Ballard Park

 

Ballard Park in Ridgefield continues to show off its plantings in September's second week.

Italianate

 

A handsome Italianate home with lovely hanging plants on the porch is hidden behind extensive foliage at the end of a quiet street in Redding.

Red Barn

 

I drive past this barn occasionally.  It stands out when the sun shines on it.

Finding Home

Los Angeles-based artist Lauren YoungSmith painted this mural in 2021 on the side of the Asian American Cultural Center in New Haven, Connecticut.  

The artist asserts that the mural is meant to convey something of the center’s legacy as well as its present and future as a “home” for Asian students on the Yale campus.

Linked to Monday Murals.

Saint Michael Church

The Church of Saint Michael on Wooster Square is the first Italian-American parish in Connecticut.  The congregation formed in response to the influx of Italian immigrants to New Haven.  For decades it was administered by an order of Scalabrinians.  

Today it is home to more than 500 families.  It hosts the societies that make up the Southern Italian Religious Societies.

Pointing the Way to the Future

“Indicando la via al futuro” is a sculpture by Marc-Anthony Massaro in New Haven's Wooster Park.  The sculpture was commissioned by the Wooster Square Monument Project in 2021 to celebrate the legacy of Italian immigrants who had left their homeland to make a new life in the United States.

The Wooster Square neighborhood of New Haven is home to a vibrant community of Italian Americans,  It is also home to several nationally known pizza restaurants like Frank Pepe's Pizzeria Napoletana, Sally's Apizza and Modern Apizza.  

The statue honoring immigrants is a good one, and immigrants have made great contributions to America, which are not recognized under the country's current Administration.  But I am a bit miffed that this statue replaces a previous statue of Christopher Columbus, removed a few years ago in what I consider a burst of self-righteous stupidity after a public clamor by people measuring past deeds by standards they invented in the current day.

Hotel Marcel

  This is Hotel Marcel, a completely renovated hotel in the "brutalist" style of architecture.  Brutalism is usually scorned these days, but Hotel Marcel is an attractive building that stands out.  It shares a parking lot with IKEA in New Haven, Connecticut.

The hotel was designed by prominent architect Marcel Breuer.  It was formerly the headquarters of tire manufacturer Pirelli.  In its recent renovations, it was extensively retrofitted with solar panels hidden away on the roof.  Hotel Marcel is now "net zero," with the solar panels providing all of the hotel's electricity.