• 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

Agricultural Fair a Success

By Sally Quale Norfolk’s first Agricultural Fair, which took place on August 24 at the weekly farmer’s market on Maple Avenue, was “a huge success and will be repeated next year on Saturday, August 14, 2014,” reports market manager Lisa Auclair. It ran an hour longer than the usual market – 4 rather than 3 […]

Plans For New Firehouse Go To Finance Board

Town Would Borrow Money Through a Bond Issue/ By Wiley Wood Plans for a new firehouse were presented to the Board of Finance on August 13. The design, which incorporates and expands the existing building on Shepard Rd., was described by architect Michael Fortuna as “pretty bare bones.” Total costs are budgeted at $2.7 million. […]

Record Number Of Norfolk Homes On Market

Local Realtors Guardedly Optimistic By Sally Quale Reports show that 56 single-family residences in Norfolk are currently on the market, over 6 percent of its housing stock. “It’s by far the largest number of single-family houses for sale that I’ve known in my twenty-two years in Norfolk,” reports Betsy Little of Betsy Little Real Estate. […]

Norfolk’s Pension Fund $1 Million In Debt

By Wiley Wood At a gathering of the Coalition for Sound Growth on August 25 Michael Sconyers, chairman of Norfolk’s board of finance, reported that the town’s pension fund is $1 million in debt. “We had been underfunding the pension plan,” said Sconyers, “and then the market went down and didn’t rebound enough. This is […]

Heavy Rainfall Breaks Beaver Dam

A Road Is Damaged And A Pond Ecosystem Lost: by John Anderson Early on the stormy night of August 10th a catastrophic event occurred: after nearly six inches of rainfall, a beaver dam impounding 20 acres of water in Aton Forest broke. One person living nearby heard what she thought was a falling tree during […]

Norfolk Land Trust Completes Purchase of Camp Iwakta Property

Public Trails Planned For Newly Renamed “Pine Mountain” Parcel The Norfolk Land Trust (NLT) has finalized the purchase of a 311-acre parcel of forestland from the Girl Scouts of Connecticut. The property, located off Grantville and Winchester roads, has long been considered a preservation priority by federal and state officials because of its headwater stream […]

Connecticut Public Radio Host to Moderate Norfolk 2023!

By Rosanna Trestman John Dankosky, host of the NPR morning radio show Where We Live, happens to live just next door in Winsted. From 9 to 10 a.m. each weekday morning he takes his listeners through the ins and outs of Connecticut’s communities, ranging from New Haven to Norfolk and beyond. Dankosky will bring this […]

Lions Club Honors Barbara Tracey

Barbara Tracey recently stepped down as the long-time treasurer of the Norfolk Lions Club. For her many years of service safeguarding the club’s financial health and for her exemplary help with countless other projects, Tracey was presented the Melvin Jones Fellowship Award, a nation-wide award named after the founder of Lions Club International, and one […]

Community Talent Provides After-School Program for Botelle Students

By Janet Gokay Life in Norfolk is greatly enriched by the work of volunteers—and the Norfolk After School Program (NASP) is no exception. Coordinated by two parent volunteers, Kim Crone and Kathy Yelsits, the program offers a potpourri of classes to any grade-school-aged child in Norfolk, not just those attending Botelle. Many of those classes […]

Norfolk Fire Department Awards Memorial Day Race Scholarships

The traditional kick-off to Norfolk’s summer season, the five-mile Memorial Day Road Race is won by the fleet of foot. But the Norfolk Volunteer Fire Department, which organizes the race, also dedicates all proceeds from entrance fees, advertising and donations to its NVFD Scholarship Fund. This year, the fund distributed $3,500 to five Norfolk students. […]

Norfolk Lions Club Scholarships Announced

The Norfolk Lions Club recently awarded scholarships to four Norfolk students who will be attending college this fall. The recipients include: Taylor Allyn, daughter of John and Lisa Allyn, enrolled at New College of Sarasota, Florida with a major in English; Shannon Bollard, daughter of Alfred and Angela Bollard and also an English major, attending […]

Fiber Optics Would Improve Cell Phone Service in Norfolk

EDC welcomes call for strong community involvement By Kurt Steele Following Kim Maxwell’s May briefing of the Economic Development Commission (EDC) about the benefits of installing a fiber optic network in Norfolk, Maxwell now believes that a significant dividend would be a vast improvement in the town’s cell phone coverage. Maxwell, who has a distinguished […]