Weir Farm

 Weir Farm is the former home of the American impressionist painter J. Alden Weir.  It is now a National Historic Park, straddling Ridgefield and Wilton, Connecticut.

I have visited Weir Farm two or three times before, and I have toured the inside of the main house, shown above.  I posted about my tours in 2021 and again in 2023.  This week I visited on Tuesday, only to learn that it was not open for visitors.  

So long as I was there, I walked the main part of the property.  A carpenter was repairing the stairs on Weir's studio, so I didn't photograph it.  But, I walked around the barn and its corral.

This is the view looking back from the end of the corral to the barn and the rear of the Weir house. 

There are some very good walking trails on the property, but I wasn't dressed for a hike, so I left.

Flipping Creative

 Flipping Creative is a "mindful market" in Ridgefield.  The owner describes it as a marketplace showcasing ethically sourced products from skilled craftspeople and partnering with responsible brands.

It feels like I walked into a hippy store from 50 years ago.

It is a visual feast, in perhaps eight rooms, but I swear I can't figure out how they pay the rent.

Art Lover

 

A young girl sat patiently on a bench in Wadsworth Atheneum's Avery Court in Hartford, studying the 16th century statue of Venus with a Nymph and Satyr and Andy Warhol's ten Marilyn Monroe prints.

Varian Fry

Journalist and scholar Varian Fry and his wife Annette lived in Ridgefield at this house on Olmstead Lane in the 1950s and 60s. While here, he taught Latin classes at Ridgefield High School.  Fry died in Easton, a town half an hour east of Ridgefield, at the age of 59.

 In 1940, Fry went to Marseille for the Emergency Rescue Committee,  Fry set up a network that smuggled more than 1,000 Jewish intellectuals out of Nazi-held Europe, including writer Hanna Arendt, painter Marc Chagall, painter-poet Max Ernst and sculptor Jacques Lipchitz.

After World War II ended, Fry was honored for his work. A street in Berlin bears his name, and high schools in Germany and France are named in his honor. In 1994 Fry was awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Israel.

Danbury Fair Mall

The Danbury State Fair was a big deal for more that a century, but by 1981 it had run its course.  The land had become more valuable than the fair.  The owner sold the property as the site for a huge regional shopping mall, the Danbury Fair Mall.  

A mural near one of the mall's entrances honors the property's origin as a racetrack and fairground.  

This post is linked to Monday Murals.

 

I was at the mall last week to pick up sunglasses.  The optician hadn't arrived, so I looked around.  The many columns and exposed architectural elements above the retail areas caught my eye.

At a time when many malls are failing, the Danbury Fair Mall is still very busy and apparently successful.   

Saugatuck Congregational Church

 

We know where this church in Westport, Connecticut, stands.

Amistad

 Next to New Haven city hall there is a three-sided statue honoring the Amistad defendants.

An inscription on the base reads in part "On this site, the Amistad Africans were jailed awaiting trial for piracy and murder.  To aid their struggle for freedom, the Amistad Committee formed counting in its number ministers Simeon locelyn, Joshua Leavitt and James Pennington; merchant Lewis Tappan; professor Josiah Gibbs: and lawyer Roger Baldwin.

"The Africans were tried twice prior to their ultimate triumph before the United States Supreme Court, where former President John Quincy Adams courageously defended them. Sengbe Pieh and his fellows were declared Free Persons. Then they returned to Sierra Leone."