• Sweets on the Green

    A Decade of Decadent Desserts By Andra Moss How is your naughty versus nice rating? Those needing to influence Santa with an especially impressive treat should grab their stockings and head to the Norfolk Historical Society (NHS) for the 10th Annual Cake Auction on Saturday, Dec. 7.     Now a Norfolk holiday tradition, the event was […]

  • Artist Tom Burr Brings His Torrington Project to an End

    Performances celebrate studio closing By Stephen Melville Norfolk resident and artist Tom Burr organized a day of performances and exhibition at his studio in Torrington on Oct. 26, marking an end to what he has called “The Torrington Project.” For the past three and a half years, Burr has rented a vast—15,000 square foot—former industrial […]

  • New Meanings for a Monument

    Light Shines on the Memorial Green By Joe Kelly On Monday, Nov. 11, Veterans Day, a crowd of about 100 gathered for the rededication of Norfolk’s World War 1 memorial, artfully restored under the auspices of the Norfolk Community Association. It was sunny. Temperatures in the low ‘60’s. Another day of no rain. Everyone talked […]

  • Norfolk Then…

    This 1920s postcard shows Memorial Green just after the War Memorial, designed by Alfredo Taylor, was built. It was Taylor’s wife Minna who first proposed that a memorial “heroes grove” be planted on the small lot of land known as the Triangle opposite the Catholic Church. The lot had been left empty with the demolition […]

  • Restored war memorial to be celebrated on veterans day

    plaque now honors all who served By Patricia Platt A World War I monument, designed by Alfredo Taylor and erected on Norfolk’s Memorial Green in 1921, bears the inscription, “for those who gave and those who offered their lives for liberty, the people of Norfolk have built this monument and crowned it with the Liberty […]

  • NLT Tail Ablaze with Runners

    More than 120 runners enjoyed perfect fall weather as they wound their way through picturesque Barbour Woods in the 11th Annual Norfolk Land Trust Trail Race. Some chose to add a challenging loop over Haystack Mountain, while the half-marathoners just kept moving on up—topping out at over 2,000 feet of elevation gain. *photo by June […]

  • Can you spot the Real Curler?

    There was movie magic ice to be made, and the pros of the Norfolk Curling Club were the first to get the call. In October, NCC’s Jon Barbagallo, Lou Barbagallo, Rachel Barbagallo, Mark Walsh, Harvey Chalmers and Phill West were hired by a production company to make curling ice at a Rhode Island hockey rink […]

  • Norfolk Then…

    This 1917 photograph is a timely reminder of the long struggle fought by many dedicated women for basic civil liberties, including the right to own property, hold public office, sit on juries, participate in public assemblies and vote. The group of 25 suffragists—20 women and five men—gathered on the porch following their meeting with Congressman […]

  • The chicken who wanted to be a star and other tales from a norfolk movie set

    By Andra Moss Secrets and small towns don’t often pair well, and Norfolk is a small town. Yet, for eight weeks this summer, a crew of nearly 100 people quietly transformed Tim and Paula Webster’s 1908 Norfolk farmhouse into a film set for a feature-length production, all the while staying under the local radar.  It […]

  • great blue heron rookeries

    working together to provide sustainable breeding habitats By Jude Mead Great Blue Herons are a familiar sight in Norfolk and are one of the largest of all North American herons, standing up to four feet tall with a wingspan of close to six feet. They are most noticeable in flight as they soar across the […]

  • Norfolk Then…

    Tennis at Town Hall? The building we know as Town Hall was originally the Eldridge Gymnasium, built in 1892. Located within easy walking distance of hotels and boarding houses in Norfolk at the turn of the last century, the Gymnasium was a popular gathering place for both residents and visitors. People played croquet on the lawn […]

  • Looking Back Over the Years

    The End of an Era for Norfolk Now By Colleen Gundlach After 10 years and over 30 issues, Ruth Melville has put on her Norfolk Now editor’s hat for the last time. In June, the paper marked the end of an era with the publication of Ruth’s final issue as one of the executive editors […]

Articles

International Art Exhibition Has Two Locations in Norfolk

Re-creation of a 1990 sculpture is made out of hundreds of fortune cookies  By Ruth Melville The Cuban-born artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres died of complications from AIDS in 1996, when he was only 38 years old. But this spring, inspired in part by the coronavirus pandemic, the Andrea Rosen and David Zwirner galleries, working on behalf […]

Botelle Garden Continues to Provide Hands-on Learning

It’s a small garden after all by Virgina Coleman-Prisco Over a century ago, local gardening was still the norm in rural areas and encouraged during World War I to supplement regional food supplies. Afterward, during the Great Depression, community “depression gardens” sprang up. World War II saw the rise in “victory gardens”. A decade ago, […]

Connecting to the Internet in Norfolk – Part 2

What we do with it By Dave Beers Most of us use the Internet in many aspects of our life. The pandemic is making some of those uses more vital to our health and livelihood. Many of us are now working from home more and working from Norfolk more, rather than in the city.  Starling […]

National Iron Bank Processes Around 200 Loans From the Payroll Protection Program

PPP helps small businesses stay afloat By Ruth Melville On March 27, President Donald Trump signed into law the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act. At $2 trillion, it is the largest stimulus bill in U.S. history and is intended to counteract some of the worst economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. A […]

Norfolk Reopenings Follow State of Connecticut Guidelines

Individual businesses face a complex set of decisions By Jude MeadPhoto by Savage Frieze When Covid-19 struck, most places shut down or scaled back to stop the disease’s spread. The state allowed the reopening of some sectors of the economy on May 20, but the challenges continue, and those challenges are real for many of […]

Creatively Surviving in the Covid Age

The Gilson theater brings humor and creativity to the struggle Text and Photo by Colleen Gundlach Northwest Corner residents of the older persuasion will have memories of the old Strand Theater in Winsted. Back in the day, the Saturday afternoon “kiddie matinee” drew boys and girls to a double feature at the Strand for pennies, […]

Coronavirus: What is to be done?

By Richard Kessin By Richard Kessin We live in evolutionary competition with microbes—bacteria and viruses. There is no guarantee that we will be the survivors. The aphorism from Joshua Lederberg, a founder of molecular biology, is remarkable for its humility and for the challenge it defines. Before the germ theory of disease, which appeared in […]

You Got Mail in the Icebox

By Virginia Coleman-PriscoPhoto by Marinell Crippen Botelle’s very own Rex Crippen, age 9, has advanced to the nationals in this year’s Invention Convention, after qualifying at the local and state levels. The Invention Convention is an opportunity for students to practice applying science and engineering skills, especially critical thinking and problem-solving. Crippen invented a product […]

Eating From the Devil’s Buffet

Spring foraging expedition takes near-fatal turn By Wiley Wood A local family’s foraging expedition in late April for ramps, a kind of wild onion, ended with all three members spending the night in the intensive care unit at Sharon Hospital. It was late in the afternoon, and Bridget Taylor, intrigued by an article on foraging […]

Connecting to the Internet in Norfolk – Part 1

Text and Photo by David Beers You call home. You join a zoom meeting for work. You text your son. You skype your mom. You google a recipe. You log on to the work computer. You play Call of Duty with your cousin in Missouri. You check Facebook. You post to Instagram. The possibilities to […]

Garden in a Jar

By Susannah Wood A cold spring and pandemic woes have had many of us hankering for fresh greens. Of course, we’ve been cutting down on trips to the store, and so it was a lucky day when I noticed an unopened package of organic sprouting seeds on our pantry shelves. Since then we have been […]

College Students Roll With Punches During Covid-19

by Kelly Kandra HughesPhoto Courtesy of Bina Barstad When Norfolk resident Ellie Olsen moved into her dorm room at Boston University in September 2019, she felt terrified of the unknown. No one else from her high school had chosen B.U., and she had only met her roommate once before during orientation. Still, she felt ready […]