• 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

Norfolk’s Own Amazing Race

By Joel Howard “Family fun day” is how veterans of Norfolk’s Annual Amazing Race describe the event. Known as AARK, the first race was held in 2007 and has since grown to a size that involves many volunteers and concentrated planning.  This year’s race is scheduled for Saturday, July 14, and will benefit the Norfolk […]

Engineering With a Social Conscience

Lior Trestman Wins UConn Research Grant at End of Freshman Year By Wiley Wood In certain regions of the world, women spend a large part of the day fetching water. Worldwide, water-borne pathogens are the leading cause of infant death. So why not create an efficient means of transporting water that would at the same […]

Ian Robinson: An Educational Safari

By Joel Howard Maru-a-Pula, a name which translates to “promise of blessings”, is an apt name for the innovative African school where Norfolk resident and recent high school graduate Ian Robinson is spending time as a volunteer teaching assistant. The educational facility, established in 1972, has grown from a student enrollment of 25 to 660, […]

Local Scholarships Await Graduates

By Joel Howard Litchfield County University Club (LCUC) awarded its first scholarship over 100 years ago, soon after a handful of philanthropic locals banded together to achieve a goal of aiding deserving students in furthering their education. Having been the idea of Norfolk patrons Carl and Ellen Battell Stoeckel, the group held its first meeting […]

Time is Running Out For Norfolk’s Aging Sewer System

Residents could see a big hike in user fees By Kurt Steele Norfolk faces a major challenge in planning a complex project to rehabilitate its 100-plus-year-old sewer system that could cost $3 million according to a preliminary estimate. While the sewer system has certainly stood the test of time, time is running out. Built in […]

Mystery Woman is Finally Revealed

Genevieve Cook’s journal details an affair with Obama, then 22.  By Lloyd Garrison In his 1995 memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” Barack Obama wrote discreetly of his romance in New York with a young woman who took him one fall weekend to Norfolk. Obama, who withheld the woman’s name, wrote that he was struck by […]

Gridleys in Norfolk 50 Years Later

In Pursuit of Clean Air Rosanna Trestman In the tradition of city dwellers of the early 20th century who flocked to the country for the restorative value of its clean, cool air, in 1962, New Yorkers Bill and Barbara Gridley whisked their four-year-old son, who suffered from asthma, and his older sister, to Norfolk, CT. […]

State Education Bill Makes Ripples in Norfolk

Decrease in state’s funding for Botelle possible By Wiley Wood When the U.S. Department of Education parceled out $4.35 billion in 2010 to states whose schools showed measurable student gains, Connecticut failed to qualify. Its three neighbors—Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island—received almost $1 billion between them. The Education Reform Bill pushed through the Connecticut […]

Scouting for a Contiguous Wilderness

Norfolk Land Trust pursues purchase of Grantville Road property By Colleen Gundlach A 1957 newspaper clipping reported that the Bridgeport Area Girl Scout Old Timers Association sponsored a benefit card party to raise money “toward buying several acres of land for the new Girl Scout camp, Iwakta, at Norfolk,” to add to the small tract […]

Havemeyer Receives Doctorate

A degree 30 years in the making By Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo There’s a new doctor in town.  Not a general practitioner, but tireless Norfolk Historical Society Curator Ann Havemeyer, who received her Ph.D. from Yale University at their graduation ceremony on May 21. Her 250-page dissertation, “An Architect of Place and the Village Beautiful: Alfredo […]

More Healthy Life Choices Open to Norfolk residents

Joel Howard Norfolk is undergoing a fitness craze. From Pilates to yoga to Zumba at church, people have more venues to pump it up and shake it out than seen in the recent history of this town. A unique link in this chain is 7day recreationalists, a holistically designed exercise program devised by partners and […]

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Well, Almost

Town budget promises an inconsequential hike in taxes By Lloyd Garrison Norfolk’s Board of Finance Chairman, J. Michael Sconyers, may be no Santa Claus, but with a creative shift of funds from one column of the budget to another, he has given the town something to cheer about come tax time in 2012. The budget […]