A DIME IF OUR LEADERSHIP CHANGES.”

—DANIELLE EASON, PLANNED PARENTHOOD ADVOCATE

wanted to find some middle ground,” he says. “And you know, John Roberts represents America.”

Polling does affirm that pro-choice Americans grow uneasier about abortion as pregnancy progresses. “For most everything up to ten to twelve weeks, an abortion can be done largely with vacuum aspiration,” Garrow explains. “You don’t have to do a D & E, using curettes and pulling things out, piece by piece. Once you get past about twelve or thirteen weeks, though, it’s unpleasant. There are a lot of pro-choice clinicians who won’t go past sixteen or eighteen or twenty weeks, because it increasingly looks like an actual baby.”

Most of the roughly 900,000 abortions in America annually are performed early. Ninety-three percent occur within fourteen weeks—the first trimester—and the majority of these are accom plished with pills. Only one percent of abortions are performed after twenty weeks. Yet as the ramifications of Dobbs play out, many are revising their willingness for “middle ground” compromise, as they learn, for instance, that fetal abnormalities often go undetected until a twenty-week ultrasound. There are other reasons why people wait to get abortions. Through no fault of their own, some women are slow to realize they’re pregnant, and when they do realize it, a com bination of saving $500 (to say nothing of travel costs) for an abor tion and booking an appointment at a typically backlogged provider pushes out the timeframe exasperatingly.

Meanwhile the anti-abortion movement is embracing ever more extreme tactics. Some Republican-led states, like Arizona and Geor gia, now legally define “personhood” as beginning at fertilization. What do they make of the fact that, in the natural course of things,

as many as half of fertilized eggs fail to implant in the uterine wall? Are these millions of “persons” dead children? And what of the hundreds of thousands of human embryos—or should we say chil dren—locked away in freezers? Where’s their child tax credit?

Most people do agree that abortion raises profound moral and philosophical questions. Dr. Paul Lakeland, an eminent Catholic writer and a professor of Catholic studies at Fairfield University, tells us the Church should drop its “nonsensical” argument against birth control. But abortion? It’s infinitely knottier. “Deep down I think most Catholics understand that sometimes there are compet ing values, and sometimes very hard decisions have to be taken,” Lakeland says by email. “All killing is objectively evil, but there are some circumstances where killing is justified: war, self-defense, and…” He leaves the sentence unfinished.

One thing seems indisputable: the Dobbs decision is increasing the store of human misery in America. As soon as the decision came down, clinics were beset with calls from sobbing women. Women and girls already in waiting rooms were told to their bewilderment that they had to go home. Protests erupted outside the Supreme Court building and in cities across the country. Days later, thousands of protesters converged on the White House, chanting “We won’t go back.”

But nothing could be done. Bans took hold in thirteen states, and ten more may follow. Other states (Ohio, Georgia) went in for re strictions so severe they are tantamount to bans. Then there was Kansas. The state has abortion protections in its constitution, but Republican lawmakers, who vastly outnumber Democrats, sought

IN MAY, BEFORE THE FALL OF ROE, CONNECTICUT WAS FIRST TO PASS A LAW PROTECTING OUT-OF-STATE

WOMEN WHO RECEIVE ABORTIONS HERE

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal speaking at Title X gag rule rally in Washington, D.C. in 2018

to revoke them the only way they could—through a public refer endum. The people of Kansas, despite their relative conservatism, voted overwhelmingly to keep the protections in place, thus sending a shiver through the Republican body politic. Most states that lost abortion rights, though, did get to decide for themselves.

What, then, is the human cost of Dobbs? Women will have to forgo jobs and schooling. They’ll be trapped in poverty. They’ll have to scare up costly aid for children with disabilities. They’ll be tied to abusers and rapists. And they’ll attempt dangerous methods of abortion.

“A lot of women are going to die. It’s as simple as that,” says Kay Maxwell, past president of the League of Women Voters of the United States, former board chairman of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England and former executive director of the World Affairs Forum. “We know that a ban on abortions is not going to stop abortions from happening.”

Not all the deaths will happen via makeshift abortion. Imagine the desperation of the sixteen-year-old in Dallas or St. Louis or Baton Rouge who can neither get an abortion nor tell her parents she’s pregnant: Suicide will be an answer. In El Salvador, where abortion is outlawed, unwanted pregnancy is a leading cause of teen suicide. Maxwell sees forcing a person to bear a child as an act of cruelty.

This election season, certain conservative politicians have called pregnancy by rape “an opportunity” and God’s “silver lining.”

“How about this awful situation with the ten-year-old in Ohio?” Maxwell asks. “I mean, you can’t make this up.”

On July 1 an Ohio rape produced this horrific headline: “10-YearOld Girl Denied Abortion.” The girl got one in Indiana. But the story had a disturbing coda: Indiana’s attorney general, an anti-choice Catholic Republican named Todd Rokita, announced a seemingly unwarranted investigation into Caitlin Bernard, the ob/gyn who performed the abortion, hinting that her license hung in the balance. Why? Simply to intimidate her, thought Bernard. She had made the “mistake” of speaking out in favor of reproductive rights.

It seems there are many weeders in God’s garden. Abortion pro viders have bore witness to a particularly dark strain of them. Since 1977 the National Abortion Federation has recorded eleven mur ders, nearly 500 assaults, forty-two bombings, and 196 arsons per petrated against abortion providers, volunteers and patients. Last year alone, the federation said, there were thirteen cases of stalking, 182 threats of harm or death, and thousands upon thousands of hate calls and hate emails.

What is really going on here? “In simplistic terms, power over women,” says Maxwell, who volunteers at Planned Parenthood in Stamford, shepherding patients past anti-choice protesters who rou tinely gather there. “Not very long ago we celebrated the 100th anni versary of women winning the right to vote. Women have struggled and fought for rights all along. I’m old enough to have lived through the time when women couldn’t get their own credit cards. And yet I never thought that a right gained would be taken away.”

Maxwell sees a broader pattern of individual rights under attack— healthcare, voting, LGBTQ—and laments, “Everything seems to be turning backwards. Everything I’ve worked for and cared about through my lifetime, seems to have…” she trails off. “I mean, the Fifties were fine in some respects but not so fine in a lot of others, and I feel like that’s right back where we are.”

She sees hope, however, in the generation of young women now waking to the shocking realization that rights they were born with aren’t necessarily here to stay. “They have gotten more engaged. I don’t think it occurred to 90 percent of them that any of this could happen.”

Danielle Eason prefers to think of our Connecticut “safe haven” as not entirely safe. Ten years ago, who thought Roe was truly endan gered? “Even though we’ve been very progressive and trailblazing, that could switch on a dime if our leadership changes,” she says. “So, when local candidates are asked about their beliefs on this topic and they say, ‘It doesn’t matter what my beliefs are, nothing is going to change in Connecticut,’ that should be a red flag. It says that per son does not think women’s reproductive healthcare is a priority. We need to be very careful with our local elections and our state makeup, because those people in Hartford are the ones who will have the power to make this decision in the end. Not me or you.”

Alexis McGill Johnson, CEO of Planned Parenthood, speaks to abortion rights supporters at a rally organized by the Center for Reproductive Rights in 2020.

OF SECRETS AND SURPRISES

Uh oh, it’s November, the threshold of the holidays, time to make a gift list and take inventory. For me that means heading for my Surprise Closet, which is filled with things ungiven—yet. I squirrel them away all year long. Some have been in there forever, awaiting the right recipient.

It’s the only place in our house that’s locked. For good reason, nobody is allowed in there but me. When daughter Audrey was about four and meant to be napping, I found her playing with a baby doll she’d helped herself to from that closet. It was meant for her birthday. So I put them both into the car, drove over to the Goodwill box behind the Cos Cob Food Mart and we popped it in—for some little girl somewhere who played by the rules.

As luck would have it, the Goodwill truck pulled in that very moment, and I asked the driver if he happened to have a little girl at home. He did. I told him there was a brand-new doll in there right in top— complete with box—and we’d like her to have it.

Lesson learned. Closet locked.

So what’s in there now? Before I run out to do some serious Christmas shopping, best I take a look. Among other things, four pocket drones from Hammacher-Schlemmer for the older grandsons. A small Windsor chair from the Winterthur Museum, perfect for a baby girl present, especially with a pintsized Raggedy Ann doll to sit in it. And a 104-piece construction set for making plastic drinking straws, so big brother doesn’t feel left out.

There’s a Wizard of Oz pop-up book, two Klutz how-to books on making paper flowers and foam gliders, bags full of prizes for our annual family fishing contest and three pillows I needlepointed for wedding presents. Oh, and a box of Mickey Mouse golf balls from the time Jack and I went (without children) to Disney

World, visited Epcot every morning and played golf every afternoon. Did you know they have sand traps in the shape of Mickey Mouse heads?

From other great trips, there’s a Pinocchio marionette from Prague, a miniature tea set from Vienna embossed with Mozart’s portrait and a souvenir spoon depicting train cars from Rodo Rails in Africa. Closer to home, from the Basin Harbor golf course on Lake Champlain is a bunch of seagull feathers I plan to give the little boy across the street for his collection.

Audrey has always been into pigs, so awaiting her is a pink pig puppet that oinks.

In the political realm are Trump playing cards, a Hillary nutcracker and a tiny tin of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s “Judgmints” I’ll slip into a birthday card for a League of Women Voter friend.

There’s a stack of Greenwich magazine baseball caps to give to our fans, and The New York Times from our grandchildren’s birth dates to present on an occasion like a rehearsal dinner.

Sometimes I surprise myself with what I find in my Surprise Closet—like a little framed memento from the Flask & Bottle Club, which Jack and some of his fun-loving friends founded during their college years. It reads: “There’s the wonderful love of a beautiful maid/ And the love of a staunch true man/ And the love of a baby that’s unafraid. / All have existed since time began. / But the most wonderful love, the love of all loves/ Even greater than the love for Mother,/ Is the infinite, tenderest, passionate love/ Of one dead drunk for another.”

What to do with it? A hostess present for over somebody’s bar? Who knows, but meanwhile it gives me a good laugh, which is never a bad thing.

Now it’s about all this other stuff.

At Waterstone on High Ridge, we take senior living to the next level with a curated lifestyle designed to infuse freedom and new opportunities into daily life. Every detail of our community inspires style and sophistication with elegant rental apartments, luxurious amenities and high-touch services.

Moving to Waterstone gave us a freedom that we didn’t know existed.

Instead of worrying about what to cook for dinner every night or the household tasks like changing the sheets every week, we get to enjoy the fitness center daily, attend vibrant programs, and make incredible new friendships. – Theresa and Frank, Waterstone Residents